The Burnley Mechanics is a theatre and former

Mechanics' Institute Mechanics' institutes, also known as mechanics' institutions, sometimes simply known as institutes, and also called schools of arts (especially in the Australian colonies), were educational establishments originally formed to provide adult edu ...

in the market town of

Burnley Burnley () is a town and the administrative centre of the wider Borough of Burnley in Lancashire, England, with a 2021 population of 78,266. It is north of Manchester and east of Preston, at the confluence of the River Calder and River B ...

Lancashire Lancashire ( , ; abbreviated ''Lancs'') is a ceremonial county in North West England. It is bordered by Cumbria to the north, North Yorkshire and West Yorkshire to the east, Greater Manchester and Merseyside to the south, and the Irish Sea to ...

, England. It was built 1854–55 and converted to a theatre in 1979.

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 Culture, Media and Sport. It is tasked with prot ...

has designated the theatre a

Grade II* listed In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, H ...

building.

History

The Mechanics' Institute was built in 1854–55 to a design by

Todmorden Todmorden ( ; ) is a market town and civil parish in the Upper Calder Valley in Calderdale, West Yorkshire, England. It is north-east of Manchester, south-east of Burnley and west of Halifax, West Yorkshire, Halifax. In 2011, it had a popul ...

architect James Green.

Charles Towneley Charles Townley Royal Society, FRS (1 October 1737 – 3 January 1805) was a wealthy English country gentleman, antiquary and collector, a member of the Towneley family. He travelled on three Grand Tours to Italy, buying antique sculpture, vase ...

officially opened the institute in 1855. It was a club for "reading and discussion by an 'earnest few'". As the town grew, the institute increasingly became a social and cultural community centre. Architect William Waddington enlarged the building in 1888.

Burnley Borough Council Burnley () is a town and the administrative centre of the wider Borough of Burnley in Lancashire, England, with a 2021 United Kingdom census, 2021 population of 78,266. It is north of Manchester and east of Preston, Lancashire, Preston, at th ...

bought the building in 1959 and leased it to companies for a variety of leisure purposes. In 1979 the interior was reconstructed as a theatre. Burnley Mechanics was designated a

building by

on 29 September 1977. The Grade II* designation—the second highest of the three grades—is for "particularly important buildings of more than special interest". It is described by Hartwell and Pevsner as "one of Burnley's best buildings". John Champness calls its façade "certainly the finest Classical façade in Burnley and among the very best of its date in the country".

Architecture

Burnley Mechanics is built in the Palazzo style in

sandstone Sandstone is a Clastic rock#Sedimentary clastic rocks, clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of grain size, sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate mineral, silicate grains, Cementation (geology), cemented together by another mineral. Sand ...

ashlar Ashlar () is a cut and dressed rock (geology), stone, worked using a chisel to achieve a specific form, typically rectangular in shape. The term can also refer to a structure built from such stones. Ashlar is the finest stone masonry unit, a ...

. Green's original construction is on a rectangular plan with five

bay A bay is a recessed, coastal body of water that directly connects to a larger main body of water, such as an ocean, a lake, or another bay. A large bay is usually called a ''gulf'', ''sea'', ''sound'', or ''bight''. A ''cove'' is a small, ci ...

s at the front; it is on two storeys. The

ground floor A storey (Commonwealth English) or story (American English), is any level part of a building with a floor that could be used by people (for living, work, storage, recreation, etc.). Plurals for the word are ''storeys'' (UK, CAN) and ''storie ...

has Venetian-style windows with round, rusticated arches. Waddington's extension at the rear of the building is on a slightly lower level. Its design matches that of the rest of the building, but the newer windows have

architrave In classical architecture, an architrave (; , also called an epistyle; ) is the lintel or beam, typically made of wood or stone, that rests on the capitals of columns. The term can also apply to all sides, including the vertical members, ...

s with

pilaster In architecture, a pilaster is both a load-bearing section of thickened wall or column integrated into a wall, and a purely decorative element in classical architecture which gives the appearance of a supporting column and articulates an ext ...

s. On the second floor, there are central windows flanked by

Corinthian column The Corinthian order (, ''Korinthiakós rythmós''; ) is the last developed and most ornate of the three principal classical orders of Ancient Greek architecture and Roman architecture. The other two are the Doric order, which was the earliest, ...

s and pilasters. The entrances to the building have coupled Corinthian columns.

References

;Footnotes ;Bibliography * * *

External links

* {{Borough of Burnley buildings 1855 establishments in England Buildings and structures in Burnley Grade II* listed buildings in Lancashire Grade II* listed theatres Theatres completed in 1855 Theatres in Lancashire

History

Architecture

See also

References

External links