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Many a Friday night I spent watching people hitting each other here..
One review: "avoid this at the weekends unless you want a fight."
http://web.beerintheevening.com/pubs/s/13/1328/Walkabout/Croydon
Manchester's Piccadilly Gardens has to take some beating. The crack dealers and scallies hangoing around Cash Coverters at the bottom of Oldham Street is like what I'd imagine hell to be. It has to have the highest proportion of nutjobs anywhere and is grim, grim, grim, no matter what anyone tells you.
And that's during the day. Still, Sacha's Hotel is lovely.
yes i do live in Swinton
Bloody 'ell mancjon - I bet you nearly spat your sprouts out when you saw that picture of the Lancy 'all.
Whereabouts are you?
mancjon - Member
Allow me to show you around Swinton, Salford:+1 for the sheer ugliness of that building. Although to be fair if you turn around you have a lovely church or the Salford council offices which are much nicer to look at (yes i do live in Swinton).
Mind you if you walked up a bit further up and took a photo of the actual precinct then we are back to your original point
I used to get physically ill even thinking about the old precinct! But I don't totally agree that the church opposite is all that nice, either. St Augustine's in Pendlebury - in spite of the hideous industrial setting - is much nicer.
The picture of Uranium City that started this thread may flatter it somewhat. This is Wikipedia's picture of its main street:
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According to Wikipedia, it was a thriving town with a population in the thousands until 1983 when the local uranium mine closed. The population now is 89. Other attractive features of it include the fact that "there is no normal road access connecting Uranium City with the rest of Canada" and that the airport has a gravel runway.
[i]But I don't totally agree that the church opposite is all that nice, either. [/i]
It's all relative though isn't it. Compared to Derek's pic the church really is bloody beautiful !
Can't argue with that GlitterGary. I used to like sitting in the Gardens in the summer and seeing how many minutes/hours would pass before you heard someone/anyone speak English in a form that you recognised
You can also enliven it even more by visiting it a 2am. Then you can witness it awash with piss and broken glass and playing host to running street battles
[i]Bloody 'ell mancjon - I bet you nearly spat your sprouts out when you saw that picture of the Lancy 'all.
Whereabouts are you?
[/i]
Actually the "posh" bit if you can use that term in regards to Swinton (which you can't really) ie. over the East Lancs road towards Worsely. Near the White Horse pub if that helps.
Ironic post of the day. You know, in the centre of Manchester there is a peaceful and small park with the distinction of having 22,000 people buried underneath it.
Miserable place or peaceful place?
I've had many a sesh in The White Horse. One of the few decent boozers left in Salford.
I live up near the Henry Boddington.
it was a thriving town with a population in the thousands until 1983 when the local uranium mine closed. The population now is 89.
Fascinating.. I might want to go there.
well i grew up in dunstable which is so bad the 'dont let dunstable die' facebook group is too late
its only saving grace is the dunstable downs......
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[i]I've had many a sesh in The White Horse. One of the few decent boozers left in Salford.
I live up near the Henry Boddington. [/i]
Just moved back here, was born in Swinton. So when i finally get my bike fixed (vandalised frame) i might be asking for some good riding spots if that' okay ?
[i]Manchester's Piccadilly Gardens has to take some beating. [/i]
It's a an oasis of peace and calm compared to what it used to be like. Are you still living in the 70's by any chance 🙂
Salford centre - le precinct et les environs:
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My gran's flat used to overlook that pub!
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I used to spend every other Sunday evening looking out of the window at the distant lights of Manchester wishing that my gran didn't live in such a shit hole. Eventually she moved away... then moved back becasue she missed it.
mancjon - I can assure you, there may be a new Berlin Wall in Piccadilly Gardens, the trees may be gone, the streets slightly cleaner, but by God it is a hell hole.
Just do what Binners suggests, and hang around at 2 in the morning.
Manchester's Piccadilly Gardens has to take some beating.It's a an oasis of peace and calm compared to what it used to be like. Are you still living in the 70's by any chanc
I remember when it was recessed into the ground (**** knows the correct term) and many a person was off their face/stabbed and murdered there.
might be asking for some good riding spots if that' okay ?
Yep - whenever you're ready mate.
Despite our location - there's some decent trails - even climbs!
Aaaaaaaaaah Derek. Salford centre - le precinct et les environs. Happy memories.
I used to live next to it as a student. It does have its compensations. Merely walk around it for five minutes, when you're feeling a bit down, and you'll return feeling energised. And not just from being chased by muggers. In comparison to the average dweller, you realise that in fact you are intelligent, stylish, witty, urbane, extremely well-dressed with a crystal clear complexion. And an oasis of calm measured behavior. You're like Stephen Fry 😀
binners - I am Spartacus 😀
Hora - McDonalds in Stretford might have closed, but at least you can nip over the road for a pint in The Drum 😀
Also Burnley and *shudder* Colne.
BIRKENHEAD
Even sounds horrible.
Blackpool out of season deserves a mention too.
Never been in season, may be even worse for all I know.
Great Yarmouth. Why the ASA haven't had words with them about their name I don't know. Even when it's open, it's dire. I also heard that it has more benefit claimants per head of population that anywhere else in the country.
The first coment about London on here made it sound like Mos Eisley from Star Wars and I have to say, I agree.
Nottingham it really getting on my Bristols as well but there are worse places.
!Great Yarmouth.
I had a great time there last year in the big park with my kids. But we only stayed for about 3 hours. I assume from your comments that the rest of it is a tip.
Berwick Upon Tweed. Some of it is lovely, but most of it is dire.
I was a student at Hull University and feel that the city is unfairly maligned!
Okay, the estates on the periphery are grim and the city centre suffered from a combination of Luftwaffe bombing and 60's town planning, but there's Cottingham, the Old Town and various other decent spots.
Also, home of Spiders...the best rock club in the country and their incredible pint cocktails for £2!
I drive through Denny on the way to Carron Valley. Jesus wept.
I was a bar man at Hull University and worked at BP in Hedon for a year.
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It's a dump.
If the BP site went bang it would have a blast radius of 7 miles. Hull is 4 miles away. Careful with the matches.
Which bar? The Rez, John McCarthy or errr...the other one?!
Hora - McDonalds in Stretford might have closed, but at least you can nip over the road for a pint in The Drum
No need! There is one closer (adjacent to McD's)- in daylight you always see a cross-section of ages outside smoking away.
anybody mentioned london yet? i couldn't live in london.
On a smaller scale, though a beautiful place Salisbury Plain is orbited by a chain of truly dire one horse towns. I'm thinking Durrington, Larkhill, Bulford, Warminster and Tidworth.
I had the misfortune of living in Tidworth on two separate occasions. I remember feeling genuinely excited when we moved to Andover!
The British Army's fondness for placing garrisons in the middle of nowhere must have no small effect on retention.
Most places beginning with 'S'
Which bar? The Rez, John McCarthy or errr...the other one?!
Usually down stairs but working in The McCarthy was better. 1990-1991. I fell in love with a girl that I worked with called Leonne who was having none of it. 😥
I once made The Rebel MC (remember him?) tip his pint into a plastic glass because he was taking it into the hall (he was doing a "turn") and he had a "do you know who I am?" strop. Told him that I couldn't give a monkey's and that if he wanted his pint it had to be in a "skiff".
The bouncers were savages. They were scaffolders from the chemical plant who used to get off on beating the crap out of drunken students.
I shared a house with a black guy was also on placement at BP. Several times when we went out I was in fear of my life because I had a mate who wasn't white! Nobody said anything to him because he was massive but I got some grief for it.
Going back to Huddersfield for my final year at The Poly was a relief.
Of all grim towns, New Brighton is the one that does it for me. The name conjures up a delightful re-interpretation of the Regency glamour of the jewel of the south coast.
What you get is a shithole with poundshops, massage parlours and a pier.
I wonder if the Welsh town of Pant is as lovely as its name?
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Little Hulton.
It has a municiple golf course - ground under repair is trail bike tracks and hazards are burnt out Fiestas / Clios.
The town should be nuked from orbit. Really.
Most places beginning with 'S'
Sandown on the Isle of Wight.
There are few things more depressing than a fading seaside resort trading on past glories, and I don't think Sandown's past was ever that glorious.
One of the positives is it has a pier, which you can walk along and jump off once the rest of the place has put you in the mood.
Probably nowhere near as bad as some of the other places mentioned, but remember that Up North doesn't have a monopoly on Grim.
Surprised Lennoxtown has been mentioned when Linwood and Port Glasgow have no redeeming features whatsoever. Both need razing to the ground, although junkie neds have done much of the work already. Some ex-mining villages in Ayrshire, eg; Crosshill and those in the Drongan triangle, are almost as bad [i]and[/i] the natives are inbred knuckle draggers.
Gawd bless HepC and Anthrax laced heroin, best form of population control these ****less miscreants could wish for.
Gawd bless HepC and Anthrax laced heroin, best form of population control these ****less miscreants could wish for.
Well good afternoon STW's very own philanthropist 😉
derek_starship - Membermight be asking for some good riding spots if that' okay ?
Yep - whenever you're ready mate.
Despite our location - there's some decent trails - even climbs!
Where on earth are these?!? Having grown up in Canada, I lived in Swinton for three years, and thought I had moved to hell! In all that time, I never got on my mountain bike, because as far as I could see, the only grass in the region was a little needle-ridden patch just before the Tesco before Little Hulton.
Ah, memories! 😥
Well good afternoon STW's very own philanthropist
I may be a teeny bit biased from working in these areas. 😀
Where on earth are these?!?
You were only 2 miles from Waterdale, Hurst Woods and miles of trails up through Moses Gate or up onto the West Penine moors.
I found Harpurhey in North Manchester to be particularly miserable - and that's coming from someone born and bred in Barrow! (knew Barrow would get a mention when I saw the thread title 🙁 )
tops5 - Hapurhey is particularly miserable. Most of the boroughs of Manchester are awful: Blackley, Collyhurst, Bradford, Beswick, Moston etc.. All ****ed up big time. The centre of Manchester is a gem in the middle of a big poo.
because as far as I could see, the only grass in the region was a little needle-ridden patch just before the Tesco before Little Hulton.
Yup - that's where Hit the North is held 😛 Not really.
I agree Derek,
Have worked in the "deprived" areas in South Manchester (Mosside,Hulme) didn't seem anything like as grim somehow
No one mentioned Crawley yet?
I've never been to Crewe, but a crater on Mars is named after the town.
Any town up the coast of cumbria is pretty depressing. Barrow,askam,millom,Whitehaven ,Workington
Egromont the list goes on ...........
No way, Sandown is a nice little place!
I can't believe theres been no mention of Bradford. Although since working there, I've grown kind of attached to it. Wouldn't want to live there or have to see anymore of it than the 2 minute walk from the station to my office but I don't think its quite as bad as people make out.
Blackpool out of season - went on a sales conference there once with a previous employer in March. Got told the following day by a taxi driver that we were lucky to have ventured out of the hotel after dark and not be stabbed.
Great Yarmouth - went there when the missus was job hunting. She went for the interview (at a nice little village up the coast) and I scoped out GY and its estate agents. Jesus christ I don't think I've EVER been anywhere as grim. Granted, it was February but words fail me how grim that place was. I will never visit the place again. Ever. Plus the fact it takes soooooo friggin long to get there from anywhere! Its almost as if they don't want you to go!
As a few people are sticking up for Hull I thought I'd stick up for Reading too.
As mentioned several places not very far from Reading are much worse.
Reading Town Centre does have some nice Victorian architecture ie town hall, a couple of old church and personally I like the new shopping centre. You cant argue its not busy or that its run down anyhow.
Also with the university having 22,000 students its a pretty vibrant busy place although can obviously can slow down in summer. Although theres the festival in summer.
Also theres some really nice spots nearby for cycling and theres not much that a walk along the Thames on a summer evening and if you head west along it in the summer you actually feel like your out in the country pretty quickly.
Some areas are pretty nice to live in ie caversham and parts the uni.
The main problems with it are the area round the station is ugly which is what most people see when they first arrive. Also the traffic on the "ring road" is terrible and the ring road is just concrete.
Also theres plenty to do there ie Cinema, goto the Footy, loads of bars and clubs and evening a couple of nice pubs.
Just a little note about Swinton:
I used to live right by Moorside Station, and after I had moved down South, had to commute back there on Friday evenings.
On one occasion, as I walked past the Red Lion, a bunch of yobs across the road started yelling at me, and actually threw open cans of beer at me. Just because I was walking home.
On another, a group of girls (maybe 15 or 16 years of age) were sitting at the top of the station steps, and they tried to trip me as I got to the top.
Not very dramatic, I know, and not nearly as serious as some people on here may have gone through; but bloody upsetting at the time, and reflected the general tone of my experience in those parts.
I guess I just assumed that even if there were trails nearby, I would never make it to them without getting pushed off my bike!
Caerau, amongst any number of run down valleys towns.
For those who go to Glyncorrwg via the M4 Sarn Park junction, Caerau is between Maesteg and Cwmmer
Rochdale and surrounding towns. Lived there for 2 years and it really got me down, can see how the unemployment rate is so high. I'd also started growing fins and gills
Middleton Arndale is like something from a horror movie and 1 in 3 of the "walkers" have a pot on their arm or leg or a neck brace.
Around 8 years ago, I worked in Middleton (for the now defunct British Vita) for 4 moths. Sometimes I'd go to the Arndale to get a sandwich at lunchtime. I was the only person there (1) in a suit and (2) without a limp and a cough.
I swear they all thought I was from the DSS come to check up on them....
Warrington......toilet, that bomb that went off there was actually part of an urban improvement project
Black Swan district of Liverpool.....fence it off and napalm the whole area
Wolverhampton.....I told and old boss of mine that it was the biggest sh!thole I'd ever been to and he got the arse because he came from there. I then pointed out that if it was so nice why did he live in Oxford. His reply was "fair point"
Shotts in Lanarkshire - dull, dirty grey social housing with layers of grafitti about various issues like the 1690 Battle of the Boyne which seemed highly irrelevant to the general plight of the place, and probably the only bit of history the residents were aware of. Huge high security prison doesn't help, and when we went it was raining.
In England it has to be a toss up between Sunderland (even the pound shops have shutters at night), Bradford (where I went to a school which was strategically positioned between a railway, river and a canal with a sewerage works on the other side of the railway) or the north London areas around Tottenham and Edmonton.
Whitley Bay has to be one of the worst places I've been to in the UK. Admittedly I was there on a stag do so I was effectively part of the problem, but the grimness of the town centre on a Saturday afternoon was horrendous. Hordes of skinhead, hackett wearing mentalists ensured the threat of random violence hung permanently in the air.
Manor Park in East London, between Ilford and Forest Gate has to be worst place i have lived.
If you weren't depressed when you moved there you were guaranteed to be by the time you left.
I'll be honest, London has it's less than desirable spots, but with a little imagination, it's a fantastic city to live in, overall. I'd rather live in a grim part of London, than a grim part of Manchester, Birmingham, Glasgow etc.
But nothing here compares to some other places in Britain. My mate Scottish Kev used to terrify me with tales of some Scottish towns, and said that nowhere in London, or even Darn Sarf, is anywhere near as bad. And there are places in the North, and Wales and that, which are truly depressing. As proven by this thread in fact.
My least favourite place has to be the area of Cornwall around Bude. Yeah there's countryside and that, but you can't actually access most of it, certainly not by bike, there's absolutely **** all to do, speshly if you're young, and some folk can be incredibly insular and unwelcoming. In my experience the weather was usually shite too. In winter it's utterly, utterly miserable.
I will be happy to never go there again.
Penge.
The arsehole of the UK and no mistake.
Skelmersdale
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I believe the architect committed suicide after it was built.
Limp and a cough?
Salford Sainsburys at lunchtime mid week. EVERYONE smokes and looks yellowed as though they are pre-swabbed for an operation.
Penge
Ah, come on Bully; it might have a crap name, but it's not [i]that[/i] bad! 😀
[i]I'll be honest, London has it's less than desirable spots, but with a little imagination, it's a fantastic city to live in, overall. I'd rather live in a grim part of London, than a grim part of Manchester, Birmingham, Glasgow etc.[/i]
Each to their own i suppose although have you ever lived in a grim place in any of those places you mention ?
As you can see from the thread a few places in Manchester/Salford have come up but i'd choose those over Manor Park any time.
you can't actually access most of it, [s]certainly not by bike[/s], there's absolutely **** all to do, speshly if you're young, and some folk can be incredibly insular and unwelcoming. [s]In my experience the weather was usually shite too.[/s] In winter it's utterly, utterly miserable.
Sounds like STW!!!
Where I now live is easily as 'grim' as Manor Park, if not worse, Mancjohn, trust me. But I'm ok with it (never known any better! 😀 ). Manor Park's ok, what you moaning about? You wanna try the aforementioned Tottenham, bits of Peckham, Thamesmead, places like that. I know people in the Manor Park area and they're quite happy there tbh. Maybe you just din't fit in.
[i]I know people in the Manor Park area and they're quite happy there tbh. Maybe you just din't fit in. [/i]
Come to think of it, i probably was a bit too friendly to fit in there ie. i actually smiled at people once in a while which as we all know marks you out as a complete nutter down there 🙂
Greymouth South Island NZ
As I described it "a one horse town where the horse died to escape"
Blackpool is terrible in season and out of season.
[s]choke on stench[/s] Stoke is pretty hideous
Hull is grim
wallasey is hell on earth
I'm quite surprised Morecambe hasn't had a mention yet. To be fair it's improved a lot but it's one of those seaside towns trading on it's past glories. The council, bless them, kept trying to do things to the seafront and promenade area ignoring the fact that if you turned away from the views across the bay you were faced with a grim shithole of a town mostly populated by DSS, a closed and derelict hotel (now rebuilt/reopened), a closed and derelict Mr Blobby theme park, several dozen "amusement arcades" and an ALDI which was about the height of shopping sophistication for the residents.
Port Hedland, Western Australia.
Being the highest tonnage Iron Ore port in Oz, everything in town is red 😐 the dust clings to everything.
You sweat so much because the climate of Port Hedland is warm to hot, with mean maximum temperatures of 36.4 °C (97.5 °F) in January and 27.1 °C (80.8 °F) in July.
Drab drab drab, only mile long trains to amuse you..
Only plus side is it's the best base for trips to Wittenoom and Karijini 😉
...an ALDI which was about the height of shopping sophistication for the residents.
Hey! ALDI's pretty cosmopolitan. Besides LIDL, it's the only place one can get bockwurst and bratwurst.
Greymouth South Island NZ
+1
Have you been to Haast? The sandflies nearly ate me dead.
Ellesmere Port. Specifically, a certain lead salts sludge pit...
I was just looking for that "Skegness is ****ing Shit! - (issued by the Mablethorpe tourist association) poster that viz did a while ago. I hadn't realised it's almost an exact copy of an actual Skegness tourist poster - So Bracing!
Sad to see that Stevenage (aka the 'Nadge) hasn't got a few more mentions. Basically its Slough with all the character and charm erased.
Ken shields, what is the black swan district?
I assume you must mean Old Swan?
FYI anything north of Old Swan is pretty horrendous. About two thirds of the city. I love it all the same though.
Guildford, full of rich Tory voting snobs.