The Great Northern Warehouse is the former railway goods warehouse of the Great Northern Railway in

Manchester city centre Manchester City Centre is the central business district of Manchester in Greater Manchester, England situated within the confines of Great Ancoats Street, A6042 Trinity Way, and A57(M) Mancunian Way which collectively form an inner ring road. ...

, England, which was refurbished into a leisure complex in 1999. The building is at the junction of

Deansgate Deansgate is a main road (part of the A56) through Manchester City Centre, England. It runs roughly north–south in a near straight route through the western part of the city centre and is the longest road in the city centre at over one mile ...

and Peter Street. It was granted Grade II*

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

status in 1974. The warehouse was built to be fireproof with a steel frame on a rectangular plan, 267 feet long by 217 feet wide and five storeys high, with 27 windows on the east and west sides and 17 windows on the north and south ends. All four sides have friezes lettered in white brick reading "Great Northern Railway Company's Goods Warehouse". It was built above the

Manchester and Salford Junction Canal The Manchester and Salford Junction Canal was a canal in the city of Manchester. It was originally built to provide a direct waterway between the Mersey and Irwell Navigation and the Rochdale Canal. The canal opened in 1839 and was abandoned i ...

, and a dock beneath was constructed to allow goods to be transferred to and from canal barges via shafts and a complex system of haulage using hydraulic power. The building could hold a total of 150 goods wagons across two of its levels, with capacity for a further 500 in its sidings. Its construction effectively wiped out the district of Alport Town, which had included 300 houses, and "Over 800 men were employed on the site. 25 million bricks, 50,000 tons of concrete, 12,000 tons of mild steel and 65 miles of rivets were used in its construction". According to

Historic England Historic England (officially the Historic Buildings and Monuments Commission for England) is an executive non-departmental public body of the British Government sponsored by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. It is tasked wit ...

, the warehouse is a "unique survival of a three-way railway goods exchange station, serving the railway, canal and road networks of the Manchester region." The development includes a cinema, casino, restaurants, bowling alley, bar, gym, and a

multi-storey car park A multistorey car park (British and Singapore English) or parking garage (American English), also called a multistory, parking building, parking structure, parkade (mainly Canadian), parking ramp, parking deck or indoor parking, is a build ...

Future redevelopment

In December 2022, Trilogy Real Estate and Hong Kong-based Peterson Group brought forward updated plans for a mixed-use redevelopment of the site, featuring 746 homes across three buildings – including a 34-storey tower and a 27-storey tower. Trilogy’s plans, designed by

SimpsonHaugh SimpsonHaugh (formerly Ian Simpson Architects) is an English architecture practice established in 1987 by Ian Simpson and Rachel Haugh. The practice has offices in London and Manchester. In 2014, the practice re-branded as Simpson Haugh & Pa ...

Architects, seeks the partial demolition of a 1990s extension to the warehouse, which currently houses an Odeon cinema, an NCP car park, and a gym. The upper floors of the Great Northern Warehouse will be refurbished into offices. Trilogy has also been working with landscape architect Planit-IE on plans to revamp the square that fronts the warehouse.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Great Northern Warehouse Grade II* listed buildings in Manchester Warehouses in England Tourist attractions in Manchester Commercial buildings in Manchester Grade II* listed commercial buildings Commercial buildings completed in 1899 1899 establishments in England

Future redevelopment

See also

References