Whalley Range

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Whalley Range, a district of Manchester, lies about 1.5 miles south-west of the city centre. House prices have increased in recent years with the extensive redevelopment. As with nearby Chorlton, parts of it have become gentrified since the 1990s.

[edit] Musical Associations

The area has a number of musical associations. It was immortalised by Morrissey in the 1984 song by The Smiths Miserable Lie which featured the lines:
"What do we get for our trouble and pain? / Just a rented room in Whalley Range".

Morrissey briefly lived in Whalley Range with his friend the photographer and Ludus singer Linder Sterling, in a house shared with other musicians.

Former Stone Roses drummer Alan "Reni" Wren lives on Grosvenor Road, in Whalley Range.

Mark Collins, guitarist of The Charlatans grew up in Whalley Range, though he today lives in Chorlton.

Nico, singer with the Vevet Underground, also lived in Whalley Range in the 1980s.

An earlier musical association is that Jimi Hendrix stayed in a house on the corner of Wellington Road during his final UK tour.

The mother of Irish rock star Phil Lynott, front man of Thin Lizzy, ran the Clifton Grange Hotel on Upper Chorlton Road (since demolished). The hotel was used extensively by touring rock bands during the 1960s and 1970s. George Best also frequented the hotel. Lynott spent part of his youth living with his mother at the hotel and went to the nearby Princess Road Junior School. He immortalised the hotel on the eponymous track from Thin Lizzy's debut album.

Whalley Range became the city's main red light district during the 1960s but now the area is beginning to lose this negative label since extensive gentrification has taken place.