Victoria University Of Manchester Including Christie Library, Whitworth Hall

Victoria University of Manchester including Christie Library, Whitworth Hall

University buildings on Oxford Road, Chorlton-on-Medlock. The west range was begun in 1870, the east range constructed between 1883 and 1887, and the north range added in 1888, all designed by Alfred Waterhouse. Whitworth Hall was added to the south end of the east range between approximately 1895 and 1902 by Paul Waterhouse. The buildings are constructed in sandstone ashlar with red tiled roofs featuring fishscale bands. They follow a Gothic style and enclose a large, irregularly shaped courtyard which is open at the south-west corner.

The West Range, known as the Main Building, was the first structure erected on the site. It is of two storeys with basements and attics, designed in a domestic scale and style. The centre features a projected gabled wing flanked by large canted entrance bays with gabled porches. These porches have moulded two-centred doorways and large two-centred arched windows of three stepped lancet lights that rise into steep gables. The flanks contain tall coupled arched windows, some with stepped sills. The central wing itself has a canted two-storey bay at the gable end with a niche at ground floor containing a carved shield. Above this is a large five-light window at first floor and a tiled hipped roof. A clockface sits in the apex of the gable. The side walls feature gables with a fleche on the roof. Various mullioned, arched and arcaded windows are distributed across all parts of the range, along with small gabled dormers and tall stone chimneys. The outer wings vary in plan and elevation.

The East Range forms the main façade to Oxford Street and is monumental in scale and style, asymmetrical in composition. A very large rectangular tower stands at the south end, with a two-storey entrance archway to its left and a tall four-storey seven-bay range to the right. The entrance archway features a wide two-centred moulded arch, above which is a stepped triple lancet set within a gable flanked by pinnacles. The tower has pilastered corners and an octagonal stair-turret at the north-east corner. Its principal feature is a very large two-centred arched doorway with splayed reveal containing foliated niches, four orders of moulding, and a hoodmould with its apex carried up to form a pedestal to a first-floor niche with a statue. Arcaded windows rise across six stages with successive arrangements of five, five, three, three, five and five lights, each differing in design. Those at the top stage incorporate a colonnaded screen. The tower is crowned with a steep saddle-back roof with banded cladding of lead and tiles. In the angle between the tower and the main range to the right stands a tall two-bay canted staircase with buttresses, tall two-light windows with geometrical tracery, and an arcaded parapet. The main range itself is four storeys tall, diminishing in height, with seven bays and buttresses that are square at ground floor level and chamfered above, terminating in pinnacles. Arcaded windows fill each bay. Those at ground floor are segmental-headed with transoms and arched lights. Those at first and second floors have shafts and three square-headed lights. Those at third floor have four arched lights. A corbel table and blind arcaded parapet run across each bay.

Whitworth Hall lies to the left of the entrance archway and consists of two unequal storeys and eight bays, with a corner tower at the south end. The building features buttresses and coupled segmental-headed windows at ground floor. Bands of blind arcading run between floors, and tall two-light transomed windows with cinquefoil lights occupy the first floor. An elaborate two-storey gabled porch fronts the first bay, decorated with pinnacles and blind-arcading in the gable. Open arcading links the gable to the pinnacles on either side. The doorway is two-centred and moulded in three orders. A three-stage corner tower at the south end displays a tiered segmental oriel, corner pinnacles, an octagonal belfry and a short spire, all executed in elaborate Gothic style. Various other portions of the buildings follow similar stylistic treatments.