Mancunians embark on marathon restoration of ‘Our Town Hall’

[MANCHESTER TOWN HALL is without doubt one of the most iconic landmarks in the city. It is regarded as one of the finest examples of neo-Gothic architecture in the UK, and is one of the most important Grade One-listed buildings in England.

There had been a Town Hall in Manchester prior to the current building, which was opened in 1877, but the neo-classical building on King Street had become too small to house the expanding business of the corporation.

A competition was held and won by Alfred Waterhouse, already known to Mancunians for his design of the Assize Courts – his first major commission. He would go on to create The Natural History Museum in Kensington.

The site for the new Town Hall was an irregular triangle. The building was to contain a great hall, reception rooms, offices for all the corporation’s departments and a chamber for council meetings, as well as living quarters for the Lord Mayor.

The resulting building is a masterpiece of Victorian Gothic, described in Country Life in 2019 as ‘the finest building of its kind in Britain’.

In his 1895 tome Municipalities at Work, Frederick Dolman states: “The Town Hall itself must astonish many a Londoner, unaccustomed as yet to the idea of a great municipal organisation, when he beholds it for the first time from the centre of Albert Square. The building cost over a million of money, took ten years (1868-77) to erect, and contains 314 rooms, wherein the daily work is done of the many departments of Manchester's municipal actions.”

Despite its grandeur it was designed as a working building, with innovations such as a warm-air heating system.

Built into one of the angle turrets of the 280-ft tower is a 173-step staircase leading to the bell chamber and the clock, with its Polish glass face and 10ft-long minute hand. The clock mechanism was made by Gillet and Bland, and was started on New Year’s Day 1879. The inscription on the three clock faces which are visible from Albert Square reads “Teach us to number our Days”. There are 24 bells in the tower: the Great Hour Bell weighs 8 tons 2 cwt and is called Great Abel, named after Abel Heywood, the Mayor at the time of the official opening.

By the beginning of this century the building was showing its age, and in 2014 a series of condition surveys and investigations was carried out to understand what was needed to restore both the building and the adjoining Albert Square. In January 2018 the Town Hall was closed for a restoration project that will last until 2024. It has been dubbed the ’Our Town Hall’ project to reflect the fact the building belongs to the people of Manchester.

Deputy Council Leader Cllr Luthfur Rahman has described it thus: “This is the biggest heritage project currently underway in the UK and will provide a remarkable legacy for Manchester – improving public access to this remarkable building and its artefacts and safeguarding it for future generations. It will also help many Mancunians into careers in construction.”

Manchester City Council said: “The Town Hall itself is being repaired, refurbished and brought into line with the requirements of a modern-day civic building; however much of the work we’re doing won’t actually show once it’s reopened. There’s a huge amount of ‘invisible’ work with this project: we’ve been taking out the many obsolete elements from the building, such as the clunky and chunky Victorian plumbing and heating, and replacing it by building in new services that are either underground, out of sight or designed to fit their situation.

“We also took out the inappropriately tackedon kitchen extension in the courtyard, and it’s being rebuilt in a style much more fitting to this iconic Grade One-listed building.”

It's a labour of love for the contractors, such as Lancashire-based Stone Edge North Ltd. They have been on the site for nearly three years – longer than anybody other than the scaffolders. Having undertaken stone cleaning to the external fabric, dismantled and rebuilt chimneys, refurbished metalwork and carried out fabric repairs in the internal courtyards, they are now on the second phase of works.

The Town Hall organ – built by renowned organ-maker Aristide Cavaillé-Coll of Paris in 1877 – is also in the process of being restored jointly by Nicholson & Co of Malvern and Flentrop Orgelbouw of the Netherlands. q