Uttley House (formerly named The Firs), is a Listed building, Grade II listed building and Halls of residence in Fallowfield, Manchester, England. It was designed and built in 1850 by Edward Walters, who was also responsible for Manchester’s Free Trade Hall. Originally a home for Sir Joseph Whitworth, The house is surrounded by five and a half acres of gardens to the south and an environmental research institute to the north. The house has seen many past uses, including a private home, hotel, vaccination clinic and conference centre.

History

The Firs

Whitworth used The Firs mainly as a social, political and business base, entertaining radicals of the age such as John Bright, Richard Cobden, William Edward Forster, William Forster and Thomas Henry Huxley, T. H. Huxley at the time of the Reform Bill of 1867. Whitworth, credited with raising the art of Machine tool, machine-tool building to a previously unknown level, supported the new Mechanics Institute in Manchester –the birthplace of UMIST – and helped to found the Manchester School of Design. To the rear, Whitworth had a shooting range — now the site of the University's horticultural glasshouses — on which he tested his famous, but commercially unsuccessful Whitworth Rifle which featured a revolutionary hexagonally rifled barrel. The house was surrounded by a estate that now makes up the current Fallowfield Campus. In 1882, having built a new house in Darley Dale, Whitworth leased The Firs to his friend C.P. Scott, editor of the Manchester Guardian.History (Faculty of Life Sciences - The University of Manchester)
After Scott's death the house became the property of the University of Manchester, and was the Vice-Chancellor's residence until 1991.

Hotel

The house was converted into a hotel and re-opened as the Chancellors Hotel & Conference Centre in 1997. A large extension to the Grade II building was completed for the hotel, giving it a capacity of 72 rooms. The hotel was operated by the University of Manchester, university's events venue arm as a conference centre and featured a restaurant, bar and conference facilities. Operations ceased in 2019, as the university prepared to repurpose the site as part of the university's redevelopment of the existing buildings on the campus. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the former hotel site was used as a vaccination centre.

Halls of Residence

In 2021, as part of a redevelopment of the Fallowfield Campus, the hotel was converted into student halls and renamed Uttley House, after writer Alison Uttley. The halls of residence Junior Common Room is shared with Richmond Park, another halls of residence to the north.

Firs Environmental Research Station

Included in the site formerly part of The Firs is the Firs Environmental Research Station, a research institute of the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Manchester, Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences. During World War 1, various drugs were grown and developed at the station, including Atropa belladonna and Hyoscyamus niger. The facility houses an air quality monitoring station, greenhouses, climate controlled growing environments and remnants of the old botanical garden. In 2020, as a result of a £2 million endowment, the greenhouses were substantially upgraded.

References

External links

Uttley House website

Firs Environmental Research Station website
* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Uttley House Buildings at the University of Manchester Grade II listed buildings in Manchester Houses in Manchester