Northern Quarter

- Stevenson Square, Hatters Hostel, Newton Street, Oldham Street

Northern Quarter is a hip neighbourhood in central Manchester, created as part of the 1990s bohemic gentrification. It is situated just North of Piccadilly Gardens, centered around Oldham Street. Here you find mural paintings, graffiti, record stores, sci fi stores, hip cafés, nightclubs, tattoo studios and rock pubs and bars such as Cane & Grain. Mostly situated in renovated historical buildings. Stevenson Square is the heart of the Northern Quarter. Affleck's, a bazaar style market in a former department store, can be found in the neighbourhood, on Oldham St. It features many independent and rock stores.

We stayed at the Hatters Hostel on Newton St, at the edge of Northern Quarter. REVIEW: Hatters has a good location near Piccadilly Gardens (there is another one on Hilton St as well), but sleeping on the 5th floor without an elevator is simply too much. They said they couldn't use the elevator because of all the drunk guys. And there was only one toilet on the whole floor! Not fun to search for another toilet on another floor you don't know about in the middle of then night. There was no locker in the room either, so no way to keep your luggage safe. The shared room was really spartanous, even for a hostel. I have stayed at other hostels with really rich decoration, for the same price. The rooms looked very stiff with everything in white and no decorations. The windows couldn't be opened because they were too worn! A renovation is heavily needed for this old building, and fortunately there seems to be plans to do it. It is a nice looking historical building and looks okay from the outside, so in the future it could be a nice place to stay if it will be heavily renovated. The staff was really nice and public areas looked okay. The free breakfast was ok with toast and corn flakes, coffee and tea.