The Portico Library And The Bank Public House

The Portico Library and The Bank Public House is a subscription library that was later used as a bank and library, and is now a public house and library. It was built between 1802 and 1806 by Thomas Harrison of Chester and has undergone alterations. The building is made of sandstone ashlar, with a rectangular plan situated on a corner site at the junction with Charlotte Street. It is designed in a classical style and consists of two storeys with a basement and attic.

The façade features a slightly projected three-bay pedimented loggia supported by four giant Ionic columns. There is a plinth with steps between the columns, a first-floor string course that runs around the building, a moulded architrave, a plain frieze, and a dentilled cornice also carried around. The loggia contains two doorways and three square windows on the first floor. A Victorian post box is inserted into the front wall.

On the right-hand return wall facing Charlotte Street, there is a doorway leading into the side of the loggia, a square window above it, and another square window on the first floor. This wall then breaks forward to form a five-bay colonnade of giant Ionic semi-columns, with each bay containing a tall sash window at ground level, featuring pediments and cornices in alternate bays, a square window on the first floor, and an attic storey expressed as a pilastered parapet, terminating with one additional bay.

Inside, the building was originally galleried, with a reading room on the ground floor and a library on the gallery. However, a ceiling was inserted at gallery level around 1920, and the ground floor has been recently remodelled, leaving only the columns of the gallery exposed. The first floor was not inspected but is reported to have a saucer dome.

Historically, the Portico Library was founded as a social, literary, and philosophical society, with P.M. Roget, the author of the Thesaurus, serving as its first honorary secretary. It was the chief circulating library in Manchester until the Public Libraries Act of 1856 and is mentioned by Thomas De Quincey in his "Confessions of an Opium Eater."