'A house on our street costs £500k now': The working class town swallowed up by the Northern Quarter

Bridget Doherty is remembering the days when sweat shops and packing firms lined Oldham Road. "It was all factories," she says. "You could get sacked from one job and walk right next door and get another straight away. "It was the same with pubs - you came out of one, walked a couple steps and you were in another." Now the inner-city district of Manchester traditionally known as New Cross has changed dramatically.

Most of the pubs are long gone and the factories have been replaced by hotels and tower blocks. Read more: The great inner city area disappearing from Manchester's map And even the name New Cross has fallen out of use, having been swallowed up by the Northern Quarter and Ancoats in the headlong rush of regeneration that is modern-day Manchester.

But for many, many years it was a well-known and distinct neighbourhood in its own right, as familiar to Mancunians as Ardwick, Beswick or Shudehill.

Roughly bordered by Swan Street - one of the oldest roads in Manchester still in use - Oldham Road and Rochdale Road, New Cross takes its name from a cross that used to stand outside the Crown and Kettle pub.