The Portland Thistle Hotel

The Portland Thistle Hotel, formerly known as the Magnum Hotel and Brown's Warehouse, comprises three home trade warehouses built in 1851 and subsequently altered, by Edward Walters. The buildings are located on Portland Street, Manchester. They are constructed of sandstone ashlar with slate roofs and have a rectangular plan. The architectural style is Italian palazzo.

The buildings present as a unified hotel, though retaining distinct characteristics for each section. Number 3 is four storeys and six bays, featuring a dentilled cornice to the ground floor, banded quoins to the upper floors, an interrupted cornice to the first floor, giant pilaster strips to the second and third floors, a bracketed main cornice, and a pilastered parapet. The ground floor has an arcaded design with paired pilasters and round-headed arches featuring moulded heads, voluted keystones, and carved spandrels, including roundels. Upper floor windows have moulded architraves; those at the first floor are segmental-headed with volute keystones, second floor windows have segmental pediments on consoles and third floor windows have shouldered architraves.

Number 5 is five storeys and seven bays, with an added attic and a further slated mansard attic above, and features a richly decorated segmental-headed doorway in the centre of the ground floor. It has a modillioned cornice over the second floor with acroteria, banded quoins to the second floor, giant pilasters to the third and fourth floors, a prominent main cornice with dentils and modillions, and an attic storey treated as a parapet, with banded pilasters to the outermost bays. Square-headed windows are present on all upper floors, with enriched architraves and segmental pediments to the first floor, and mostly plain windows above. Small, two-light mullioned attic windows are also present.

Number 9 is four storeys and seven bays, with rusticated arcading to the ground floor, a massive plinth and imposts, a central round-headed doorway with a cavetto surround, stepped voussoirs, a mask keystone, and corner cartouches. It has a cornice over the ground floor, banded corner pilasters above, a prominent modillioned cornice, and a balustraded parapet. Windows are segmental-headed at the first and second floors, and round-headed at the third floor; the first floor windows have vertically-linked architraves, shouldered with carved friezes and cornices on consoles, the second floor windows have segmental pediments, and the third floor windows have keyed hoodmoulds. A right-hand return wall, 12 bays in a similar style, is also present, along with a former loading bay entrance at the rear. All three portions have altered glazing to the windows. The buildings all formerly had basements, which have been rebuilt except for the facades.