1]\bS\ba 04 A Little Charmer With a Skinny Neighbour

Mynshull’s House & Brittanic Buildings

05 The Mynshull Family

08 Mynshull’s Metamorphosis, Britannic Born again

10 Location, location, location

12 It all Starts Here

15 Strategic Value

16 The Greatest Show On Earth

The English Civil War,
Bonnie Prince Charlie,
The Market Place & Elizabeth Raffald,
Destruction & Rebirth

18-21 Ghost Stories, Songs & Crazy Games

Meet the Neighbours

The Buildings

22-25 The Cathedral

26-29 Chetham’s Library & School Of Music
30 The Royal Exchange,
32 St Annes Square, Urbis

Meet the Neighbours

The People

34 Dean Rogers Govinder

36 Alison Seagrave
38 Craig Johnson
40 Dr Michael Powell

42 Nikal

Location
44 1850 Map
45 Present Day Map
 Mynshull’s House and 01. The Mynshull Family Mynshull may have lived for a time on the site of

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(04/05) Mynshull’s House exterior details.
Britannic Buildings Intricate gold carvings
Mynshull’s House but his ambitions were greater. In 1644
he purchased the stately Chorlton Hall, now demolished,
02. which was at that time ‘a country seat’ not far from where

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(04/05) Mynshull’s House exterior dtails,
note the redness of the stone Piccadilly Station currently stands.
Apothecaries usually had a retail premises, indeed
03. they were some of the first traders to open what we would

      <SWUVP]c` 
Eyck Zimmer is the acclaimed head chef at the
Lowry Hotel. He’s also a bon viveur, an eccentric and Man-
chester’s currently most famous German resident. Whatever
the German is for fruitcake, Zimmer was born to fulfil that
role.
In general chat-chit he once said, out of the blue,
“you know what my favourite building is in Manchester? It’s
that funny little place that looks like a small but tasty cake,
baked red and decorated with gold lettering. If I could make
a house in the city centre that would be my choice.”
He was talking about Mynshull’s. This place has
charmed people for years. It was rebuilt in 1890 by Manches-
ter architects Ball and Elce – they also designed much of the
nearby Corn Exchange, now the Triangle Shopping Centre.
The style is playful Elizabethan – think of Hardwick Hall in
Derbyshire condensed to make a city office block. It’s full
of carvings and inscriptions in unexpected places, hidden on
01.
corbels or tucked away on pilasters.
‘I suppose that all men are more or less proud of their
birthplace. But your Manchester man, above others
seems proud of his’
Dick Donovan, the Man from Manchester
03.
02.
(04/05) Mynshull’s House exterior details,
the proximity of Mynshull’s house and
Britannic Buildings
Thomas Mynshull, originally from Wistaston in
04.
(04/05) The Cartouche Cheshire, made his money in the 1600s as an apothecary in
Manchester. He was a relative of Elizabeth Minshull who
05.
(04/05) Mynsull’s House exterior
became the famous poet John Milton’s third wife in 1663.
Milton was blind and Elizabeth helped him in laying down
06. his epic poem, Paradise Lost.
(06/07) Mynshull’s House brickwork
There is no modern equivalent for an apothecary.
The closest would be a chemist or a pharmacist, but as well
as selling medicines and remedies, an apothecary also of-
fered general medical advice plus services now performed by
specialist practitioners, such as surgeons and midwives. They
would also sell tobacco, not probably something a modern
doctor or chemist would think of doing. Nostradamus and
The best feature is the cartouche, or carved panel, the ‘Italian Shakespeare’ Dante, were both apothecaries. The
by local craftsman J. Jarvis Milson between the second and apothecary had a real position in local society. A good one
third floors. This tells the story of apothecary Thomas Myn- could make a fortune.
shull’s gift to the city. When he died in 1689 he bequeathed
the site, which may have been his old townhouse or shop
to trustees to provide apprenticeship for ‘poor, sound, and
healthy boys of Manchester in honest labour and employ-
ment’.
Next door is Britannic House, an amusing and
slendour neighbour from 1906. Squashed between the newly
created Victoria Street and Mynshull’s, the designers went
for maximum effect to the west with an elaborate stone and
brick façade. On top they changed track completely. In trib-
ute to Manchester’s medieval and half-timbered past - check
out the Old Wellington pub further up Cateaton Street - they
crowned their building with four Tudor gables in black and
white together with a turret that could be a summer house in
a suburban garden.
now recognise as a shop. Given its location it’s tempting to
think of Mynshull’s as Thomas’s shop premises, his public
place of business.
The Minshull’s (they of the name had now be-
come an i) became a wealthy part of Manchester society. A
21st birthday party at Chorlton Hall in 1754 was recorded in
this way. ‘The morning was ushered in by a ringing of bells
and other demonstrations of joy and an entertainment was
provided at the Hall for all comers and goers; and in the
evening a grand ball was given to upwards of 100 couples
of Gentlemen and Ladies, at the King Street Exchange.’ The
Exchange is where Hermés shop is today.
Thomas’s grandson, another Thomas, married
Barbara Nabb. He died without children and the line came
to end. His widow, Barbara Minshull then did something
which light a fire through town gossip. At the age of 65 she
married Roger Aytoun, a Scot in his twenties, who liked to
dress up as a soldier. It’s said she fell for him after watching
him win a ‘foot-race’ at Kersal Moor, Salford. All the com-
petitors were naked. The fact that Barbara was just about the
richest woman in town may have encouraged his passion.
When they got married at the Collegiate Church, now the
Cathedral, in 1769, Aytoun was so drunk he had to be held
upright. Barbara then spent the unforgivably long time of 14
years to die.
A perfect rake, Aytoun, completely squandered
the Minshull estate enjoying himself with wine, women and
recruitment. He played a major role in creating the Manches-
ter Volunteers and fought with them at siege of Gibraltar.
He was also known for his brawling in pubs and earned the
nickname of ‘Spanking Roger’. Some bar owners in the Gay
Village, close to where Chorlton Hall was located, have given
serious consideration to calling a bar down there ‘Spanking
Roger’: it seems to work on so many levels.
When Roger Aytoun sold up to clear his debts, the
Minshull legacy disappeared with him. Still Minshull Street
and Aytoun Street, along with Mynshull’s House, are remind-
ers of this important and influential Manchester family.

‘You shall have nothing, not so much as a rusty dagger’

The town’s reply when asked to surrender its weapons in the English
Civil War

04/05
05. 04.

Gordon Mellor was the site manager in breathing
new life into Mynshull’s and Britannic. He’s looking satisfied.
“Well as with any refurbishment,” he says, “the work on
Mynshull’s and Britannic has had its fair share of challenges.
They’re both historic buildings for one thing, which always
presents problems because you want to make sure you look
after them right. These two have had the added challenge of
the site. With Britannic it’s the very narrow profile which we
had to work around, plus the interesting stairwell with its
tiling: with Mynshull’s it’s the detailing which we didn’t want
to damage.
“Having said all that, it’s not been too bad. True,
we’ve had to do a lot of cutting out, re-carving and slotting
back at Mynshull’s, which can be fraught, but you can see the
results for yourself. The lift to give disabled access between
the floors has caused a few headaches, but that’s what you’ve
got to do now-a-days. I think in the end we’ve delivered in
Mynshull’s a very warm, cosy space, modern and bright on
the inside and pretty spectacular on the outside, especially
with all that writing on the building picked out in gold. I’m
sure Mynshull’s will make Nikal a lovely head-office. Whilst
the apartments in Britannic, given their size and shape will
be unlike anything else in Manchester
“For me the key has been – and for most of the
other people involved in the job – pride in what we do. I was
a joiner by trade, you have a pride in producing things. Here

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we’ve taken two old buildings and made them work once
more.

  0`WbO\\WQP]`\OUOW\ “My favourite part of the process? It’s the end,

can’t wait. There are lots of moments of satisfaction – and
quite a few of frustration - but when you see it finished and
you see that it works, that’s magic.”

01. ‘Manchester is the place where people do things....

(08/09) Engraved details on Mynshull’s House
‘Don’t talk about what you are going to do-do it’. That
02. is the Manchester habit. And through the manifesta-
(08/09) Mynshull’s House whilst undergoing tion of this quality, the word Manchester has become
its restoration
a synonym for energy and freedom and the right to do
and to think without shackles.’
Judge Parry, 1912

01.

02.
08/09
 Location, location, location

Being in the city centre is one thing.

Being in the centre of the city centre is something else.

Mynshull’s lies in Manchester’s historic heart.
Literally. Look on the plan of 1650 and the immediate area
is indeed shaped like a heart. This fills the space from Cheth-
01.
am’s School of Music to Mynshull’s, from the River Irwell to
the junction of Hanging Ditch and Corporation Street.
It is where the Manchester we know began. This where the
Anglo-Saxons settled after the Roman site at the southern
end of Deansgate was abandoned. It’s simply more Man-
chester than anywhere else.
‘The Age of Ruins is past. Have you seen Manchester?
Manchester is as great a human exploit as Athens.’ 02.
Benjamin Disraeli in his novel, Coningsby, 1844
And the heart is still well and truly pumping after
sixteen hundred years.
Mynshull’s is surrounded by some of the finest
buildings old and new in the city. People can travel from the
beginning of the twenty-first century and the restaurants and
bars of Harvey Nichols to the 1300s in less than 130 metres
– well they might if there was a rope-swing from Harvey
Nichols into the nave of the Cathedral.
Mynshull’s House is - past, present, future - at the
heart of the action. And that’s not going to change anytime
soon.

01.
(10/11) Details of the stained Glass windows
inside Manchester Cathedral

02.
(10/11) View down the relatively new Cathe-
dral Street towards Sinclair’s Oyster Bar

03.
(10/11) Brittanic Buildings the skinny neigh-
bour of Mynshull’s House next to their newest
neighbour Harvey Nichols

03.
10/11
 It all starts here This is where a Roman road passed south to north
along the course of Deansgate, it’s where the Anglo-Saxons
settled after the Roman occupation of Britain ended in the
fifth century. It’s where a sleepy little town grew slowly,
where the Danes, aka the Vikings, sacked Manchester, where
a battle was fought in the English Civil War, where a crazy
Saturday market grew, where Bonnie Prince Charles rode
past on his 1745 rebellion, where the unemployed gathered
in the early twentieth century, where bombs fell in 1940 and
Mynshull’s House and Britannic House lie on a more bombs exploded in the 1990s, to be followed by an
site which has seen it all. intense rebuilding of the city into the modern Manchester
we know today.
The location is key. Directly in front of Britannic
House is Victoria Bridge over the River Irwell.
This for a thousand years has been the place
where Manchester and Salford chose to kiss and make up.
Directly west of the site the first bridge between the two
towns was built. Formerly called Salford Bridge, now called
Victoria Bridge it was the only river crossing until the late
1700s unless you wished to take a boat.
The bridge, and Cateaton Street, mark the stra-
tegic nature of the site. They form the A6, the main route
from London to Scotland through Manchester. This position
has usually meant that the site has been in the thick of it.

‘No more will the fish of Irwell be fed,

With wreck of the grave, with Manchester dead.’
Poem from the early nineteenth century, protesting at the dumping of
bodies in the River Irwell.

01.
(12/13) View down The River Irwell
towards Manchester Cathedral, Victoria
Bridge is further down the river in this
direction

01.
12/13
 01. Strategic value
(14/15) Detail of hanging bridge today

02.
(14/15) Hanging Bridge Chambers

03.
(14/15) The walkway beside Mynshull’s
House is actually a bridge, Hanging
Bridge

04.
(14/15) An old illustration from the
To understand why Mynshull’s is such an
Fifteenth Century of Hanging Bridge
and Hanging Ditch important place in Manchester we need to peel back the
years and strip away the buildings. It might not look it but the little passage to the
right of Mynshull’s House is the walkway of a bridge, hence
the name Hanging Bridge. This can be seen in the little
02.
gardens immediately behind Mynshull’s and in the adjacent
Cathedral Visitors Centre. Originally built in the 1300s
(perhaps even earlier) it carried people across the stream of
Hanging Ditch to the parish church and later Cathedral.

Hanging Ditch has never had anything to do

with execution, but refers to this little watercourse, now
dried up, which fell into the River Irwell here, probably
down a cataract. On the north side of this stream through
to Chetham’s School of Music, was an area of high ground
– a rocky sandstone outcrop - girdled by the Rivers Irwell,
Medlock and Hanging Ditch.

Easy to protect, it was perfect for the Saxons to settle. Cross

Victoria Street (the continuation of Deansgate) and you’ll
see the river ten metres or more below, now imagine a steep
river bank, with sandstone cliffs, rising from the river edge
to the road and it’s easier to understand why this felt such a
safe place.
Hanging Ditch was finally culvetted in the early
nineteenth century. One report says that when it was finally
cleaned several tons of dead animals were found in it, mainly
cats. One individual rendered these down to dripping and
01.
sold them on the market place. When he was found out he
lost his trading licence. Even at a time when dripping was
spread on the bread in place of expensive butter, smoothing
puss across your crust was considered unsavoury.

03. 04.
14/15
 The greatest
show on earth:
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The English Civil War
During the Civil War Manchester was one of
very few towns in Lancashire to support Parliament against
King Charles 1. In September 1642 Lord Strange, in com-
mand of several thousand Royalists attacked the town along
Deansgate and across Salford Bridge now Victoria Bridge.
When Strange demanded that the town give up its store of
gunpowder and its weapons, he received the reply that he
would get “nothing, not even a rusty dagger”. The defenders
were led by Robert Bradshaw and William Radcliffe under
advice from Colonel Rosworm, a German mercenary. At the
battle’s height two barns caught fire, the smoke of which
caused confusion. As the smoke cleared it became clear that
the assault had failed. Strange finally lifted the siege on 1 Oc-
tober after the popular Captain Standish had been shot by a
marksman perched on the church tower, next to Mynshull’s.
Bonnie Prince Charlie
In 1745, the Stuart pretender to the throne,
Charles Edward Stuart, Bonnie Prince Charlie, crossed from
Salford to Manchester with his troops in front of Myn-
shull’s. He’d been preceded, the day before, by a drummer,
a sergeant and ‘a spritely girl’ who’d come into the town
and begun to ask for volunteers. Eventually three hundred
unwise souls joined up. Bonnie Prince Charlie advanced to
Derby and then began his long retreat back to Scotland,
the Manchester contingent ending the rebellion holed up
at Carlisle Castle where they eventually surrendered. The
officers were hanged, drawn and quartered in London and
their heads brought back to Manchester and displayed on
the nearby Royal Exchange as an example to other would-be
traitors
16/17
The Market-place and Elizabeth Raffald
Opposite Mynshull’s between Harvey Nichols and
Selfridges used to be the original market-place of Manches-
ter – it was configured differently in those days. This was
where the conduit, or fountain, was filled with claret on the
occasion of Charles II’s return to England in 1660, it was
where Captain Mouncey was killed by Cornet Hamilton in
a duel over a dog and where Elizabeth Raffald had a pub. It
was also the place over countless generations where Mancu-
nians traded goods and stories. Elizabeth Raffald was one of
the most remarkable people in the city’s history. In eighteen
years in Manchester she wrote the first bestselling cookery
book in English, The Experienced English Housekeeper
(1769), compiled the first Street Directory to Manchester,
ran several pubs and coffee shops, an indoor and outdoor
catering business and helped Dr Charles White with a book
on midwifery. This last is understandable: some reports say
that this energetic woman was pregnant 16 times in those 18
years. She finally died of exhaustion. No wonder.
Destruction and rebirth 01.
(16/17) Civil War Painting
During the Second World War, Manchester suf-
fered severe bombing. The worst nights of the blitz being 02.
December 22 and 23, 1940, when over 700 people were (16/17) Bonnie Prince Charlie
killed and 2,500 injured. A lot of damage occurred in this 03.
area, with the Victoria Buildings – occupying the site directly (16/17) Elizabeth Raffald
opposite Mynshull’s - being destroyed and the Cathedral suf-
fering severe damage. At one point, the fire, fanned by the
wind, was so fierce that buildings were demolished to stop
its spread.
Then in1996 came the IRA bomb. Positioned on
Cross Street in a van this placed 80,000 lives at risk on a busy
Saturday morning. Fortunately the emergency services were
given 45 minutes warning and cleared the streets so although
several hundred people were injured nobody died. The dam-
age estimates from the huge explosion, which ripped out the
prime retail area of the city, amounted to £700m with 670
businesses having to relocate.
The response from the city and the community
was superb and the atrocity was turned into an opportunity.
Within a few weeks and months a Lord Mayor’s fund had
raised money to help those affected and a decision had been
taken to rebuild the city centre better than before. Mynshull’s
is part of that continuing improvement.
5V]abab]`WSaa]\Ua 
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The Ballad of Jemmy Dawson
James (Jemmy) Dawson, a doctor’s son who lived
in Cateaton Street, was one of the three hundred who joined
Bonnie Prince Charlie in 1745. After the failure of the rebel-
lion he was captured and condemned to death in London.
He was one half of the most attractive couple in
town, the other half being his fiancé, the beautiful Katherine
Norton. She loved him so much she was determined to be
as close to him as possible as he suffered and travelled down
to London with a lady companion. It was reported that, ‘she
got near enough to see all the dreadful preparations without
betraying any extravagant emotions; but when all was over,
she cried, ‘My dear, I follow thee! I follow thee! Sweet Jesus,
receive both our souls together!’ and died in her friend’s
arms. The tale was told in a popular ballad of the time: the
Ballad of Jemmy Dawson.
18/19
Another story tells how during the execution
Katherine had silently wept and her tears were gathered in a
lacrymatory - a tear catcher – by her friend.
This was returned to Manchester and was stored
in house close to Mynshull’s, close to the place, Salford
Bridge, where Bonnie Prince Charlie had entered the town
and drawn recruits to his banner.
The tear catcher was placed in a secret compart-
ment under a wall cupboard and forgotten. Then, many
years later, in October 1760 – the day that George II died,
the King, the Bonnie Prince had rebelled against - the house-
holders heard gentle but broken-hearted sobbing throughout
the house. The sobbing was traced to the cupboard and the
compartment opened. The tear catcher was found and a
maid removed the stopper.
Out from the bottle came the sound of a woman
in tears but not gentle this time, now there was unrestrained
grief, which shook the house and resonated throughout
Manchester causing people to stop their ears or cry out
in terror. And after the tears and the sobbing, across the
town, through streets and alleyways into houses, taverns and
churches a woman’s sharp cry echoed ‘My dear, I follow
thee, I follow thee’.
Victoria Bridge on a Saturday Night
This was a popular nineteenth century song about
the famous market which took place on Saturday night in the
street in front of Mynshull’s and over Victoria bridge
Chorus Chorus
Hurrooh what a bother, this, that, and the other, Hurrooh what a bother, this, that, and the other,
All jumbled together, - a comical sight ! All jumbled together, - a comical sight !
My oath, I declare on’tis just like a fair on, My oath, I declare on’tis just like a fair on,
Victoria Bridge on a Saturday Night ! Victoria Bridge on a Saturday Night !
If troubled with pthisic, there are doctors with physic, There’s cab drivers calling, and fish women bawling,
With lozenges, boluses, poppy’s and pills, Their cod – fish, and haddock, fresh flounder and fluke
With ointment for drawing, with baccy for chawing, With dory, and dab fish, and cockles, and crak – fish,
Would blister your chops, till you’re red in the gills, And beautiful salmon, just caught – with a hook,
There’s snuff for your noses, and salve for your toses, Their’s lots of disparity, folks craving for charity,
With poultry and pigs, pickled pork, and police, Howling away, you would drop with surprise,
With pokers, and fendyrs, and Newspaper venders, And some you will find are so desperate blind,
And Stretford black puddings a penny a piece. Sure they can’t see at all till they open their eyes.
01.
(18/19) Victoria Bridge with the Cathedral in
the background
02.
(18/19) Detail on Victoria Bridge
Ghost stories, songs and
crazy games
Curious pastimes
Traditional games in the streets around Mynshull’s
included: covering a pig in grease, slapping its rump and
trying to catch it by the tail for prizes of ale; and shinning up
a greased maypole to try and retrieve a leg of lamb on the
top. In a pub close to Mynshull’s an early nineteenth century
entertainment included ‘a pig which could tell the time by a
watch, three cats which sang in the Italian manner and six
turkeys which performed a country dance.’ Oh and in 1608
in the streets nearby, one particular sport was banned. As the
authorities described, ‘glass windows are broken yearely and
spoyled by a company of lewd and disorded psons using that
unlawful exercise of playinge with the ffote-ball.’
20/21
The Legend of Smithy Door
Smithy Door was a small street that joined Catea-
ton Street directly opposite Mynshull’s House. It’s said it got
its name through a smith who kept a tally of his accounts on
his door. When a debtor on one occasion refused to pay his
bills and was taken to court, he challenged the smith to show
his books. The smith begged leave to fetch the accounts and
returned with his door on his back and won his case.
Drinking it all in
In 1804 Nathaniel Wood (or ‘Pattern Nat’, as he
was called), of Hanging Bridge, a pattern maker from little
further up the street, died. A wag wrote the following dog-
gerel about him at the public house he used to frequent.
‘Pattern Nat, he is so fat,
That he can hardly walk.
With sitting here and drinking beer,
And hearing puppies talk.’
Overdoing it with oysters
A nineteenth century customer of Sinclair’s
Oyster Bar, round the corner from Mynshull’s, was Lady
Sarah Spittlewick. At a time when oysters were a cheap food
she outdid everyone else by eating up to forty a day. If she
thought the aphrodisiacal qualities of seafood would help
her find a man, as reported at the time, then it hardly worked
as she was unlucky in love. In her sixties she collapsed in
Sinclair’s and was taken to the Royal Infirmary where she
died. An examination revealed why: she’d choked on a pearl.
A salutary lesson in never doing things to excess perhaps?
The sweet-toothed cleric
Joshua Brookes is the Cathedral’s most famous
chaplain. Born in 1754 he became a famous old curmudg-
eon. During one interment of a body in the long-gone
graveyard which surrounded the church, Brookes looked up
and his eye was caught by his favourite shop. Brookes had a
passion for sweets – particularly harehound drops - and this
was the best place in town to acquire them. So he broke off
during the ‘ashes to ashes’ part of the ceremony, walked to
the shop in a sort of trance, and returned with a mouth so
full of sweets, mourners couldn’t make out his words.
One last dip in the river
The area in front of the Cathedral and Britannic
House used to be called Tin Brow and was a steep, rugged
bank down to the River Irwell. In 1811, the churchyard being
full, the sexton decided to make space by digging up the old
unmarked graves and throwing coffins and bones down Tin
Brow into the Irwell. The practice provoked such outrage
that the churchyard was closed. A popular poem of the time
read, ‘Till time is over adieu Resurrections./ No more will
the fish of Irwell be fed/ With wreck of the grave, with
Manchester dead.’
The moving story of Oliver Cromwell
Salford Bridge before it became Victoria Bridge
was the point of entry into Manchester from Scotland to the
south. It was here where the Royalists were repulsed when
they attacked the city in 1642. In 1875 a statue of Oliver
Cromwell, a leader of the Parliamentary forces and later the
Lord Protector of England, was erected directly in front of
Britannic House to mark this event. The statue was contro-
versial from the beginning, beloved of liberals and radicals
who saw Cromwell as a libertarian, disliked by monarchists
and the Irish population who saw him either as a regicide or
a tyrant. It was eventually moved to Wythenshawe Park in
1968 where it still stands for the more prosaic reason that it
had become a barrier to traffic movements.
The terrible typesetter’s typo
In 1851 Queen Victoria crossed the bridge named
in her honour which lies in front of Britannic House. A
huge ceremonial arch was constructed for Victoria’s visit
made out of stone and festooned with flags - the bridge still
carries stone orbs representing royal authority on both para-
pets. But there’s cheeky history here too. A typesetter at The
Times was dismissed when he couldn’t resist amending the
line, ‘Her Majesty passed over the bridge and duly declared
it open,’ from a report of the day’s proceedings. He changed
the a in ‘passed’ to an ‘i’. Cheeky man.
Trades listed on Cateaton Street in the first Manchester The saddest poem
Street Directory 1772 This poem is Robert Lever’s seventeenth century
Cateaton Street was never much more than 100 elegy to his six dead children, some perhaps victims of the
metres in length. plague.
Thomas Boardman, Chandler and Soap-boiler
James Davenport, Fustian-manufacturer ‘Here dy’d their Parents hopes and feares,
James Holt, Rope-maker Once all their Ioy, now all their tearres,
Mary Ingham, Milliner They’r now past hope, past feare, or paine,
John Latewood, Ironmonger It were a sinne to wish them here againe.
Joseph Legard, Miniature-painter and Music-maker Had they liv’d to th’age of Man,
John Leigh, Druggist This Inch had growne but to a span.
Window Mawson, Tinner But now they take the lesser roomes.
John Prescot, Printer and Bookmaker Rock’t from their cradles to their Toombes,
Mary Prestwood, Toy-shop View but the way from whence wee come,
John Prestwood, Gingerbread maker You’le say He’s blest that soon’st at Home.
Daniel Rogers, Grocer You see their Age and years of Grace,
Peter Whitehead, Brushmaker I hope that Heaven’s their dwelling place.’
William Whitehead, Shoemaker
 Meet the neighbours: Much of what you see dates from 1421 when the
the buildings parish church was raised to that of Collegiate Church - one
with greater rights and a college of priests. The expanded
building was a chantry college where masses were said to
speed the souls of the rich to Paradise in return for cash.
The building is especially well-known for its woodwork. In

BVS1ObVSR`OZ
Visit this and you get to time-travel. Pause here
and you breathe in the heady atmosphere created by cast of
hundreds of thousands who have visited, worshipped, been
baptised, married and buried. This might be a house of God
but it is alive with magnetism of a millennium or more of
significance to humanity.
the nave, the beams supporting the ceilings sprout from a
heavenly choir, a consort of angels, playing dulcimer, harp,
bagpipes, lute and so on – music, after all, lifts our soul to
heaven. Through the lovely screen in the nave you’ll find the
Quire from around 1500. The stalls, or seats, of the Quire
are surmounted by carved canopies: each an elegant mass of
spires and crochets resembling a series of perfect churches.
Under the main seats are the misericords, or pity-seats – half
seats to support priests during long periods of worship
– these are full of late medieval symbolism and fun.
In December 1940, the Cathedral suffered a direct
hit during the Manchester Blitz. The windows acted like a
safety valve and as they shattered, helped release the pres-
sure of the blast. Because of this, the main structure and
woodwork were preserved. Lucky us. Manchester Cathedral,
‘the old Church’ as it was known, may be dwarfed by more
recent buildings, but Mynshull’s neighbout, remains one of
the jewels of late medieval architecture in Britain.

02.

01.
(22/23) Detail of Stone Carving around the
Cathedral. This particular piece shows a man
with a horn and a dog

02.
(22/23) A carving of a monkey holding a baby

03.
(22/23) View of Manchester Cathedral in its
modern day surroundings

04.
(23/24) Details of carvings in the Quire area
of Manchester Cathedral

05.
(23/24) Stained glass windows in Manchester
Cathedral

01.

03.
22/23
04. 05.
 Meet the neighbours:
the buildings

1VSbVO[,¹a:WP`O`gO\RAQV]]Z]T;caWQ 

The buildings not only look ancient but feel an-

cient. They’re special too: the oldest complete structures in
the city centre by at least a century. Erected, in the first half
of the 1400s as the home of the clergy from the Collegiate
church, they became the property of the local aristocracy
when Henry VIII ditched the Pope, before being taken over
by trustees of the will of Humphrey Chetham (pronounced
Cheetham) in 1653. The will set up a charity school for 40
poor boys and a free public library.

The library is a guaranteed jaw-dropper with origi-

nal fixtures and fittings and a superb collection of books
and manuscripts dating back to the thirteenth century. The
Reading Room is the most tranquil space in Manchester and
dominated by a huge carved coat of arms of the benefactor,
Humphrey Chetham. In the bay window Friedrich Engels,
who spent 22 years in Manchester, would study with Karl
Marx, the man he supported with money and ideas – parts
01. of the Communist Manifesto were right here. The rest of building form part of the School of
(26/27) Rows and rows of old books
indside Chetham’s Library
Music. This has around 290 talented kids between eight and
eighteen years of age and takes in boarders and day pupils.
02. The children are virtuosos when it comes to music. This is
(28/29) The Harry Potter - esque Corridors of
Chetham’s Library one of those Manchester institutions which are recognised
as world-class. And if you get chance, pop into the medieval
03. Baronial Hall, used by the kids for performances. Hogwarts
(28/29) Old books and manuscriptes
eat your heart out. If you want a venue for a special event
look no further than this.

01.
26/27
02. 03.
 Meet the neighbours: Its position seemed assured, but the clouds were
the buildings gathering over the cotton industry. During the Second World
War, the building was severely damaged. Rebuilding took 13
years, and the hall size was reduced by almost half. Mean-

BVS@]gOZ
while the industry was ravaged by the growth of the industry
in countries that produced the raw material, frequently with

3fQVO\US
Manchester grew significant, not because of war,
religion, royalty or culture but through commerce and cot-
ton. This building is the symbol of that. Here, under three
huge domes of coloured glass, and supported on massive
Corinthian columns, lies the biggest room in the North
of England. For a time at the end of the nineteenth and
beginning of the twentieth centuries, it controlled over 80%
of the world trade in finished cloth. It is the rise and fall of
industrial Manchester summed up by one building.
cheaper labour costs. It soon became clear that the Ex-
change was no longer viable, and when the doors closed on
31 December 1968, 249 years of history closed with them. A
theatre was opened in the space in 1976. High-tech and pow-
erful, it nestles like a lunar module under the great dome.
The bombs returned with the IRA attack in June
1996. Two years and £30m later, the building reopened after
repairs and improvements. It might not be the commercial
heart anymore but still the Exchange remains at the heart of
the city.

The first Exchange was built in 1729. The es-

tablished market days became Tuesdays and Fridays when
members would meet to do business and swap news. The
Exchange was expanded and rebuilt on several occasions
and attracted manufacturers, merchants, engineers, shippers,
bankers and insurers. By the late 1920s, the Royal Exchange
01. had a worldwide membership of 11,000.

01.
(30/31) The Royal Exchange Theatre

02.
(30/31) A gargoyle inside The Royal
Exchange Theatre

03..
(30/31) The dome inside the Royal Exchange
Theatre

02.

03.
30/31
02.
St Ann’s Church
At the other end of the St Ann’s Square is St
Ann’s Church. This is a handsome, classical building from
1709. The interior is as cool as the exterior is elegant, with
galleries squatting on chubby Tuscan columns. There is over-
wrought C19 stained glass from artist Frederick Shields. The
dedication refers to the saint, of course, but perhaps more
so to the lady who provided the money, Lady Ann Bland. It
was the society church when it was built and pew rents for
the best seats were more than £1,000. The church tower is
the traditional centre of the city from where distances to and
from other places were measured.
01.
(32/33) St Ann’s Church in its modern day
surroundings
02.
(32/33) Urbis
32/33
Urbis
Urbis is a glass ark in the pleasant Cathedral
Gardens: a visitor attraction dedicated to cities and urban
life and this is reflected in the displays and the name Urbis,
which is Latin for ‘of the city.’ This was chosen as a reflec-
tion of Manchester’s status as the first industrial society of
the modern age. It has a café on the ground floor and a bar
on levels five and six with views across the city centre.
The architects were Ian Simpson Architects who
in recent years have changed the silhouette of the city with
buildings such as Beetham Tower and No 1 Deansgate. The
splendid shape of Urbis is sculptural rather than architec-
tural and includes a glass elevator which travels up the inside
of the building at an angle. There are special events and
exhibitions throughout the years.
At the far end of Cathedral Gardens and over the
road from Urbis is Victoria Station which dares from a little
before Britannic Buildings and contains superb Art Nouveau
and Arts and Craft tile, mosaic and metalwork. The canopy
is amusing, listing the destinations of the former Lancashire
and Yorkshire Railway Company, such as Bolton, Bury, Hull
and then suddenly Belgium.
02.
 Meet the neighbours:
the people

Mynshull’s and Britannic are surrounded by a new

and old organisations and businesses which look to the past
and the future. Dean Rogers Govinder
Manchester Cathedral
01.

“As the Dean of Manchester Cathedral I not

only believe this building is the heart of the city, I know it
is. This is a cathedral and as such it’s both for the people
who worship but also for the city and the county. The magic
here comes from a number of things, it’s the age and the
history: great history too, for example 200 years ago Thomas
Clarkson, the great anti-slave campaigner started his cam-
paign in this building. He spoke to a packed Cathedral filled
with Manchester folk and started a petition to Parliament.
But we’re not just about history, we’re very much a living
religious building for the 21st century, a place of daily prayer
and worship.

“Before this I used to be vicar in West Didsbury

for five years. Before that I was in my homeland of South
Africa on the East coast there. This is my best job, of
course. It is a job that enables me to be rooted in a wor-
shipping community. It also gives me an amazing ability
to connect with city life – we host a whole series of major
ceremonial and commemorative services, the investiture of
the Lord Mayor and so forth. The job enables me to connect
with a whole host of community organisations too from the
inner city to the suburbs. It’s a wonderful job, and a wonder-
ful place to work. I’m very fortunate.”

01.
(34/35) Dean Rogers Govinder, Manchester
Cathedral

02.
(34/35) The impressive Quire inside Manches-
ter Cathedral

02.
34/35
 Meet the neighbours:
the people

Alison Seagrave
Head Chef, Harvey Nichols, Manchester

“I’ve been here since the beginning in 2003

and worked my way up. I’m from Heywood, just north of
Manchester, and so the city is my home. But before here
I’d spent ten years in London. But there’s a point when you
come to the end of a job or a relationship and you move on
to the next one or you move away, and this time I chose to
come home. In some respects I came back for a normal life.
Manchester is a great place to work and live, there’s nothing
you can’t do here – but you can do it quicker usually. It’s big
enough and small enough. I like where Harvey Nichols is in
the city centre too, right at the centre of the action.

“What’s been a bit of a shock is the attention I’ve 01.

(36/37) Alison Seagrave, Head Chef, Harvey
received. There aren’t that many female head chiefs around Nichols, Manchester
and so everybody wants to profile me. I don’t dislike the lime
light but I find it a bit strange. That’s not what I went out to 02.
(36/37) The Harvey Nichols Restaurant,
do and at the end of the day I’d say 99% of chefs become Manchester
chefs and cooks because they want to be behind the scenes
– despite all the celebrity chef stuff on TV. If they wanted
to be in front of something they would be doing something
different. It’s a bit like my style of cooking I suppose, crea-
tive but essentially simple, not trying to disguise anything.
And hopefully accessible to everybody.”

01.

02.
36/37
 Meet the neighbours:
the people/

Craig Johnson
Edwards Shoes

“We’re the oldest retailer in Manchester, been

around since 1830, more or less on the same site. We feel
as much a part of this city as anybody I suppose and we’re
proud to represent quality and craftsmanship. And we
do this in both the products we offer and the service we
provide. It’s no good trying to sell a beautiful pair of shoes
if you can’t advise the customer properly. The point of
Edwards is because of that tradition we need to go a bit fur-
ther, we’re a destination shop for men. We like our basement
location too because it makes us feel intimate, like a club.
Some of our customers wouldn’t want to be stared at either.
Why? Well we have several actors and sportspeople who
regularly come in: United and City players, actors such as
Christopher Eccleston and Patrick Stewart – yeah Jean-Luc
Picard can travel the universe but he likes to shop here.

“We’re also the last true bespoke shoe shop in the 01.
(38/39) Craig Johnson
North West, one of two or three in the North and up to
Edinburgh. We can give you a hand-carved last, essentially a 02.
perfect model of your foot, and then we can provide a hand- (38/39) Edwards signage

stitched shoe to fit perfectly – these would cost, at 2007 03.

prices, around £1850. But of course we have beautifully (38/39) Edwards has been established since
fitting, well-crafted lines for sale in the shop for £200 or so. 1830

People might think that’s still high but the cost per wear is
much less, our shoes usually last three to five times longer
than a High Street pair. I suppose as a shop you could say
the same about us.”

01.

02. 03.
38/39
 Meet the neighbours:
the people
Doctor Michael Powell
Head Librarian, Chetham’s Library
“Everybody who comes in here for the first time
is surprised. Chetham’s Library is a very rare survival from
the seventeenth century. If that weren’t special enough we
just happen to occupy one of best preserved and most com-
plete examples of fifteenth century architecture in the UK:
more than 350 years of use as a library and almost 600 years
of use as a building. That’s a rare and powerful combination.
01.
02.
40/41
“The fact that we’ve had little money over the
years means that many of the original features remain.
Stools, shelves, the tables and chairs. And of course the
books. We concentrate on regional collections now, although
the older books and manuscripts are broader in scope and
include illuminated manuscripts as well as a first edition of
the first dictionary in English by Samuel Johnson. The local
records are very important for those tracing their families
and so on – we’ve even got signed documents from Thomas
Mynshull.
“It’s all open to the public. We welcome anybody
from everywhere in the world. As I said before they’re
normally astonished. Part of that is the atmosphere, which
can’t really be described, only felt. I feel like a steward, caring
for the books and the building, helping the readers, and then
I will pass on the mantle. And another librarian will take
over and so it will continue. Who knows for how long, we’ve
survived the bombs of a World War and those of terrorism
– let’s hope we’ve got another few centuries in us.”
01.
(40/41) Some of the very books Marx and
Engels where said to have conversed over
02.
(40/41) Doctor Michael Powell, Head
Librarian, Chetham’s Library
03.
(40/41) Some of the books from Chetham’s
Library
03.
 “And the whole project is the sort of thing we’re
about at Nikal. The first development I did was Deansgate
Locks which was again marrying old and new, that was be-
fore Nikal. We formed this company in 2003. What we try to
do is look at quality throughout and invest in that rather than
compromise and save a few pounds. I suppose we try to in-
stil passion into the schemes we do by using great architects
and also looking for interesting projects from the beginning.
This seems to please customers and makes our job reward-
ing,
Nick Payne of Nikal explains why they acquired Myn- “Nikal are working right across the country at the
shull’s House and Britannic Buildings and a little about moment from Wells in Somerset through Birmingham to
the company Hull. But Manchester’s our home. This makes the prospect
of moving into Mynshull’s so enticing. It’s a home-coming
“Mynshull’s and Britannic are the sort of project into a beautiful building in a great area. I can’t wait.”
I love. They’re a real challenge and because of that they give
you a sense of achievement when they’re completed. I sup-
pose the more you put into a project the more you get out.
“I love it to when someone throws down a gaunt-
let anyway, and says, “There’s no way you can do it. You can’t
make money from it.” It’s good fun to prove them wrong. In
this case though, the first consideration is to give ourselves a
fabulous head office, the making money part will follow.
“But the idea of having a new home makes me passionate
about Mynshull’s. The sand stone is fantastic, the detailing
exceptional. And very unusually for a city centre building it’s
semi-detached. Where else in central Manchester do you get
that? We’ve opened the rear elevation too, so we get loads of
light. And then we have that one wall against Britannic build-
ings without windows where you can put your photocopier
01. and bits and pieces. So it’s charming, it’s functional and it’s a
(30/31) The Royal Exchange Theatre
very warm space too.
02. “Positional wise, you really feel it’s in the centre
(30/31) A gargoyle inside The Royal of town, the centre of the action. I am a great believer that
Exchange Theatre
if people are coming to see you then they want a landmark
03.. building. What better than to say we’re between Harvey
(30/31) The dome inside the Royal Exchange Nics and the Cathedral? No need to say, “Well, it’s round the
Theatre
corner from King Street, which is up the road from Brown
Street, turn left at the lights, and so on. When I showed one
of my co-directors, Alan Murphy, the site he said, “wow, it’s
the crown jewels.” I agree with him.

42/43
44/45