Levenshulme Antiques Village, formerly Levenshulme Town Hall, is a former municipal building on Stockport Road in

Levenshulme Levenshulme () is an area of Manchester, in Greater Manchester, England, bordering Fallowfield, Longsight, Gorton, Burnage, Heaton Chapel and Reddish, halfway between Stockport and Manchester city centre on the A6 road (England), A6. Levenshulm ...

, a suburb of

Manchester Manchester () is a city and the metropolitan borough of Greater Manchester, England. It had an estimated population of in . Greater Manchester is the third-most populous metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, with a population of 2.92&nbs ...

in England. The building served as the offices and meeting place of Levenshulme Urban District Council, and now accommodates an antiques centre.

History

Following significant population growth, largely associated with its status as a growing residential suburb of Manchester, a local board of health was established in Levenshulme in 1865. After the local board of health was succeeded by Levenhulme

Urban District Council In England and Wales, an urban district was a type of local government district that covered an urbanised area. Urban districts had an elected urban district council (UDC), which shared local government responsibilities with a county council. ...

in 1894, the new council decided to commission dedicated council offices. The site they selected was open land on the east side of Stockport Road, just north of the Fallowfield Loop railway line. Construction of the new building stated in 1897. It was designed by James Jepson in the

Italianate style The Italianate style was a distinct 19th-century phase in the history of Classical architecture. Like Palladianism and Neoclassicism, the Italianate style combined its inspiration from the models and architectural vocabulary of 16th-century Ita ...

, built by Burgess and Galt in red brick with

ashlar Ashlar () is a cut and dressed rock (geology), stone, worked using a chisel to achieve a specific form, typically rectangular in shape. The term can also refer to a structure built from such stones. Ashlar is the finest stone masonry unit, a ...

stone finishings at a cost of £6,000 and was officially opened on 3 March 1899. Two reading rooms were installed in the building and were opened by the chairman of the Manchester Libraries Committee, Alderman James Wilson Southern, on 22 September 1899. The building ceased to be the local seat of government in 1909, when the district was annexed by the City of Manchester.

Manchester City Council Manchester City Council is the Local government in England, local authority for the City status in the United Kingdom, city of Manchester in Greater Manchester, England. Manchester has had an elected local authority since 1838, which has been re ...

continued to use it to deliver services until 1990, when it was sold off and converted into an antiques centre. The antiques centre houses dealers selling furniture, fittings and smaller items, while outbuildings in the courtyard are used as workshops.

Architecture

The design involves a symmetrical main frontage, 75 feet wide, of seven bays facing onto Stockport Road. The central bay features a round headed opening with an

architrave In classical architecture, an architrave (; , also called an epistyle; ) is the lintel or beam, typically made of wood or stone, that rests on the capitals of columns. The term can also apply to all sides, including the vertical members, ...

and a keystone. The entrance is flanked by

brackets A bracket is either of two tall fore- or back-facing punctuation marks commonly used to isolate a segment of text or data from its surroundings. They come in four main pairs of shapes, as given in the box to the right, which also gives their n ...

supporting a

frieze In classical architecture, the frieze is the wide central section of an entablature and may be plain in the Ionic order, Ionic or Corinthian order, Corinthian orders, or decorated with bas-reliefs. Patera (architecture), Paterae are also ...

, an

entablature An entablature (; nativization of Italian , from "in" and "table") is the superstructure of moldings and bands which lies horizontally above columns, resting on their capitals. Entablatures are major elements of classical architecture, and ...

inscribed with the words "Council Offices", and a small triangular pediment containing a

roundel A roundel is a circular disc used as a symbol. The term is used in heraldry, but also commonly used to refer to a type of national insignia used on military aircraft, generally circular in shape and usually comprising concentric rings of differ ...

. The other bays on the ground floor are fenestrated by cross-windows, and the first floor is fenestrated by round headed windows, which are flanked by

pilaster In architecture, a pilaster is both a load-bearing section of thickened wall or column integrated into a wall, and a purely decorative element in classical architecture which gives the appearance of a supporting column and articulates an ext ...

s supporting

hood mould In architecture, a hood mould, hood, label mould (from Latin , lip), drip mould or dripstone is an external moulded projection from a wall over an opening to throw off rainwater, historically often in form of a '' pediment''. This moulding can be ...

s and keystones. At roof level there is a partially balustraded

parapet A parapet is a barrier that is an upward extension of a wall at the edge of a roof, terrace, balcony, walkway or other structure. The word comes ultimately from the Italian ''parapetto'' (''parare'' 'to cover/defend' and ''petto'' 'chest/brea ...

broken by a central clock face with a

garland A garland is a decorative braid, knot or wreath of flowers, leaves, or other material. Garlands can be worn on the head or around the neck, hung on an inanimate object, or laid in a place of cultural or religious importance. In contemporary times ...

below and a pediment above. The main entrance leads into an octagonal hall, with entrances to rooms which originally served as the council chamber, and as offices for the clerk, surveyor, overseers, and sanitary inspector. There is a staircase to the former public hall, with two retiring rooms. Behind the building is a courtyard, with buildings originally containing stables, sheds, and the caretaker's house.

References

External links

*{{official website, https://web.archive.org/web/20211128015830/http://www.theantiquesvillage.com/ City and town halls in Greater Manchester Government buildings completed in 1899