United Kingdom · England · Manchester
Ancoats, Manchester — Area Guide & Where to Stay
Ancoats is a former industrial quarter of Manchester, set just north-east of the city centre and pressed up against the Northern Quarter. It grew as the world's first industrial suburb, and its skyline is still defined by the tall brick cotton mills that line Redhill Street. Its centre is Cutting Room Square, where converted mills and warehouses hold restaurants, cafes and independent bars. Locals still call it Little Italy.
About Ancoats
Where to stay in Ancoats
Where you base yourself shapes the visit — here's the character of each area.
Staying in Ancoats puts you among converted mills, a short walk from both the Northern Quarter and Manchester city centre. The draw is food. Bars and restaurants ring Cutting Room Square, and the mood stays residential rather than tourist-heavy once the offices empty.
A handful of aparthotels and canalside rooms sit inside the old warehouses along Redhill Street, but the bed count here is genuinely small. For more hotels, base yourself minutes away in the city centre and walk in.
About Ancoats
What are the main landmarks in Ancoats?
The main sights in Ancoats are its cotton mills. Murrays' Mills on Redhill Street, begun in 1798, is among the oldest surviving steam-powered cotton-spinning complexes in the world, and the adjoining Royal Mills rise straight from the Rochdale Canal. Beehive Mill anchors Jersey Street a little to the north.
At the heart of the quarter, Cutting Room Square opens out in front of Hallé St Peter's, a former church on Blossom Street that the Hallé Orchestra uses for rehearsals. These are working buildings rather than museums.
What is the history of Ancoats?
Ancoats took shape in the late eighteenth century, when steam-powered cotton mills were built along the Rochdale Canal and dense terraces filled the streets around them. Historians often call it the world's first industrial suburb. Italian migrants settled the district in the nineteenth century and gave Little Italy its name.
The cotton trade later collapsed. As the mills fell silent, much of the workers' housing was cleared, and it was regeneration that converted the surviving mills into apartments and laid out Cutting Room Square.
Where is Ancoats?
Ancoats occupies a wedge of ground north-east of Manchester city centre, bounded by Oldham Road to the north and, along its south-western side, by Great Ancoats Street, which separates it from the Northern Quarter. The Rochdale Canal skirts the southern edge. To the east the streets fall away toward New Islington and the Ashton Canal.
Redhill Street and Jersey Street run through the mill core.
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Updated July 2026