Architecture of Manchester - Post-Industrial Revolution - Public Buildings

Public Buildings

Manchester's first town hall, designed by Francis Goodwin, was constructed during 1822–25 in the neo-classical style with a screen of Ionic columns. Its facade was re-erected as a folly in Heaton Park at the west end of its lake in 1913. Manchester was granted a Charter of Incorporation in 1838. Classical architecture gave way to Neo-gothic and Palazzo styles in the Victorian Era. Edward Walters designed the iconic Free Trade Hall in the 1850s as a monument to the Peterloo Massacre and Manchester's pivotal role in the Anti-Corn Law League. Built as a public hall only the facade remains. The old town hall was replaced by the present Manchester Town Hall, designed by Alfred Waterhouse. Completed in 1877, its Great Hall contains the Manchester Murals by Ford Madox Brown.

Waterhouse was influenced by Pugin and most of his designs were in the Gothic Revival style. He is a prolific contributor to the design of Manchester's public, educational and commercial buildings. Waterhouse's exteriors used large quantities of "self-washing" terracotta to provide rich ornament in the polluted atmosphere and after 1880 his interiors were decorated with moulded and glazed faience both manufactured by the Burmantofts Pottery. He designed the Royal Insurance Office, in which he had an office, in 1861. The now demolished Manchester Assize Courts, built between 1864 to 1877 in the neo-Gothic style, was a major commission. In the 1860s Waterhouse designed Strangeways Gaol and its French Gothic style gatehouse in red brick with sandstone dressings and landmark tower in red brick with sandstone dressings in the style of a minaret.

The City Police Courts in red brick with an impressive tower in the Italian Gothic style was completed in 1871 in Minshull Street by another proponent of the Gothic style Thomas Worthington. Worthington's last commission in the city was the flamboyant Flemish Gothic Nicholls Hospital, an orphanage that is now part of The Manchester College and has similarities with the Minshull Street Courts.

Acres Fair moved to Castlefield in 1872 and after it was abolished, the market traders remained at Lower Campfield Market and Higher Campfield Market which were later covered by large, glazed buildings with cast-iron frames by Mangnall and Littlewood. Lower Campfield Market is now the Air and Space Gallery of the Museum of Science and Industry.

London Road Fire Station of 1906 was designed in the Edwardian Baroque style by Woodhouse, Willoughby and Langham in red brick and terracotta. The building, on the Buildings at Risk Register, is currently unoccupied. The eclectic Jacobean and Baroque styled Victoria Baths in Chorlton on Medlock opened in September 1906 providing private baths, a laundry, three swimming pools and Turkish bath.

In the 1930s Vincent Harris won competitions to design two of the city's civic buildings. Manchester Town Hall Extension between St Peter's Square and Lloyd Street was built between 1934 and 1938 to provide accommodation for local government services. Its eclectic style was designed to be a link between the ornate Gothic Revival Town Hall and the classical rotunda of the Central Library built four years earlier.