A Store of Sound, a Legacy of Hands (2025)
Forsyths on Deansgate isn’t just a shop; it’s part of Manchester’s fabric. Open since 1857, it helped lay the foundations for the Halle Orchestra and has been shaping musicians ever since.
It’s a place where kids trade school-loan violins for something truly theirs and where grandparents return with their grandkids, the years folding in on themselves. Outside, the city shifts. Inside, time slows. You can buy anything online, but you can’t feel the weight of a guitar through a screen. Forsyths is a reminder of what music really is - connection, expression and something real.
The shop speaks in an old language of quiet assurance. No rebrands here, no “pivot to digital”, just pure stubborn continuity since 1857.
Inside, the light falls exactly as it always has. Watch how it catches the dust, turning ordinary air into something from another century. Those upright pianos stand in formation, each one holding or anticipating stories in its polished wood - the nervous first touch, the proud purchase, the lifetime of living rooms they'll command.
The building knows what it's about - all that Victorian muscle wrapped around music. Every carved detail, every soaring ceiling height was built to hold sound properly. Bach preludes ghost through the air, Chopin etudes hide in the corners, waiting for the next pair of hands to wake them.
These windows have watched Deansgate transform around them, seen trams become cars become trams again. They've reflected every version of Manchester back at itself, while inside, the pianos wait. Patient. Permanent. Each one a quiet rebellion against a world gone digital.
Stand here and you'll feel it - how a building can hold music like stone holds heat. Not just a shop, this. More like a temple to something we're in danger of forgetting: that some things need to be touched, need to be felt, need to be played into life. Everything that matters about music, wrapped in Victorian brick, still standing its ground on Deansgate.
