Town Hall Extension

MANCHESTER

SJ8398SE LLOYD STREET 698-1/27/220 (South side) 03/10/74 Town Hall Extension

GV II*

Town hall extension. 1938, by Vincent Harris. Steel frame with cladding of sandstone ashlar and steeply-pitched slate roof. Large irregular plan with long concave south side. Eclectic style with Gothic accent. Eight storeys and attic, the 7th and 8th storeys set back behind a parapet, with 29-window facade to Lloyd Street (linked to Town Hall by bridge), 17-window facade to St Peter's Square, and contrasting 5-bay facade to Mount Street (see below). In all these facades the ground floor is treated as a plinth with a continuous arcade of simple round-headed openings and a chamfered coping; the upper floors of those to Lloyd Street and St Peter's Square are divided horizontally by a band over the 1st floor and a parapet over the 5th floor, have small rectangular windows up to that level and 2-light mullioned windows to the set-back 6th and 7th floors, and attic dormers with wooden cross-windows and hipped roofs; and the last 5 bays of the Lloyd Street facade are set back. The Mount Street facade, by contrast, has 5 giant oriels from the 2nd to the 5th floors (inclusive), all rising from a straight band carried on large brackets at 1st floor, but the 2nd and 4th slightly set back, and all filled with a continuous grid of mullion-and-transom windows divided by a king mullion and 2 transoms into pairs of 8, 6 and 4 lights on successive levels. The gable ends of the Mount Street and St Peter's Square wings have tall stair-turrets with giant round-headed arches containing elaborate geometrically traceried windows, over the head of each arch a square-headed niche with a statue, and stepped back top stages with bands. At the rear (towards the circular Library building) the wings are linked by a curved 4-storey range which has widely spaced round-headed arches and small windows.

Listing NGR: SJ8388598012