Former Town Hall Facade to Mabel Tylecote Building, Manchester Metropolitan University
Designated
25 February 1952
Reference no.
1283062
Shown in Greater Manchester
Chorlton-on-Medlock Town Hall is a former municipal building in Cavendish Street in Chorlton-on-Medlock, Manchester, England. The structure, of which only the façade is original, is a Grade II listed building.[1]
History
After significant population growth in the late 18th century, mainly associated with the township's status as a residential suburb, the police commissioners who administered the area decided to procure a town hall.[2] Construction work started on the new building on 13 October 1830.[3] It was designed by Richard Lane in the neoclassical style, built in ashlar stone and was officially opened on 14 October 1831.[1]
The design involved a symmetrical main frontage with nine bays facing onto Cavendish Street with the end bays slightly projected forward and with pilasters to support an entablature; the central section of three bays, which also slightly projected forward, featured a full-height tetrastyleportico with Doric order columns supporting an entablature, a frieze with four paterae, and a pediment.[1] The building was fenestrated with sash windows on both floors.[1] Internally, the principal room was the assembly hall, but the building also included rooms for the police commissioners, the poor law guardians and the local dispensary.[3]
The town hall ceased to be the local seat of government when the municipal borough of Manchester was formed in 1838.[4] Instead the building became a divisional police headquarters in 1842 and continued to operate in that role into the 20th century.[5] The building was also used as an events venue: the conductor, Charles Seymour, performed his quartet series in the town hall in the early 1850s.[6] The Manchester School of Art was built on an adjacent site to the southwest and completed in 1881.[7]
The building was remodelled in the early 1970s, with the façade retained but the interior of the building demolished to create a new refectory for the School of Art, which by that time had become part of the new Manchester Polytechnic.[10] The Mabel Tylecote Building, named after the Labour politician, Dame Mabel Tylecote, was built on an adjacent site to the northeast and was completed in 1973.[11] Manchester Metropolitan University, which evolved from Manchester Polytechnic after a rebranding in 1992, decided to redevelop the site with a proposed new arts and humanities building in 2018.[12] The construction work, which was carried out by Morgan Sindall to a design by Allies and Morrison, involved the demolition of both the 1970s building behind the town hall façade and the Mabel Tylecote Building: the work, which also included the restoration and cleaning of the town hall façade, was completed and the complex re-opened in December 2020.[13] The project was highly commended in North West Project of the Year category for Constructing Excellence in 2020.[13]
