A walk round the many remaining warehouses in the Portland Street/Princess Street area. This is part of a series of walk around significant areas of Victorian Manchester which Ken Moth is leading this summer and autumn. It will last one and a half hours.
The cotton towns of Lancashire spun cotton and wove fabric which was bleached, dyed and printed with a huge variety of patterns. Dealers in Manchester ordered this fabric which was received into their warehouses for careful inspection and packaging prior to shipping all over the world. In the second half of the nineteenth century a third of humanity wore cotton fabric sold through Manchester which was nicknamed Cottonopolis. The cotton packing warehouses are a fascinating building type which demonstrate the growth of trade through the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and the technical advances in building design needed to meet a surging demand.
The Britannia Hotel is not far from Piccadilly Gardens and easily accessed by public transport: bus, train, Metrolink. Parking is available at SIP Car Park on Major Street M1 3ED and others nearby.
Ken Moth, conservation architect extraordinaire, was Chair of the Northern Buildings Committee 1991-2024 and Casework Trustee for the Victorian Society for many years. Ken spent 50 years in building conservation, his interest being sparked by being asked in 1973 to join the campaign to save York House on Major Street (see pic), an important textile packing warehouse.