Midland Hotel

This list entry was subject to a Minor Amendment on 31/08/2016

SJ 8397 NE 698-1/31/277

MANCHESTER PETER STREET (South side) Midland Hotel

GV

II*

Hotel. 1898-1903, by Charles Trubshaw, for the Midland Railway Company; altered. Steel frame, with cladding of brown polished granite, red brick and much buff and brown glazed terracotta (roof not visible). Very large irregular pentagon plan on island site. Elaborate eclectic Baroque style. Five diminishing storeys with cellars and attics, the principal element of the facade to Peter Street 2:4:2 bays, symmetrical, plus a 3-bay portion to the left slightly canted back, and 3-sided corners to both ends; the paired bays bounded on the inner side by fenestrated 3-sided pilasters finished as turrets, and surmounted by elaborate attic gables; with cornice and balustraded parapet over ground floor, giant round-headed arches to the next 3 floors, small coupled round-headed arches to the 4th floor, a bracketed cornice and pierced parapet, and gabled attic dormers over the centre. The ground floor, of polished granite, has a recessed central entrance under 2 massive semi-circular arches (like shipping holes of neighbouring canal warehouses), a roundel between containing a wyvern, and a convex frieze above with raised lettering "MIDLAND HOTEL"; and coupled round-headed arches to the outer bays with terracotta mullion-and-transom windows, the basement areas below these protected by bowed wrought-iron railings in Art Nouveau style. The windows of the upper floors are mostly coupled, those at 3rd and 4th floors round-headed, all with wrought-iron balcony railings and much terracotta enrichment. The canted portion to the left, the longer side walls (to Lower Mosley Street and Mount Street) and the shorter rear wall (to Windmill Street) are in generally similar style, but the Lower Mosley Street facade has segmental curved balconies to the 1st floor and bow-shaped balconies to the 2nd floor, and the rear facade has domed corner turrets. Interior: originally had a palm court, concert hall, winter gardens, Russian and Turkish baths, roof garden, 23 lifts, three and a half miles of corridors and 400 bedrooms; ground floor altered and upper floors not inspected. Very prominent building representative of the cosmopolitan wealth and taste of late C19 Manchester, and an early example of a steel-framed building.

Listing NGR: SJ8382897870