Carcanet Press - Location

Location

Carcanet was conceived at Pin Farm, South Hinksey, Oxford, in 1969 by Peter Jones, Gareth Reeves and Michael Schmidt, and Grevel Lindop was instrumental in suggesting the Fyfield Books series. In 1971, when Michael Schmidt was appointed Gulbenkian Writing Fellow at the University of Manchester, it moved to 266 Councillor Lane, Cheadle Hulme, Cheshire, and in 1975 it came of age, taking a tiny suite of offices in the Corn Exchange, Manchester. However, the 1996 Manchester bombing impacted heavily on the workings of Carcanet Press, moving it to temporary offices in Manchester House, Princess Street, and then across the river to Blackfriars Street, Salford, where it stayed in a kind of exile for six years, before moving back into the centre of Manchester. It now resides in Cross Street, between where Mrs Gaskell's husband's Unitarian Cross Street Chapel used to stand, and the little graveyard of St Ann's Church where Thomas de Quincey's forebears are buried, and in whose font Thomas de Quincey was himself christened.