Pub Photo – The Temple Of Convenience – Manchester

Photo – The Temple Of Convenience, Manchester
Preston, England
January 4, 2016 6:20am CST
This is one of my fair city’s strangest and most eccentric pubs, with its name generally abbreviated to just The Temple. It was once the gentlemen’ s urinals block on Oxford Road, a large Victorian toilet facility entered by a big stairway. It was big enough to convert into a bar with much smaller lavatory facilities. It is a popular, often crowded venue. It is great that it has found a new lease of life in this way. The pub lacks a true pub sign, so the photo here is of the pub entrance area. Arthur Chappell
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6 responses
@Jessicalynnt (50523)
• Centralia, Missouri
4 Jan 16
wait, that is the entrance? And it was a underground public toilet? Wild!
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• Preston, England
4 Jan 16
yes the stairway is still the main way in - there is a fire exit route but I'm not sure where it comes out.
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• Centralia, Missouri
4 Jan 16
@arthurchappell that's really cool actually
@owlwings (43903)
• Cambridge, England
4 Jan 16
I notice that, although the pub has no parking allowed anywhere directly outside there is adequate convenient parking close by. One wonders how they deal with deliveries with that rather narrow entrance. Perhaps there is a service door (or manhole) somewhere discreetly out of shot. Quite a few underground public toilets have been converted to enjoy a new life. I believe that there is a restaurant in London and I'm sure that I have seen one in use as a barber's shop somewhere. The game is in the name, however. I do like "The Temple of Convenience"!
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@LadyDuck (473252)
• Switzerland
4 Jan 16
We had those underground toilets in Milan too. As there were also barbers shop near the lavatories, I think they are converting the whole complex in an underground restaurant.
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@Tampa_girl7 (52246)
• United States
4 Jan 16
That is most unique.
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@boiboing (13152)
• Northampton, England
4 Jan 16
When I was a student in the city way back in the late 1980s, I had the idea that it would be great to buy one of these subterranean loos and make it a bar. But in my parallel universe, I called my bar "The Cottage"
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@JudyEv (351782)
• Rockingham, Australia
4 Jan 16
What an interesting story. I love the entrance!
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