The Midland Hotel Manchester is a grand

hotel A hotel is an establishment that provides paid lodging on a short-term basis. Facilities provided inside a hotel room may range from a modest-quality mattress in a small room to large suites with bigger, higher-quality beds, a dresser, a ref ...

Manchester Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The t ...

, England. Opened in 1903, it was built by the

Midland Railway The Midland Railway (MR) was a railway company in the United Kingdom from 1844. The Midland was one of the largest railway companies in Britain in the early 20th century, and the largest employer in Derby, where it had its headquarters. It am ...

to serve

Manchester Central railway station Manchester Central railway station is a former railway station in Manchester city centre, England. One of Manchester's main railway terminals between 1880 and 1969, it has been converted into an exhibition and conference centre, originally know ...

, its northern terminus for its rail services to London St Pancras. It faces onto

St Peter's Square Saint Peter's Square ( la, Forum Sancti Petri, it, Piazza San Pietro ,) is a large plaza located directly in front of St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican City, the papal enclave inside Rome, directly west of the neighborhood (rione) of Borgo. Both ...

. The hotel was designed by Charles Trubshaw in Edwardian Baroque style and is a Grade II* listed building.

History

Built at the junction of Peter Street and Lower Mosley Street opposite

, terminus for Midland Railway express trains to London St Pancras, the hotel was designed by Charles Trubshaw and constructed between 1898 and 1903 for the Midland Railway Company at a cost of more than £1 million. In 1908 ''The Railway News'' reported that the hotel had over 70,000 guests in its first year and described it as a "Twentieth century palace". The hotel had a 1,000-seat purpose-built theatre where opera, drama and early

Annie Horniman Annie Elizabeth Fredericka Horniman CH (3 October 1860 – 6 August 1937) was an English theatre patron and manager. She established the Abbey Theatre in Dublin and founded the first regional repertory theatre company in Britain at the Gaiety ...

performances were staged, and a roof terrace where a string quartet performed. The Midland Hotel was allegedly coveted by

Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Nazi Germany, Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his death in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the le ...

, who maintained a keen interest in architecture, as a possible

Nazi Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in ...

headquarters in Britain. American intelligence speculated that the area of Manchester around the

town hall In local government, a city hall, town hall, civic centre (in the UK or Australia), guildhall, or a municipal building (in the Philippines), is the chief administrative building of a city, town, or other municipality. It usually houses ...

was spared from bombing during the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

so as not to damage or destroy the Midland Hotel.

Charles Rolls Charles Stewart Rolls (27 August 1877 – 12 July 1910) was a British motoring and aviation pioneer. With Henry Royce, he co-founded the Rolls-Royce car manufacturing firm. He was the first Briton to be killed in an aeronautical accident with ...

met

Henry Royce Sir Frederick Henry Royce, 1st Baronet, (27 March 1863 – 22 April 1933) was an English engineer famous for his designs of car and aeroplane engines with a reputation for reliability and longevity. With Charles Rolls (1877–1910) and Claude ...

in the Midland Hotel, leading to the formation of

Rolls-Royce Limited Rolls-Royce was a British luxury car and later an aero-engine manufacturing business established in 1904 in Manchester by the partnership of Charles Rolls and Henry Royce. Building on Royce's good reputation established with his cranes, they ...

in 1904. Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother dined in the hotel's Trafford Restaurant in November 1959 after attending a

Royal Variety Performance The ''Royal Variety Performance'' is a televised variety show held annually in the United Kingdom to raise money for the Royal Variety Charity (of which King Charles III is life-patron). It is attended by senior members of the British royal f ...

at the

Palace Theatre Palace Theatre, or Palace Theater, is the name of many theatres in different countries, including: Australia *Palace Theatre, Melbourne, Victoria *Palace Theatre, Sydney, New South Wales Canada *Palace Theatre, housed in the Robillard Block, Mo ...

The Beatles The Beatles were an English Rock music, rock band, formed in Liverpool in 1960, that comprised John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. They are regarded as the Cultural impact of the Beatles, most influential band of al ...

were famously refused access to the French Restaurant for being "inappropriately dressed".

Architecture

The Midland has a steel structure clad in red brick, brown

terracotta Terracotta, terra cotta, or terra-cotta (; ; ), in its material sense as an earthenware substrate, is a clay-based ceramic glaze, unglazed or glazed ceramic where the pottery firing, fired body is porous. In applied art, craft, construction, a ...

and several varieties of polished

granite Granite () is a coarse-grained (phaneritic) intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly cools and solidifies undergro ...

and Burmantofts terracotta to withstand the polluted environment of Manchester. This includes some fine modelled panels by the sculptor Edward Caldwell Spruce.''Burmantofts Pottery'' (1983) Bradford Art Galleries & Museums and Leeds City Art Gallery p15 The building shares some similarity with other highly decorative Edwardian Baroque buildings in Manchester such as

London Road Fire Station London Road Fire Station is a former fire station in Manchester, England. It was opened in 1906, on a site bounded by London Road, Whitworth Street, Minshull Street South and Fairfield Street. Designed in the Edwardian Baroque style by Woodhou ...

and Lancaster House. The building has been designated a 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 ...

English Heritage English Heritage (officially the English Heritage Trust) is a charity that manages over 400 historic monuments, buildings and places. These include prehistoric sites, medieval castles, Roman forts and country houses. The charity states that i ...

. The building was voted

Greater Manchester Greater Manchester is a metropolitan county and combined authority, combined authority area in North West England, with a population of 2.8 million; comprising ten metropolitan boroughs: City of Manchester, Manchester, City of Salford, Salford ...

's second-favourite building by readers of the ''

Manchester Evening News The ''Manchester Evening News'' (''MEN'') is a regional daily newspaper covering Greater Manchester in North West England, founded in 1868. It is published Monday–Saturday; a Sunday edition, the ''MEN on Sunday'', was launched in February 201 ...

'' in 2012. Once known as the Crowne Plaza Manchester – The Midland, it was bought by the Paramount Hotel Group (now Barcelo UK) in 2004. It was upgraded in a £12 million renovation and was transferred to QHotels, formerly Quintessential Hotels, Paramount's sister company. The hotel was sold in 2018 to a partnership of the Swedish firm Pandox and the Israeli firm Fattal Hotels. The new owners undertook a £14m renovation. the Midland Hotel was operated by the Fattal Jurys Operation as a Leonardo Royal Hotel.

Hotel

The hotel is close to Manchester Central exhibition and conference centre on the site of the former railway station, the

Bridgewater Hall The Bridgewater Hall is a concert venue in Manchester city centre, England. It cost around £42 million to build in the 1990s, and hosts over 250 performances a year. It is home to the 165-year-old Hallé Orchestra as well as to the Hallé ...

and Manchester Central Library. The hotel has 312 en-suite bedrooms and 14 suites, a health club and two restaurants – The French and Mr. Cooper's House & Garden.

Restaurants

The French, once described by '' The Good Food Guide'' as "Manchester's finest dining room", was one of Britain’s first Michelin-starred restaurants – awarded in 1974 in the first guide. It re-opened in March 2013 and chef Simon Rogan who stated his desire is to re-establish it to its former opulence and was rated the 12th best restaurant nationally in its first year of opening and awarded the best New Entry award by the Good Food Guide. The French was awarded three Rosettes – the maximum permitted in the first year of opening. The Colony was named after the

cotton Cotton is a soft, fluffy staple fiber that grows in a boll, or protective case, around the seeds of the cotton plants of the genus ''Gossypium'' in the mallow family Malvaceae. The fiber is almost pure cellulose, and can contain minor perce ...

traders who sold raw cotton to mill owners and referred to themselves as the Old Colony Club. It closed for refurbishment in 2013 and re-opened in the September as Mr. Cooper's House & Garden in tribute to Thomas Cooper, whose house and gardens occupied the hotel site in 1819. The family were coach-makers and their garden was famous for its strawberries, gooseberries, apples and flowers. Following a complete makeover the restaurant is now called Mount Street Restaurant and Bar.

References

;Citations ;Bibliography * * *

External links