Manchester Town Hall is a
Victorian,
Neo-gothic municipal building in
Manchester
Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The ...
, England. It is the ceremonial headquarters of
Manchester City Council
Manchester City Council is the local authority for Manchester, a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. Manchester is the sixth largest city in England by population. Its city council is composed of 96 councillors, three f ...
and houses a number of local government departments. The building faces
Albert Square to the north and
St Peter's Square
Saint Peter's Square ( la, Forum Sancti Petri, it, Piazza San Pietro ,) is a large plaza located directly in front of St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican City, the papal enclave inside Rome, directly west of the neighborhood (rione) of Borgo. ...
to the south, with
Manchester Cenotaph
Manchester Cenotaph is a war memorial in St Peter's Square, Manchester, England. Manchester was late in commissioning a First World War memorial compared with most British towns and cities; the city council did not convene a war memorial commi ...
facing its southern entrance.
Designed by architect
Alfred Waterhouse
Alfred Waterhouse (19 July 1830 – 22 August 1905) was an English architect, particularly associated with the Victorian Gothic Revival architecture, although he designed using other architectural styles as well. He is perhaps best known ...
, the town hall was completed in 1877. The building contains offices and grand ceremonial rooms such as the Great Hall which is decorated with
Ford Madox Brown's imposing ''
Manchester Murals
''The Manchester Murals'' are a series of twelve paintings by Ford Madox Brown in the Great Hall of Manchester Town Hall and are based on the history of Manchester. Following the success of Brown's painting ''Work'' he was commissioned to pain ...
'' illustrating the
history of the city. The entrance and Sculpture Hall contain busts and statues of influential figures including
Dalton,
Joule
The joule ( , ; symbol: J) is the unit of energy in the International System of Units (SI). It is equal to the amount of work done when a force of 1 newton displaces a mass through a distance of 1 metre in the direction of the force appli ...
and
Barbirolli
Sir John Barbirolli ( Giovanni Battista Barbirolli; 2 December 189929 July 1970) was a British conductor and cellist. He is remembered above all as conductor of the Hallé Orchestra in Manchester, which he helped save from dissolution in 194 ...
. The exterior is dominated by the clock tower which rises to and houses ''Great Abel'', the clock bell.
In 1938, a detached
Town Hall Extension was completed and is connected by two covered bridges over Lloyd Street. The town hall was designated as a Grade I
listed building
In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern I ...
on 25 February 1952.
History
Old Town Hall
Manchester's original civic administration was housed in the Police Office in
King Street. It was replaced by the first Town Hall, to accommodate the growing local government and its civic assembly rooms. The Town Hall, also located in King Street at the corner of Cross Street, was designed by
Francis Goodwin and constructed between 1822 and 1825, much of it by
David Bellhouse. The building was designed with a screen of
Ionic columns across a recessed centre, in a classicising manner strongly influenced by
John Soane. The building was long and deep, the ground floor housed committee rooms and offices for the Chief Constable, Surveyor, Treasurer, other officers and clerks. The first floor held the Assembly Rooms. The building and land cost £39,587.
As the size and wealth of the city grew, largely as a result of the
textile industry
The textile industry is primarily concerned with the design, production and distribution of yarn, textile, cloth and clothing. The raw material may be Natural material, natural, or synthetic using products of the chemical industry.
Industry p ...
, its administration outstripped the existing facilities, and a new building was proposed. The King Street building was subsequently occupied by a lending library and then Lloyds Bank. The facade was removed to
Heaton Park in 1912, when a bank,
53 King Street was erected on the site.
New town hall
Planning for the new town hall began in 1863. Manchester Corporation demanded it be, 'equal if not superior, to any similar building in the country at any cost which may be reasonably required'. The choice of location was influenced by a desire to provide a central, accessible, but relatively quiet site in a respectable district, close to Manchester's banks and municipal offices, next to a large open area, suitable for the display of a fine building.
After investigating suitable sites, including
Piccadilly
Piccadilly () is a road in the City of Westminster, London, to the south of Mayfair, between Hyde Park Corner in the west and Piccadilly Circus in the east. It is part of the A4 road that connects central London to Hammersmith, Earl's Cour ...
, an oddly shaped plot facing
Albert Square was chosen.
The Albert Square frontage measures , Lloyd Street is , Princess Street the longest at and Cooper Street measures . On this tight site, the corporation built a grand hall, a suite of reception rooms, quarters for the lord mayor, offices and a council chamber.
The second stage of a competition to design the town hall which attracted 137 entries was judged by
Thomas Leverton Donaldson, a classicist, and gothicist
George Edmund Street
George Edmund Street (20 June 1824 – 18 December 1881), also known as G. E. Street, was an English architect, born at Woodford in Essex. Stylistically, Street was a leading practitioner of the Victorian Gothic Revival. Though mainly an eccle ...
. The eight finalists were Waterhouse, William Lee, Speakman & Charlesworth,
Cuthbert Brodrick,
Thomas Worthington,
John Oldrid Scott,
Thomas Henry Wyatt
Thomas Henry Wyatt (9 May 1807 – 5 August 1880) was an Anglo-Irish architect. He had a prolific and distinguished career, being elected President of the Royal Institute of British Architects 1870–73 and being awarded its Royal Gold Medal for ...
and
Edward Salomons. In terms of design and aesthetics, Waterhouse's proposal was placed fourth behind those of Speakman & Charlesworth, Oldrid Scott and Worthington but his design was considered far superior in architectural quality, layout and use of light and he was appointed architect on 1 April 1868.
The foundation stone was laid on 26 October 1868 by the
Mayor
In many countries, a mayor is the highest-ranking official in a municipal government such as that of a city or a town. Worldwide, there is a wide variance in local laws and customs regarding the powers and responsibilities of a mayor as well ...
, Robert Neill. Construction took nine years and used 14 million bricks.
Estimates for the cost of construction vary from £775,000
to around £1,000,000
translating to between £ and £ in . When
Queen Victoria
Victoria (Alexandrina Victoria; 24 May 1819 – 22 January 1901) was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until her death in 1901. Her reign of 63 years and 216 days was longer than that of any previ ...
refused to attend, Manchester Town Hall was opened on 13 September 1877 by the mayor,
Abel Heywood, who had championed the project.
Town Hall Extension
In 1927, a competition to design the
Town Hall Extension was won by
Emanuel Vincent Harris, the architect who also won a competition to design
the city's Central Library. Work began on the extension in 1934 and was completed by 1938.
Charles Herbert Reilly
Sir Charles Herbert Reilly (4 March 1874 – 2 February 1948) was an English architect and teacher. After training in two architectural practices in London he took up a part-time lectureship at the University of London in 1900, and from 1904 to ...
, a contemporary architecture critic, thought the extension was 'dull' and 'drab' while
Nikolaus Pevsner
Sir Nikolaus Bernhard Leon Pevsner (30 January 1902 – 18 August 1983) was a German-British art historian and architectural historian best known for his monumental 46-volume series of county-by-county guides, '' The Buildings of England'' ...
considered it was Harris's best work. It is linked to the town hall by glazed pedestrian bridges at first-floor level.
21st-century refurbishment
By late 2014, the Town Hall was being described as "being in urgent need of essential repair" and modernisation. In a 2014 report, Manchester City Council highlighted the need to replace the building's heating and electrical systems, refurbish windows and high-level stonework and repair parts of the roofing. The cost of this work, including work on improving the adjoining square, all of which is scheduled for completion in 2024, is estimated to be £230 million. Over 500 timber windows will be restored as part of this renovation project.
Architecture
The rapid growth and accompanying pollution in Victorian cities caused great problems for architects including denial of light, overcrowding, awkward sites, noise, accessibility and visibility of buildings, and air pollution. Provision for "the sufficiency of window light supplied throughout the building" was addressed by the use of architectural devices: suspended first floor rooms, made possible by the use of iron-framed construction,
skylight
A skylight (sometimes called a rooflight) is a light-permitting structure or window, usually made of transparent or translucent glass, that forms all or part of the roof space of a building for daylighting and ventilation purposes.
History
Open ...
s, extra windows and
dormer
A dormer is a roofed structure, often containing a window, that projects vertically beyond the plane of a pitched roof. A dormer window (also called ''dormer'') is a form of roof window.
Dormers are commonly used to increase the usable spac ...
s, "borrowed lights" for interior spaces and glazed white bricks in conjunction with
mosaic
A mosaic is a pattern or image made of small regular or irregular pieces of colored stone, glass or ceramic, held in place by plaster/mortar, and covering a surface. Mosaics are often used as floor and wall decoration, and were particularly pop ...
marble paving in areas where the light was "less strong".
Clear glass was used in important rooms, with light-coloured tints for coloured glazing, as "the sky of Manchester does not favour the employment of deeply stained glass."
The building exemplifies the Victorian
Gothic revival style of architecture, using themes and elements from 13th-century
Early English Gothic architecture. Gothic features most prominent in the Manchester Town Hall are low
rib vault
A rib vault or ribbed vault is an architectural feature for covering a wide space, such as a church nave, composed of a framework of crossed or diagonal arched ribs. Variations were used in Roman architecture, Byzantine architecture, Islami ...
ceilings and tall arched windows. The choice of the Gothic was influenced by the wish for a spiritual acknowledgement of Manchester's late medieval heritage in the textile trade of the
Hanseatic league
The Hanseatic League (; gml, Hanse, , ; german: label= Modern German, Deutsche Hanse) was a medieval commercial and defensive confederation of merchant guilds and market towns in Central and Northern Europe. Growing from a few North German to ...
and an affirmation of modernity in the fashionable neo-Gothic style favoured over the Neoclassical architecture of Liverpool.
Despite its medieval styling, the building was designed to support the practical technologies of the 19th century. It had
gas lighting, and a warm-air heating system, which provided fresh air drawn through ornamental stone air inlets below the windows and admitted behind the hot water pipes and 'coils' into the rooms. Warmed, fresh air was fed into the stairwells and through hollow shafts within the spiral staircases to ventilate the corridors.
Pipes supplying gas for lighting were ingeniously concealed underneath the banister rails of the spiral staircases.
Waterhouse designed the building structure to be fireproof, using a combination of concrete and wrought-iron beams.
Exterior
In mid-19th-century Manchester, many important
Georgian buildings were blackened by
atmospheric pollution. By the 1870s the local soft red
Collyhurst sandstone was deemed to be unsuitable for public buildings, and tough
Pennine sandstone
Sandstone is a clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate grains. Sandstones comprise about 20–25% of all sedimentary rocks.
Most sandstone is composed of quartz or feldspar (both silicat ...
s were preferred.
The architectural competition entries were judged in part on their suitability for the "climate of the district", and sample stone types were investigated. Waterhouse believed it was a matter of great difficulty to find a stone "proof against the evil influences of the peculiar climate of Manchester" but decided that the
Bradford Dale
The River Bradford is a river in the Peak District National Park in Derbyshire. Its source is on Gratton Moor and after passing below Youlgreave it joins the River Lathkill at Alport. Less than in length, its waters are very clear due to the ...
-quarried Spinkwell Stone and Bolton Woods Stone/Gaisby Rock/Elland Flags stone would resist "the deleterious influences of Manchester atmosphere".
The interior decoration was chosen with a view to providing permanent colour and cleanable surfaces. Public corridors were faced with
terracotta
Terracotta, terra cotta, or terra-cotta (; ; ), in its material sense as an earthenware substrate, is a clay-based unglazed or glazed ceramic where the fired body is porous.
In applied art, craft, construction, and architecture, terra ...
rather than plaster, and extensive use was made of stone
vaulted ceilings, tiled
dados and washable mosaic floors.
Waterhouse's design used a Gothic style with limited carved decoration and a uniform colour, a departure from the high
Victorian heaviness and colour used in contemporary
Ruskinian Gothic
High Victorian Gothic was an eclectic architectural style and movement during the mid-late 19th century. It is seen by architectural historians as either a sub-style of the broader Gothic Revival style, or a separate style in its own right.
Promo ...
buildings, and was criticised by some Manchester inhabitants for not being Gothic enough. The decision to spend large amounts of money on a building "when most of its architectural effect would be lost because ruined by soot and made nearly invisible by smoke" was criticised.
Waterhouse avoided using a
polychrome
Polychrome is the "practice of decorating architectural elements, sculpture, etc., in a variety of colors." The term is used to refer to certain styles of architecture, pottery or sculpture in multiple colors.
Ancient Egypt
Colossal statu ...
scheme as seen in High Victorian Gothic buildings such as
St Pancras railway station
St Pancras railway station (), also known as London St Pancras or St Pancras International and officially since 2007 as London St Pancras International, is a central London railway terminus on Euston Road in the London Borough of Camden. It i ...
believing it to be impractical as Manchester's industrial atmosphere would quickly ruin the effect and decided a uniform stone exterior was the better solution. Statues of notable figures in the city's history decorate its exterior, that of
Agricola, founder of the Roman fort is over the main door and over its gable is a statue of
St George
Saint George ( Greek: Γεώργιος (Geórgios), Latin: Georgius, Arabic: القديس جرجس; died 23 April 303), also George of Lydda, was a Christian who is venerated as a saint in Christianity. According to tradition he was a soldier ...
. Statues of Thomas Grelley, first
lord of the manor
Lord of the Manor is a title that, in Anglo-Saxon England, referred to the landholder of a rural estate. The lord enjoyed manorial rights (the rights to establish and occupy a residence, known as the manor house and demesne) as well as seig ...
,
Humphrey Chetham and
Thomas de la Warre are among six at the corner of Albert Square and Princess Street. Waterhouse's design proved successful and although its exterior was blackened by the late 1890s, the stonework was in a suitable condition to be cleaned and restored to its original appearance in the late 1960s.
Clock tower
The tall bell tower, the
sixth tallest building in Manchester, houses a
carillon
A carillon ( , ) is a pitched percussion instrument that is played with a keyboard and consists of at least 23 cast-bronze bells. The bells are hung in fixed suspension and tuned in chromatic order so that they can be sounded harmoni ...
of 23
bells
Bells may refer to:
* Bell, a musical instrument
Places
* Bells, North Carolina
* Bells, Tennessee
* Bells, Texas
* Bells Beach, Victoria, an internationally famous surf beach in Australia
* Bells Corners, Ontario
Music
* Bells, directly st ...
: 12 are hung for full circle
change ringing
Change ringing is the art of ringing a set of tuned bells in a tightly controlled manner to produce precise variations in their successive striking sequences, known as "changes". This can be by method ringing in which the ringers commit to memor ...
and were manufactured by
John Taylor Bellfounders.
The clock bell, ''Great Abel'', named after Abel Heywood, weighs 8 tons 2.5 cwt and 4 of 12 ringing bells are used for the
Westminster Clock Chime. Its clock, made by Gillett and Bland (predecessor of
Gillett and Johnston
Gillett & Johnston was a clockmaker and bell foundry based in Croydon, England from 1844 until 1957. Between 1844 and 1950, over 14,000 tower clocks were made at the works. The company's most successful and prominent period of activity as a be ...
), was originally wound using hydraulic power supplied by
Manchester Hydraulic Power. The clock bell first rang on New Year's Day 1879, but cracked, was replaced in 1882, and then recast with all the bells in 1937. Its clock face bears the inscription ''Teach us to number our Days'', from
Psalm 90
Psalm 90 is the 90th psalm from the Book of Psalms and the opening psalm of Book 4 of the psalms. Uniquely among the Psalms, it is attributed to Moses. It is well known for its reference in verse 10 to human life expectancy being 70 or 80 ("thr ...
:12. The clock bell is inscribed with the initials AH for Abel Heywood and the line ''Ring out the false, ring in the true'' from
Tennyson's "
Ring Out, Wild Bells
"Ring Out, Wild Bells" is a poem by Alfred, Lord Tennyson. Published in 1850, the year he was appointed Poet Laureate, it forms part of '' In Memoriam'', Tennyson's elegy to Arthur Henry Hallam, his sister's fiancé who died at the age of 22.
A ...
".
As of 2017, Change-Ringing is not currently permitted on the bells, due to the necessity of a restoration to the building.
Interior
Waterhouse's plan for the town hall bridged the gap between office and ceremonial requirements and maximised space on its triangular site.
His design for a six-storey building filled the asymmetrical site. Set around its perimeter is a
cloister
A cloister (from Latin ''claustrum'', "enclosure") is a covered walk, open gallery, or open arcade running along the walls of buildings and forming a quadrangle or garth. The attachment of a cloister to a cathedral or church, commonly against ...
of corridors linking offices and everyday workings. Its grandiose, ceremonial features are centrally located. By the main entrance on Albert Square are two grand staircases leading to the landing outside its Great Hall. The stairs have low
risers allowing access for women in Victorian
dress. The walls of the staircases have tall, arched windows admitting daylight. Three
spiral staircases accessing the first floor from entrances on Princess Street, Lloyd Street and Cooper Street are constructed in English, Scottish and Irish
granite
Granite () is a coarse-grained ( phaneritic) intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly cools and solidifies un ...
.
Sculpture Hall
The ground-floor Sculpture Hall contains statues and
busts of people who made significant contributions to Manchester, the
Anti-Corn Law campaigners,
Richard Cobden and
John Bright, and scientists
John Dalton
John Dalton (; 5 or 6 September 1766 – 27 July 1844) was an English chemist, physicist and meteorologist. He is best known for introducing the atomic theory into chemistry, and for his research into Color blindness, colour blindness, which ...
and
James Joule among many others. The room measures 53 feet by 33 feet and has a groin vaulted ceiling, constructed out of Bath stone.
The Sculpture Hall Café is now located here.
Great Hall
The landing has a glazed skylight on which the names of mayors, lord mayors and chairs of the council since Manchester received its Charter of Corporation in 1838 are inscribed on glass panes.
The landing has a
mosaic
A mosaic is a pattern or image made of small regular or irregular pieces of colored stone, glass or ceramic, held in place by plaster/mortar, and covering a surface. Mosaics are often used as floor and wall decoration, and were particularly pop ...
floor with a pattern of bees and cotton flowers, both
symbols of Manchester. Influential Victorian critic
John Ruskin
John Ruskin (8 February 1819 20 January 1900) was an English writer, philosopher, art critic and polymath of the Victorian era. He wrote on subjects as varied as geology, architecture, myth, ornithology, literature, education, botany and pol ...
described the Great Hall as "The most truly magnificent Gothic apartment in Europe."
The rectangular hall measures by . Natural light permeates from seven high windows on either side of the hall from the courtyards outside. It has a
wagon roof
A barrel vault, also known as a tunnel vault, wagon vault or wagonhead vault, is an architectural element formed by the extrusion of a single curve (or pair of curves, in the case of a pointed barrel vault) along a given distance. The curves are ...
, its ceiling divided into panels bearing the arms of countries and towns with which Manchester traded at the zenith of its mercantile power. ''
The Manchester Murals
''The Manchester Murals'' are a series of twelve paintings by Ford Madox Brown in the Great Hall of Manchester Town Hall and are based on the history of Manchester. Following the success of Brown's painting ''Work'' he was commissioned to pain ...
'' by
Ford Madox Brown, a sequence of 12 paintings depicting the history of Manchester decorate its walls. They are not true
fresco
Fresco (plural ''frescos'' or ''frescoes'') is a technique of mural painting executed upon freshly laid ("wet") lime plaster. Water is used as the vehicle for the dry-powder pigment to merge with the plaster, and with the setting of the plast ...
es but use the
Gambier Parry process
The Gambier Parry process is a development of the classical technique of fresco for painting murals, named for Thomas Gambier Parry.
True fresco is the technique of painting on fresh lime plaster whereby the pigments are fixed by the carbonatat ...
.
The
organ
Organ may refer to:
Biology
* Organ (biology), a part of an organism
Musical instruments
* Organ (music), a family of keyboard musical instruments characterized by sustained tone
** Electronic organ, an electronic keyboard instrument
** Hammond ...
installed by
Aristide Cavaillé-Coll
Aristide Cavaillé-Coll (; 4 February 1811 – 13 October 1899) was a French organ builder. He has the reputation of being the most distinguished organ builder of the 19th century. He pioneered innovations in the art and science of organ build ...
in 1877 stands tall and had more than 5,000 pipes, five manuals and 65 speaking stops. Cavaillé-Coll cleaned it and added the solo organ in 1893. In 1912, T.C. Lewis of
Brixton
Brixton is a district in south London, part of the London Borough of Lambeth, England. The area is identified in the London Plan as one of 35 major centres in Greater London. Brixton experienced a rapid rise in population during the 19th cent ...
rebuilt it and added the echo division. Jardine of Manchester's minor rebuild in 1970 added the mobile five-manual console.
File:Manchester Town Hall, December 2016 (01).JPG, Entrance Vestibule
File:John Dalton statue Manchester City Hall 20051020.jpg, Statue of John Dalton
John Dalton (; 5 or 6 September 1766 – 27 July 1844) was an English chemist, physicist and meteorologist. He is best known for introducing the atomic theory into chemistry, and for his research into Color blindness, colour blindness, which ...
in entrance vestibule, sculpted 1837 by Francis Leggatt Chantrey
File:James Joule statue Manchester City Hall 20051020.jpg, Statue of James Prescott Joule in entrance vestibule, sculpted 1893 by Alfred Gilbert
File:Manchester Town Hall cafe-32205794142.jpg, The Entrance Hall
File:Manchester City Hall Staircase.jpg, The principal staircase with a spiral staircase projecting into it
File:Manchester City Hall Great Hall Foyer.jpg, The landing outside the Great Hall
File:Manchester Town Hall, Great Hall.jpg, The Great Hall, its walls decorated with ''The Manchester Murals
''The Manchester Murals'' are a series of twelve paintings by Ford Madox Brown in the Great Hall of Manchester Town Hall and are based on the history of Manchester. Following the success of Brown's painting ''Work'' he was commissioned to pain ...
''
File:Manchester City Hall Conference Hall.jpg, Conference Hall, originally the Council Chamber
File:Manchester City Hall Banqueting Room.jpg, Banqueting Room
File:Manchester City Hall Corridor.jpg, Corridor
Reception
The town hall is a Grade I
listed building
In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern I ...
, One of fifteen
Grade I listed buildings in Manchester
There are 48 Grade I listed buildings in Greater Manchester, England. In the United Kingdom, the term listed building refers to a building or other structure officially designated as being of special architectural, historical or cultural sign ...
, it is regarded as one of the finest interpretations of
Gothic revival architecture
Gothic Revival (also referred to as Victorian Gothic, neo-Gothic, or Gothick) is an architectural movement that began in the late 1740s in England. The movement gained momentum and expanded in the first half of the 19th century, as increasingly ...
in the world.
F. A. Bruton wrote that "The Town Hall ... is best viewed when the Square is empty and silent, as, for example, on Saturday afternoon or Sunday, and it is then that we may realise what a splendid "ruin" it will make, to excite the wonder of the South Sea Islander of the future."
James Stevens Curl described it as "a High-Victorian Gothic secular masterpiece that combines eclectic elements to form a style that can only be Victorian". It was voted Greater Manchester's favourite building by readers of the ''
Manchester Evening News
The ''Manchester Evening News'' (''MEN'') is a regional daily newspaper covering Greater Manchester in North West England, founded in 1868. It is published Monday–Saturday; a Sunday edition, the ''MEN on Sunday'', was launched in February 20 ...
'' in 2012 and in the same year featured in a series of
Royal Mail
, kw, Postya Riel, ga, An Post Ríoga
, logo = Royal Mail.svg
, logo_size = 250px
, type = Public limited company
, traded_as =
, foundation =
, founder = Henry VIII
, location = London, England, UK
, key_people = * Keith Williams ...
stamps commemorating British landmarks.
Current use
Council meetings are no longer regularly held in the town hall, but in the Town Hall Extension. The hall now has a number of other uses. It is licensed for weddings and civil partnerships and is available to hire for conferences and other events. Tours of the clock tower are available through external tour companies at a cost.
As the town hall bears some resemblance to the
Palace of Westminster
The Palace of Westminster serves as the meeting place for both the House of Commons and the House of Lords, the two houses of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Informally known as the Houses of Parliament, the Palace lies on the north b ...
, it has been used as a location for television and films. The original version of the political thriller
''House of Cards'' (1990) and the 2003 BBC drama series ''
State of Play'' both used the town hall to represent Westminster. The films ''
Ali G Indahouse'' (2001), ''
Sherlock Holmes
Sherlock Holmes () is a fictional detective created by British author Arthur Conan Doyle. Referring to himself as a " consulting detective" in the stories, Holmes is known for his proficiency with observation, deduction, forensic science and ...
'' (2008), ''
The Iron Lady'' (2011), ''
Victor Frankenstein'' (2014), and ''
A Very English Scandal'' (2018) also all used the town hall as a stand-in for the interiors of the Palace of Westminster.
In 2014, a 24-hour police station reopened in the town hall, having been closed since 1937. Unlike the original, the new station does not include custody cells, but officers are able to conduct interviews there.
Chief Superintendent
Chief superintendent is a senior rank in police forces, especially in those organised on the British model.
Rank insignia of chief superintendent
File:Sa-police-chief-superintendent.png, South Australia Police
File:RCMP Chief Superintendent.p ...
Nick Adderley described the location as "perfectly placed in the hub of the city" and suitable to "serve the needs of the public 24 hours a day."
Overnight on 23 June and into Friday 24 June 2016 the venue was used to announce the official result of the
EU Referendum by the chair of the
Electoral Commission acting as Chief Counting Officer (CSO)
Jenny Watson.
See also
* ''
Manchester Murals
''The Manchester Murals'' are a series of twelve paintings by Ford Madox Brown in the Great Hall of Manchester Town Hall and are based on the history of Manchester. Following the success of Brown's painting ''Work'' he was commissioned to pain ...
''
*
Manchester Town Hall Extension
*
Grade I listed buildings in Greater Manchester
*
Listed buildings in Manchester-M2
*
Rochdale Town Hall
Rochdale Town Hall is a Victorian-era municipal building in Rochdale, Greater Manchester, England. It is "widely recognised as being one of the finest municipal buildings in the country",. and is recorded in the National Heritage List for Engla ...
References
Notes
Bibliography
*
*
*
*
*
External links
Ground-floor plan of the town hallVideo from ''The Guardian''
{{Coord, 53, 28, 45, N, 2, 14, 39, W, type:landmark_region:GB-MAN, display=title
Alfred Waterhouse buildings
Bell towers in the United Kingdom
Brick buildings and structures
City and town halls in Greater Manchester
Clock towers in the United Kingdom
Government buildings completed in 1877
Grade I listed buildings in Manchester
Grade I listed government buildings
Gothic Revival architecture in Greater Manchester
Manchester City Council
Terracotta
Towers completed in 1877
Towers in Greater Manchester
1877 establishments in England