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Bernard Manning’s World Famous Embassy Club set to be demolished for health centre

Monday, 2 March 2026 19:14

By Ethan Davies

The World Famous Embassy Club in Harpurhey is set to close down this month and be demolished, Manchester council says.

The World Famous Embassy Club in Harpurhey is set to close down this month and be demolished, Manchester council says.

The club, opened in 1959 by comic Bernard Manning, will close at the end of March, we understand. It is now owned by his son, Bernard Manning Jr, who took the Rochdale Road venue on after his dad retired in 1999 before passing away in 2007.

Manning Jr then put the club up for sale in 2014, and has faced an uncertain future since 2017 when a London-based Evangelical Church lodged a planning application to host services at the venue. At the time, top councillor Pat Karney said the town hall would oppose the move.

Ultimately, it never came to fruition. However, the Embassy’s days are numbered as the current operators are due to move out on March 31 we understand.

Manchester council has now bought the club and the land around it and plans to knock it down to make way for a new health centre, set to be one of the city’s largest. Town hall chiefs are ready to kick-start a health drive in Harpurhey, which has ‘one of the worst health profiles in the country’, with a week-long festival.

“We have mobilised the community for the biggest health festival that Harpurhey has ever seen,” Coun Karney said in announcing the health drive.

A timeline for demolishing the Club and building a new health centre has yet to be confirmed, but no planning application has yet been submitted for the move, suggesting it will take at least several months for the vision to be unveiled.

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