#Manchester town hall conference hall series#

Last year, as part of Gothic Manchester Festival 2019, he co-organised an event at Chetham’s Library Baronial Hall with Professor Dale Townshend titled ‘Faking Gothic Furniture’ (it also features, along with The John Rylands Library, in a previous article by Peter, here). He has published widely on Georgian Gothic architecture and design broadly conceived, as well as heraldry and the relevance of heraldic arts to post-medieval English intellectual, cultural, and aesthetic culture.

Lindfield FSA is a Senior Research Associate in the Departments of English and History at Manchester Metropolitan University. Indeed, opening up the building so more people can enjoy its splendours and civic treasures, making it more of a visitor destination, is one of the key themes of the project, e.g. there will be a new visitor centre.īelow - Manchester Town Hall as viewed on 20 July 2020 during refurbishment. In this article he considers one of Manchester’s landmark Gothic buildings, Manchester Town Hall, which is currently undergoing restoration work (see below). As well as safeguarding/repairing the building and restoring its key heritage features, the project involves some sympathetic work to bring it up to modern safety and access standards such as extra lifts, similar to the sympathetic interventions made in the neighbouring Grade II*-listed Central Library.

#Manchester town hall conference hall series#

Peter’s previous Haunt Manchester articles include features on Ordsall Hall, Albert’s Schloss and Albert Hall, the Mancunian Gothic Sunday School of St Matthew’s, Arlington House in Salford, Minshull Street City Police and Session Courts and their furniture, Moving Manchester's Shambles, Manchester’s Modern Gothic in St Peter’s Square, what was St John’s Church, Manchester Cathedral, The Great Hall at The University of Manchester, St Chad’s in Rochdale and more. From the city’s striking Gothic features to the more unusual aspects of buildings usually taken for granted and history hidden in plain sight, a variety of locations will be explored and visited over the course of 2020. His video series on Gothic Manchester can be viewed here. The twenty-third instalment as part of an ongoing series for Haunt Manchester by Dr Peter N. Lindfield FSA, exploring Greater Manchester’s Gothic architecture and hidden heritage.