There aren't many places better to soak in all the autumn beauty than Hardcastle Crags
This is the time of year where it’s particularly difficult to drag yourself off the sofa and into the great outdoors.
The weather isn’t quite crisp enough to feel festive and most of us (even the pumpkin spice latte, cardigan-clad crew) are missing the more reliable warmth of the summer months.
But autumn is here, like it or not, and it definitely has its perks.
One of which is the undeniable beauty the season brings.
It’s not just the blazing red, orange, yellow and brown leaves that suddenly take over the green spaces around the UK.
It’s also in the sunsets and sunrises that become so much easier to catch while the days are shorter (you have to admit, the commutes are prettier when they coincide with sunrise).
And there aren’t many places better to soak in all the autumn beauty than Hardcastle Crags, just across the border in West Yorkshire.
The National Trust site sits between Leeds and Manchester and is a popular day trip destination for Mancs, given the trains that run regularly (bloody train strikes permitting) to Hebden Bridge.
A walking route around Hardcastle Crags at this time of year will take you through a landscape of blazing orange trees, babbling streams, and dappled sunlight.
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When you catch a golden autumnal day the leaves will crunch underfoot, but even on a soggy day the leaf mulch has its own special kind of beauty here.
There are two walking routes between the main car park and Gibson Mill, a former 19th century cotton mill which is now home to a lovely cafe.
One will take you down to the river, where wooden boardwalks weave right along the water’s edge.
There are even stepping stones you can use to scamper across the river – a great Instagram pic, or just a way to keep the kids entertained for a few minutes.
The other route goes up through the upper woodland, where pine trees loom and you get a great view of the valley below.
For an easy loop, you can do both – a stroll through the trees, a stop for coffee and cake, then return along the river (or vice versa).
But with 15 miles of footpaths, you can explore way beyond that.
The National Trust’s list of walks includes everything from a wheelchair and pram-accessible estate track to peaceful woodland loops, to rocky scrambles and former railway lines.
And when you’re done with Hardcastle Crags itself, there’s a world-class restaurant in the gorgeous town centre itself.
Coin sits in the shell of the former Lloyd’s bank, with exposed brick and massive period windows, and specialises in natural wine and small plates.
When The Manc Eats visited earlier this year, we found plates of freshly-cut meat and cheese served alongside ice-cold batched classic cocktails, where ‘quality is key, and it shines through on the plate’.
Our reviewer said: “With its higgledy-piggledy stone mill houses, surrounding woodland, hidden waterfalls and treasure-trove charity shops, Hebden Bridge is a popular attraction all of its own for those wanting to venture beyond the city. Coin is simply the cherry on top.”
Featured image: The Manc Group
Affleck’s Palace, or simply Affleck’s (as it is known today), has always been a mecca for Manchester cool. Without it, the Northern Quarter would simply not exist as we know it.
In 1982 when it moved across to the area from a basement beneath Kendal’s, it wasn’t exactly the best of times – especially in this dark corner of the city, described as “bandit country” by Sean Berry of Panic Posters fame.
Opening the same year as The Hacienda, the year The Smiths were formed and a new set for Coronation Street was completed, Affleck’s arrived at just the right time – capturing the start of a new wave of underground alternative culture.
And as the years have gone on, it’s maintained the same level of cool and the same values of community, even as the world outside it has changed.
Here, traders see each other as family. As for the visitors, it’s a safe space where they can always be themselves and not worry about what anyone else thinks. As we’re told time and again, there really is nowhere like it.
For the past four decades, Affleck’s myriad traders have celebrated individuality, eccentricity, and creativity : attracting intrepid teenagers and big-name celebrities alike to hunt for vintage fashion staples, quirky jewellery, records, and other alt miscellanea within its labyrinthine walls.
Over the years, it’s welcomed the likes of Lady Gaga, Agyness Dean, Debbie Harry, Chloe Sevigny, Bernard Summer, Alice Cooper, Anna Friel and more – but the real stories to be told here are not of the celebrities but of the traders, past and present, who’ve had the privilege to call the place home.
On the top floor, Affleck’s creative in residence Joy France – also known as Manchester’s battle-rapping granny – can be found amidst piles of papers, guitars, chairs, paints and more.
A former teacher and spoken word poet in her sixties, she was originally given the room for just three months but tells us it’s now been seven years. In that time, her little empty space has become so full of things that it’s overflowing to the point it can’t really contain much more.
She tells us: “So it’s actually gonna, I’m gonna close the room and it’s going to go mobile around the building so the same idea but it’ll reach more people and it’s going to go online.”
“The first five years before lockdown I would just leave it open, and I might be off for a couple weeks doing something, and nothing ever get stolen, just more donations, more poetry, more artwork.
“Sometimes, they might just look like nothing There’s a little scrunchie in here, just someone’s scrunchie, I remember a woman came in, a young woman, and she just said ‘I’ve found the place I need to leave this.’
“‘This was my sister’s, she died a few years ago in Canada and I’ve carried it in my bag ever since but it needs to be here.'”
“There’s tyewriters, there’s books, there’s – I think, we counted up 20 guitars, four ukeleles, just randomly, you know, just, thousands of stories and I’ve never advertised it I’ve just let the world find it and then it’s just word of mouth.”
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Asked what she does with it next she tells us, “This is the point I’m at with it now. Anything that doesn’t have a story or isn’t art it just goes outside and anyone can take it away, it just gets a new home. Anything that has got a story or is art, I’m trying to catalogue it and trying to put it online so the stories are all told.”
Elsewhere, we meet Millie Horton, a self-made entrepreneur with her own nail salon.
Millie tells us: “Well i’m quite local originally as well, so I probably started coming to Affleck’s when I was maybe ten or eleven – just to look around, come in with family, friends, I feel like you hit your teenage years and it’s just where you go in Manchester like you have a look around and it’s all different and everyone loves it.
“So that was my relationship, like everyone else with it, before I started working here. And erm, I was twenty-one when I started working here so it was quite early still.”
“Now I do work here, the community is really what makes it like – everyone says it and it’s so cliche but there is really nowhere like it. I really believe there’s nowhere like it – like a lot of cities think they’ve got an Affleck’s, but they don’t – like, they don’t.
“And it is the people that make it, without a doubt. Looking around it is one thing and you get the atmosphere form it and it is so different, but once you start talking to everyone in the building and everyone is so different to each other, so individual, such characters, that’s when it really like it kicks in, like – ‘oh wow, this is like somewhere really special.'”
“I think it’s quite unusual like that element of it, like it feels, like, the values never change. It’s still got that sort of old-fashioned community feel to it and I feel like that’s really unusual now.”
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Each and every person we speak with has the same thing to say: they love the community of Affleck’s and don’t think there’s anywhere else like it in the country – let alone the city.
Colin Thompson, the man behind the ever-busy tattoo studio, a fixture in Affleck’s for the past twenty years, tells us that whilst much has stayed the same over the years, today it’s not unusual to see families in Affleck’s.
Parents, he explains, are now coming to introduce the next generation to the weird and wonderful bazaar that sells literally everything.
He says: “I started off in the nineties, at some point I had a record shop upstairs called Sabotage Records, did that for about a good ten years then we moved down here and started sharing a shop with the guy who did piercings and tattoos, and then we’ve just taken it from there basically.
“And I’ve been here now for over twenty years, in this shop so yeah, I’ve been here twenty-odd years now in Affleck’s, it’s a great place to work.
“Oh there has been a slow change, not much really to be honest, there has been a gradual change over the years and all that, erm with the styles what have come and gone but you find a lot of styles come back in after a while.
“Also a lot of people bring in like their families now so people who were coming in when they were kids have grown up now and have got their own families, and they’re bringing them in now so it’s quite a little community, to be honest.”
Picture the scene: the weekend has arrived, it’s already raining in Manchester and you’re skint; but your mates want to go out and you’ve never been good with FOMO.
We’ve all been there, but one of the best parts about this amazing city and its working-class roots is that there’s always somewhere for the average Joe to grab a bite to eat on the cheap.
And for our money, it doesn’t get much more budget-friendly than Bunny Jackson’s.
Located on Jack Rosenthal Street just off First Street, Bunny Jackson’s, Bunny J’s, Bunny’s—whatever you wanna call it, quite possibly offers the cheapest item on any menu anywhere in town: the 20p wing.
This is what the late-night favourite has built its reputation on over the years: as many cheap and delicious chicken wings as you think you could possibly devour at pennies a pop.
Believe it or not, back in the old days it used to be just 10p for a plain chicken wing, but then came Covid and all the rest of it. After all, these lot still have to make money.
Nevertheless, this neon-lit, polaroid and graffiti-filled dive bar is still undoubtedly the best wing spot in Manchester, not to mention the perfect place to enjoy all your favourite rock and pop-punk bangers.
The current menu is still littered with affordable flavours from classic BBQ and buffalo, to Jack Daniel’s smoked honey and mustard or the Sailor Jerry spiced sesame wings — all of which you get for 45p or under. Yes, you read that right. Unreal, isn’t it?
Then comes the seasonal specials like the chip-shop curry sauce one we tried a couple of months back or, our personal favourite, the lip-smacking honey and garlic that has effectively become a mainstay it’s now so popular amongst punters. They always adding new ones so keep an eye out.
And, of course, we can’t forget about their legendary ‘Hotter Than the Sun’ wing, which is seriously no joke. We pride ourselves on being able to handle our heat but this thing is ridiculous. That’s why a glass of milk stands pride of place on the menu at £2.
What’s more insane is that this is the most expensive chicken wing on the menu at the hefty price tag of—wait for it—55p. Again, not a typo.
When you can order 10 flaming hot wings and still only pay just over a fiver. It’s easy to see why people order bucket loads of all different flavours like it’s their last meal on earth.
In all seriousness, even if you fancy a healthy portion of cauliflower wings (£4), animal fries that are so dirty we always struggle to finish the whole thing (also £4), or a big juice burger with more fries on the side than you really need for less than a tenner, it’s pretty hard to break the bank at Bunny Jackson’s.
The food doesn’t stop there either. There’s grilled cheese and soup, onion rings, fried pickles and chicken dippers for those who don’t do bones; we might as well just give you the menu at this point.
Even the booze selection is reasonably priced, with pints and plenty more from £5 – pretty much the going rate these days – and a happy hour from 10-11pm when you can get a pint, a glass of wine, a can or seltzer or a cheeky shot for just £3.
Beyond just the food and drink, there’s pool and beer pong tables as well as live music on the regular. They were one of the many venues included in this year’s Neighbourhood line-up.
The self-styled dive bar’s reputation is so strong that just a few months ago, Mancs busy eating Bunny’s barely batted an eye when Olivia Rodrigo decided to pop and do a surprise gig.
Literally sold out the 02 Apollo the same night. As you do.
From Glastonbury to this. 🤯 https://t.co/P235TQsVnR
In fact, the Bunny’s brand has gotten so big now that back in May 2021 they opened up their underground sister site Junior Jackson’s on Oldham Street in Northern Quarter, serving up plenty of beer, shots, sliders, hot dogs and lots of loud music – also until 3am.
As if that wasn’t enough, the success of both venues left them with little choice other than to open up a third location this summer, the Wing Wagon, taking their trademark chicken on the road to feed the Manc masses.
You can find it parked just off the back of First Street a stone’s through from the OG site itself.
At a time when we’re all trying to scrimp and save wherever we can, it’s still important that people still have a place to go eat some solid scran and have a belter of a night out.
We refuse to let the misery surrounding the impending winter rule us – we still on plan having a good time wherever we can and we hope you can too.
One of the parts we love about Bunny’s the most is the people that run it: they’re some of the friendliest staff you’ll find behind any bar in Britain, let alone in Manchester.
If it often looks like they’re having a better time than you, they probably are. With the tunes blaring, beer flowing and shots always on the cards, why wouldn’t they?
Whether you want some wings, a pint, a group photo to remember the night you don’t remember or buy a shirt that reads ‘I LOVE BJs’, they do it all with an effortless charm that only their close-knit and ever so slightly tipsy brigade can pull of.
So don’t let endless doom-scrolling through stuff about the economy spoil it for you: get yourself a pint, have a dance and much on a stupid amount of wings for practically pennies.
We love you, Bunny’s and we thank you for your service, tough times or not. Never change.
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Featured Image — Bunny Jacksons
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