Nancy Swanick, the former landlady of Manchester's iconic Peveril of the Peak pub, has been posthumously honoured with a Special Award from the Central Manchester CAMRA group for her long service and commitment to the venue.
Swanick, who died last month at the age of 96, ran the pub on Great Bridgewater Street from 1971. Under her stewardship, the Grade II-listed pub became one of the city's most recognisable venues, known for its emerald-green, yellow, and brown ceramic tiles. It holds a three-star rating on CAMRA's National Inventory of Historic Pub Interiors and was recently named the best pub in the country by Time Out London.
Special Award presented posthumously
Members of the Central Manchester CAMRA group visited the pub earlier this week to present the award. Sharing the news on Instagram, the pub wrote: "Thank you to the wonderful @camra_centralmcr for Nancy's award. She would have loved this and I am sure she would have shared a drink with you all. Cheers."
According to CAMRA, Swanick was insistent on retaining many of the pub's original interior features. In the 1990s, plans were proposed to transform the venue into a themed bar with plastic palm trees, but Swanick opposed the idea.
CAMRA tribute to Nancy's legacy
CAMRA Central Manchester Chair Sean O'Mahoney said: "This certificate is a celebration of the 55 years Nancy Swanick stood behind that bar. She spent those years deciding what kind of room the Peveril of the Peak was going to be, and she got it right every single day. Manchester was demolished and rebuilt twice over around that pub, and she never once let anyone touch it."
O'Mahoney added: "In the nineties her own brewery wanted to gut the interior and fill it with plastic palm trees. She called it vandalism and told them it wasn't happening. It didn't happen, and that is why one of the finest pub interiors in the country is still a working pub with a jukebox and a pool table rather than a museum piece."
In a tribute on the CAMRA website, O'Mahoney wrote of Swanick's way of working: "Her recipe for running a pub was short. No airs and graces, always be ready for a chat and look after your beer the way you would look after a baby. The framed Pub of the Year awards on the wall, accumulated across decades, are the receipt for that last instruction."
Family and legacy
Born in Muff, County Donegal, Nancy Murray came to Manchester in 1950 and worked as a mental health nurse. She took on the pub with her husband Tommy in 1971. "Her first answer was no," O'Mahoney said of her initial reaction. "The pub then sat among textile warehouses and print works and had a difficult reputation."
Nancy and Tommy lived in the flat above the bar with their three sons, Paul, Thomas and Maurice. When Tommy died in 1981, Nancy continued with the pub. Her two eldest sons Paul and Thomas died of cancer in their 50s, while son Maurice ran the pub alongside Nancy until his death in September last year. The pub will remain in the Swanick family, with Nancy's grandson Michael and his wife Rachael overseeing proceedings alongside general manager Samuel Hunter.
"A pub is made by somebody standing behind the bar, year after year, deciding what kind of room it is going to be," O'Mahoney recalled. "Nancy Swanick made that decision in 1971 and held the line for 55 years. The Pev has lost its matriarch. Manchester has lost one of its great characters. Thank you, Nancy. Manchester won't forget you."
