Victorian Manchester

Mention Manchester, and out come the clichés. Cottonmills and canals, sweatshops and socialists, back-to-backs and Corrie. Grime, crime, poverty, and oppression. But Manchester is also a city of swagger. Think of United. Think of Oasis.

And think, too, of its magnificent Victorian architecture.

By 1800, Manchester was the commercial hub of the North-West. Other towns made more cotton, but they came to Manchester to buy and sell. And all the associated industries were here, too: engineering, chemicals, banking. In the first half of the 19th century its rate of population growth doubled that even of London.

Yes, the workers lived in terraces of overcrowded slums. But that wasn’t the face Victorian Manchester showed to the world. And if the marble and terracotta, the turrets and cupolas, the quoins and pediments seem extravagant, they had a practical purpose: to make money. In Victorian times, ostentation was proof of success. There was no premium on modesty.

Depressions, recessions, air-raids, and town planners have all had their wicked way, but central Manchester is still studded with grand Victorian buildings. One thing has changed, though. In their heyday these buildings were not generally open to the public, who must gawp from outside.

They were temples of commerce: exclusive, even secretive. In our more democratic age, many have opened their doors as hotels, pubs, restaurants, art galleries, and theatres. So even if the lures for you are Old Trafford and The Trafford Centre, you’re still likely to find yourself, at some point in your visit, experiencing the opulent legacy of a century ago.

Deansgate, Manchester’s spine, knits the city together both geographically and historically. At its northern end the Cathedral with its 15th-century woodcarvings was the heart of medieval Manchester. But our excursion starts at the southern end, where industrial and commercial Manchester was born. Wharfs were first built on the Irwell here in the 1720s. The Bridgwater Canal followed in 1760; the Rochdale Canal in 1804. Finally, in 1830, the Liverpool & Manchester Railway launched the world’s first passenger train service here. It was this confluence of transport systems that gave Manchester the edge over other Lancashire towns – and two centuries of regional dominance.

Let’s start at Liverpool Road Station, always claimed as the world’s first, although obviously it shares the honour with the Liverpool terminus. British Rail, no sentimentalist, closed it in 1975; but it was soon reborn as the Museum of Science & Industry, which has since expanded into three Victorian warehouses and the former Campfield Market Lower Hall (built in 1878) and has uncounted exhibits ranging from a gas-powered hair-dryer to a four-engined Shackleton maritime patrol aircraft.

Following Liverpool Road east, we cross Deansgate into Great Bridgewater Street, passing the Great Northern, once a vast range of warehouses, today a complex of shops and restaurants with its own casino and cinema.

Great Bridgewater Street is home to two Victorian pubs worth a visit not only for their architecture but also for their beer. The Rain Bar, another Victorian warehouse on the Rochdale Canal, was turned into a spectacular pub by local brewer JW Lees in 1999. Opposite is the small, plain, early Victorian Peveril of the Peak, which was utterly transformed in about 1900 when it was sheathed entirely in ceramic tiles – jade on the ground floor, cream above.

Up Chepstow Street to Oxford Street, and the Palace Theatre and Palace Hotel. The theatre is older than it looks, dating to 1891, but was rebuilt after wartime bomb-damage. The 275-bedroom red brick and terracotta hotel next door was built in 1895 as the head office of Refuge Assurance, which moved out in 1987. The architect was Alfred Waterhouse, who also designed the Town Hall; but the hotel’s chief glory, the 217-foot clock tower, was only added in 1912.

There’s more brick and terracotta in St Peter’s Street, this time with polished granite as well, at the Midland Hotel, built in 1898 to serve Manchester Central Station. The station later became the G-MEX centre, now Manchester Central; but the Midland was always where the stars stayed when in town – Rolls and Royce met here to found their car company, and the Beatles were refused service in the restaurant for being improperly dressed. Hitler planned to use it as his regional HQ, but never checked in.

Next door is a Manchester landmark, now the Radisson Edwardian Hotel but originally the Free Trade Hall. Built in the 1850s on the site of the Peterloo Massacre, it was home to the Hallé Orchestra until 1996. It was a big rock venue, too: heard the clip from 1966 of Dylan being booed as a Judas by a disgruntled folkie? It happened here. The Sex Pistols played here in 1976 to an audience of 40: several times that number claim to have been there.

The enormous Town Hall in Albert Square is one of Britain’s finest Victorian Gothic monuments. Designed by Waterhouse in the 13th-century Early English style, it was opened in 1877 – but not by Queen Victoria. She stayed away, not at all amused by the radical mayor Abel Heywood.

Time for a breather and a beer. Up Cross Street is Mr Thomas’s Chop House, a corner pub opened in 1870 but rebuilt in 1901 using revolutionary techniques including a steel frame. Very cutting edge; but you wouldn’t guess it from the cosily traditional interior. The perfect antidote to all the mountains of decorated masonry we’ve seen so far.

Our journey ends further up Cross Street at the Royal Exchange. Built in the 1860s, it was the Cotton Exchange until 1968 and had the biggest trading floor in Britain. The hall was requisitioned as a theatre in 1973, but the floor wasn’t strong enough to bear the weight of the seating. So the astonishing hi-tech module hangs from the columns that support the dome, only the stage itself resting on the floor. A perfect example of how Manchester blends the grandiose and florid with the technical and practical.

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