Midland fairy lights and tales of Cottonopolis

The Midland Hotel's impressive frontage looks suitably festive. With over 350 rooms the hotel also once had a 1,000-seat theatre where opera and drama were staged, and a roof terrace where a string quartet performed.

The hotel (built in 1905) was often used by American cotton traders on business in Cottonopolis (an old nickname for Manchester) selling raw cotton to Lancashire cotton spinners; the businessmen referred to themselves as the Old Colony Club. One of the hotel's restaurants has been renamed the Colony in recognition of this fact. 

In the 1960s The Beatles were once refused admission to a French restaurant inside because they were "inappropriately" dressed. Before that, in 1959 Elizabeth Angela Marguerite Bowes-Lyon (mother of current queen, Elizabeth Windsor) became the first UK crowned head to eat in a public restaurant here. Rather radical for her to deign to dine with us commoners.  ;-)

Linking to Weekly Top Shot at The View From Right Here blog.