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Rusholme

Rusholme is a part of Manchester, in North West England, about two miles south of Manchester city centre.

Rusholme is home to the Curry Mile - a focused stretch of South Asian restaurants.

Most of the housing consists of low-cost terraced houses, around 70–100 years old, although some larger houses exist to the east of the main road that runs through the centre in the Victoria Park neighbourhood.

In recent times Rusholme has suffered like nearby Moss Side with gangs, drugs and gang-related shootings.

Geography and administration

The community is surrounded by Fallowfield to the south, Moss Side to the west, Victoria Park to the east and Chorlton-on-Medlock to the north. It is served in Westminster by the MP for Gorton (election results), currently the Rt Hon Sir Gerald Kaufman MP.

The councillors elected for the ward in 2004 were Abu Chowdhury, Paul Shannon and Lynne Williams.

Rusholme was an independent town until incorporation into Manchester in 1885.

History

Etymology

Rusholme, unlike other areas of Manchester which have '-holme' in the place name is not a true '-holme'. Its name came from ryscum, which is the dative plural of Old English rysc "rush": "[at the] rushes". The name was recorded as Russum in 1235.

However, the suggestion of 'holme' in the name is appropriate, as the area is in low-lying land, close to areas like Hulme.

Social history

Over the Victorian era, there were several different socio-political meanings of Rusholme. Primarily, it was a township based around a general area known as Rusholme since at least the thirteenth century. The area grew into a township, and by the beginning of the nineteenth century, it had its own government responsible for public health, roads, policing, poor relief, and other local government tasks. That Rusholme was originally a politically autonomous entity was vital to its self-conception as a discrete area even after it lost almost all political self-control upon incorporation into Manchester. The low-cost terraced housing built between 1880 and 1930 dominates the landscape, along with a sprawling council housing estate erected in the interwar era.

Political history

Prime Minister Herbert Asquith was married in a Rusholme church, Richard Cobden, William Royle, and Thomas Lowe were long-time residents.

Conservative Dame Kathleen Ollerenshaw was for twenty-six years the town's representative on Manchester City Council before becoming Lord Mayor of Manchester from 1975–1976.

Other local politicians include ward councillors Paul Shannon a Liberal Democrat and deputy leader of the Manchester City Council Liberal Democrat group and Lynne Williams , a former Liberal Democrat originally from the Cynon Valley in South Wales.

Recent history

Film Studios Manchester opened their Dickenson Road studio in Rusholme in 1947, coverting it from a former church. The first Manchester-made feature film to be released was called Cup-Tie Honeymoon and starred Sandy Powell and Pat Phoenix as his wife. It was the first of many similar films to be made in at the site.

In 1963 the BBC bought the studios as their northern base and on New Year's Day, 1964, Jimmy Savile presented the first edition of the British music chart television programme Top of the Pops. The centre was in use until 1971 when the BBC moved to purpose-built colour television studios in central Manchester.

Rusholme was immortalised in the song Rusholme Ruffians by Manchester band The Smiths on their 1985 album Meat Is Murder. Additionally, Mint Royale's 1999 album On The Ropes contained a track entitled "From Rusholme With Love".

Rusholme was the home of the second indoor ice skating rink in England, after the London Glaciarium, although this has been replaced by a grocery store. From 1947 to 1954 it was the home of Mancunian Film Studios, many of whose productions were filmed on local streets. Its studios, in a disused Wesleyan church on Dickenson Road later became the home for Top of The Pops, in its early years.

John Ruskin gave the lectures later published as Sesame and Lillies (1865) at Rusholme Town Hall.

As of 2008, well known 5 a-side football team Dynamo Bowden Athletic are based in Rusholme, after moving from the City Centre.

Curry Mile

Rusholme is acclaimed as home of the largest number of South Asian (Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi) restaurants in the United Kingdom. This led Wilmslow Road to be dubbed the "Curry Mile". It is said that the Curry Mile has the largest concentration of South Asian restaurants anywhere in the world outside the Indian Subcontinent; there are more than seventy curry houses and kebab shops on the road.

Wilmslow Road is part of the B5117 which includes the University of Manchester and Manchester Metropolitan University. It also forms part of the busiest bus route in Europe, with many bus stops being serviced by one bus from one of many different bus companies every 60 to 90 seconds during peak times. There are a number of purpose built student halls in the area, and a large number of students who rent privately. There is a large, mostly Muslim South Asian community as well as a dwindling community of working class white people.