The Athenaeum

MANCHESTER

SJ8497NW PRINCESS STREET 698-1/32/335 (North East side) 03/10/74 No.81 The Athenaeum

GV II*

Cultural club, now annex to City Art Gallery. 1837, by Sir Charles Barry; damaged by fire 1874 and then remodelled internally, and attic added. Sandstone ashlar, slate roof. Rectangular plan plus rear extension. Italian palazzo style. Two storeys and basement, plus added attic, a symmetrical 9-window facade, with basement treated as a plinth, raised rusticated quoins, sill-bands, string-course, lettered frieze (see below), very prominent mutuled cornice, and high balustraded parapet with 4 tall chimneys. The entrance, up a flight of stone steps, has a shallow rectangular porch with Roman Doric columns, triglyph frieze, moulded cornice and balustraded parapet, and a round-headed arch to a recessed porch with coffered barrel-vaulted ceiling. Both floors have tall 2-light casement windows with moulded architraves, those at ground floor with cornices and apron sills and those at 1st floor with balustrades and floating pediments. Frieze lettered: "INSTUTVTED MDCCCXXXV ATHENAEUM ERECTED MDCCCXXXVIII". Slated mansard attic roof (added) with wrought-iron cresting. Five-bay side walls in matching style, also with lettered friezes, that on the right side: "FOR THE ADVANCEMENT AND DIFFVSION OF KNOWLEDGE". History; precursor of Italian palazzo style in Manchester architecture.

Listing NGR: SJ8407797991