Hardy's Well, Rusholme: Managing the Emergency Response After a Fire at a Manchester Landmark
Updated: Aug 18
Property emergencies do not happen at convenient times, in predictable ways, or without an audience.
When the fire at Hardy's Well on Wilmslow Road in Rusholme took hold on the evening of 25 May 2023, SURVPROP's instruction was immediate: attend the site, coordinate with Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service and Greater Manchester Police, assess the position and manage what followed. What followed was one of the more demanding instructions we have handled, under public pressure, media scrutiny and the watching eye of Manchester City Council, all of it compressed into a 24-hour window.
The Building and Its History
Hardy's Well occupied the corner of Wilmslow Road and Dickenson Road in Rusholme, at the foot of the Curry Mile. There had been a Birch Villa on the site since around 1837, later known as the Birch Villa Hotel, and the pub was renamed Hardy's Well in the later twentieth century after Hardy's Brewery. It was a fixture of south Manchester life for generations: a pub for University of Manchester students, a matchday destination for Manchester City supporters in the Maine Road era, and a community landmark with a presence on Wilmslow Road that outlasted several phases of the surrounding neighbourhood's change.
In the 1990s the landlord and landlady commissioned the poet Lemn Sissay to paint one of his poems on the exterior south gable wall. The poem, built almost entirely around the letter W, became as well known as the building itself. It was, as Sissay later reflected, a landmark that people made rather than one that was designed. Former regulars quoted it from memory. Passers-by had photographed it for three decades.
The pub closed in July 2016. In 2015 it had been listed as an Asset of Community Value following an application by the Rusholme and Fallowfield Civic Society, reflecting the genuine attachment the local community felt to the building. The building owner had subsequently worked with planners and architects on a redevelopment proposal that would have retained the original pub shell within a new building, with the poem preserved inside the foyer and replicated on the new external wall. The intention was to keep Hardy's Well in the streetscape in a form the community could recognise, while bringing the site back into productive use. That application had been withdrawn to allow the design to be revised further, and a revised scheme had not yet been submitted when the fire occurred.
That plan did not survive the fire.
The Night of the Fire
On the evening of 25 May 2023, SURVPROP received an urgent call from the building owner, who was overseas. Hardy's Well was on fire. SURVPROP attended immediately. Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service crews were working to bring the fire under control. Greater Manchester Police were on site. The fire had taken hold internally in a building that had been vacant and derelict for seven years.
The fire was subsequently reported as an arson attack. The structure, already weakened by years of vacancy, had been severely compromised. The building was no longer safe.
Manchester City Council assessed the building on 25 May 2023 and condemned it on the grounds that the structure was unstable and posed a risk to pedestrians and the surrounding area. An emergency demolition notice was issued to the building owner the same day. There was no window for appeal or delay. The building had to come down.
Managing the Emergency Demolition
SURVPROP coordinated and managed the emergency demolition programme that followed. Contractors were mobilised, road closures on Wilmslow Road were arranged in coordination with Manchester City Council and the highways authority, and the demolition was carried out on 26 May 2023.
None of this happened quietly. Hardy's Well had been a community institution for nearly two centuries. Its closure in 2016 had already generated significant local concern. The fire and the subsequent demolition attracted immediate and substantial media coverage. Former regulars, community groups and members of the public gathered to watch the building come down.
There was genuine grief in the crowd.
The instruction to SURVPROP was to manage the technical process, the logistics and the liaison with the local authority and emergency services, professionally and under pressure. The Sissay poem on the south gable wall, which had become a piece of public art known well beyond Manchester, was lost with the building. Sissay acknowledged it publicly and reflected that Manchester changes. SURVPROP's job was not to adjudicate on those feelings but to manage the instruction safely, lawfully and in line with the emergency notice served by the council.
The demolition was completed within the timescale required by the council's emergency notice.
Site Clearance and Interim Use
Following demolition, SURVPROP managed the clearance of the site. The rubble was removed, the site boundaries were secured and the ground was cleared. The site remains in use as a pay and display car park, providing a managed interim use while the longer-term position is considered. No further planning application has been submitted since the fire. The corner plot on Wilmslow Road retains development potential, and its prominent position at the foot of the Curry Mile means it will form part of the ongoing story of that stretch of Manchester's best-known food and hospitality street.
What Emergency Property Management Looks Like
The Hardy's Well instruction is an example of what property management looks like when something goes seriously wrong. Most of SURVPROP's work is planned, structured and phased over months or years. Emergency instructions operate on a completely different timescale. The building owner needs someone who can attend immediately, assess the situation with the emergency services, understand the legal position, coordinate contractors at short notice and manage the process under external pressure.
For the building owner, being overseas when the call came in made a capable and responsive managing agent the difference between a managed emergency and an unmanaged crisis. SURVPROP provided continuity of instruction, presence on the ground and professional liaison with Manchester City Council throughout.
If you manage or own commercial property in Greater Manchester and want a managing agent who can respond when it matters, contact SURVPROP.
Contact us at info@survprop.com or call 0161 399 2497.
