Step inside Victorian Manchester's wildest pubs

'We've only had five fights and a stabbing since eight o’clock. It’s been very quiet indeed,' the landlord said

In a city with a drink problem, Victorian Manchester’s pubs were the stuff of legend.

Brightly-lit, with warm fires and cheap ale, they were palaces compared with their customers’ cold, dark homes and offered a wealth of entertainment in the form of skittle alleys, rat pits and even backroom boxing rings.

Mostly, though, the drunks fought in the streets.

“…