This dark, narrow street looks towards Bull Green at the top and opens out into George Square at the bottom, behind the camera. On the left the shopfronts are 19th-century alterations to the rear of Somerset House, the stupendous Georgian mansion built in 1766 for the textile manufacturer John Royds and used by him and his family both as a residence and warehouse for storing yarn and cloth.

The current renovation of the grander south side of the house, facing Rawson Street, are just about complete. At the top of the street is the Griffin pub, now known as Griff's. The buildings on the right were torn down in the 1930s for redevelopment and the Bull's Head pub, at the top of the much-widened George Street (second picture) opened in 1940. But the Second World War put paid to further building and the four-storey block of shops and offices between the Bull's Head and George Square was not completed until the 1950s.