BLACK MILK's Freshers' Guide to Ancoats, Manchester

Queer Lit is Manchester's independent LGBTQ+ bookshop, and it says it has the largest selection of LGBTQ+ titles in Europe. The shop on Great Ancoats Street displays over 6,000 books, covering fiction, non-fiction and graphic novels. Alongside the books you will find pride accessories such as badges, flags, clothing, cards and jewellery.

Queer Lit started online with just 700 titles and won Best New Business at the LGBTQ+ Business Awards in 2021. Through its Free Books for Schools scheme, it donates around 100 LGBTQ+ books to UK schools every month. Pop in to find your next read between lectures.

Mackie Mayor is a food hall inside a Grade II listed market hall built in 1858, one of the two remaining original buildings from Manchester's old Smithfield Market. It worked as a fresh produce market for more than a century before being restored in 2017 by the team behind Altrincham Market, led by Nick Johnson and Jenny Thompson. The Smithfield Market complex was once believed to be the largest market site in Britain.

Nine independent kitchens and bars serve everything from sourdough pizza and rare breed beef to Thai food and craft beer. Everyone orders from the kitchen they fancy, then you all sit down together, so a big group of flatmates can each choose something different. It opens from 9am Tuesday to Sunday, so it works for brunch as well as dinner.

Rudy's in Ancoats is where Rudy's Pizza began in 2015, serving Neapolitan pizza on Cotton Street among Ancoats' independent bars and creative spaces. The dough is made fresh and slowly fermented for up to 24 hours, giving a light base, a soft centre and an airy crust. Pizzas are topped with San Marzano tomatoes, fior di latte mozzarella and Italian ingredients, then baked quickly at a high temperature.

Rudy's takes walk-ins as well as bookings, which helps when you are out with a big group of new flatmates. You can also order click and collect or delivery. Follow your pizza with dessert at BLACK MILK.

Cutting Room Square is a pedestrianised square at the centre of Ancoats, with trees and planters set among the old mill buildings. It is surrounded by independent restaurants and bars, including Rudy's and Seven Bro7hers Beerhouse, so it is a natural place to meet up before a night out. Look for the five giant monoliths framing enlarged photographs by Ancoats artist-in-residence Dan Dubowitz.

On one side stands Hallé St Peter's, a Grade II listed former church built in 1859 and designed by Isaac Holden, founder chairman of the Manchester Society of Architects. It closed as a church shortly after its centenary, and after years of restoration it reopened in 2013 as the rehearsal and recording home of the Hallé orchestra, its choirs and Youth Orchestra. A three-storey extension, the Oglesby Centre, opened in 2019 with practice rooms and performance spaces.

Seven Bro7hers Beerhouse on Blossom Street in Ancoats belongs to a craft brewery run by seven real brothers from Salford. The brothers were inspired by their father's home brewing, and the beerhouse pours the brewery's own beers such as Honeycomb Pale Ale, Easy IPA, Juicy IPA and Helles Lager. The range also takes in a Pilsner and a Chocolate Honeycomb Stout.

The kitchen serves burgers, gyros, kebabs and halloumi, so you can eat and drink in one stop. You can book a table or hire the venue for birthdays and work events. It opens from midday every day, and until midnight on Fridays and Saturdays.

Hope Mill Theatre is an award-winning theatre in a mill building in Ancoats, opened in November 2015 as a producing venue by Joseph Houston and William Whelton. It was named Fringe Venue of the Year at The Stage Awards in 2018 and 2026, and its programme includes musicals. There is a restaurant and bar too, so you can make a full evening of it.

Hope Mill also runs a Community Hub with classes, and offers a BA (Hons) in Musical Theatre Performance, the first higher education course directly linked to a producing venue. The theatre is a registered charity and also hires out its theatre and rehearsal studio. Book a show with your new flatmates for a night out with a difference.

Ancoats Coffee Co. was founded in 2013 to roast and serve coffee with the same care as Manchester's industrial heritage. It roasts small batches on site inside Royal Mills, in a roastery beside the café where you can see the roasting. The café keeps the building's original brick, beams and tall ceilings, with light coming through the glass atrium.

Royal Mills was built in 1912 as one of the last great cotton mills in East Manchester, and took its royal name after King George VI and Queen Elizabeth visited in 1942. Its restoration won a Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors award in 2007. Grab a speciality coffee and walk it down to Ancoats Marina.

Flawd is a waterside wine bar, bottle shop and small-plates kitchen on New Islington Marina in Ancoats, opened in 2021 by the team behind Higher Ground. It focuses on natural wine from small-scale, low-intervention winemakers, with bottles to take away as well as to drink in. It describes itself as a neighbourhood wine bar and kitchen, with seasonal dishes meant for sharing.

The blackboard menu of seasonal plates to share changes often, using hyper-local ingredients, many grown at the team's own Cinderwood Market Garden in Cheshire. Expect seasonal vegetables, cheese, charcuterie and fresh bread from Pollen Bakery. Flawd opens Wednesday to Sunday and takes reservations as well as walk-ins.

Ancoats Marina, officially New Islington Marina, is a waterside spot in the area once known as the world's first industrial suburb. It sits on the first new canal arm built in the city since the Manchester Ship Canal, with one basin on the Rochdale Canal and another on the Ashton Canal. Canal boats tie up at floating pontoons and a mix of long-stay and visitor moorings.

Next to the marina, Cotton Field Park began in 2002 as part of the Millennium Village project for New Islington. It has a boardwalk, an urban beach, an orchard island, a grove of Scots pines, and wildflowers and reed beds that attract wildlife. Cross the three-way New Islington footbridge and look for the words CAST NO SHADOW reflected in the water, a nod to the Oasis song.

Wing Yip on Oldham Road in Ancoats is a large Asian superstore run by a family business. The business began in 1970, when Woon Wing Yip and his brother Sammy opened a specialist Chinese grocery in Digbeth, Birmingham, and it opened its first Manchester shop, on Faulkner Street, in 1977. Today Wing Yip supplies over 4,500 Asian ingredients.

Stock up your student kitchen with noodles, soy sauces, dried goods, snacks, fresh and frozen food, or pick up ready-made meals. The store also sells cookware and tableware for your new flat. There is an on-site car park, and the store opens seven days a week.