Admired for its stunning Victorian Gothic exterior, it's the lesser-known, but equally majestic, halls inside that make the Town Hall an enthralling experience.
Manchester Town Hall is the one building you can't miss in central Manchester. With its great clock tower striking nearly 90 metres up over Albert Square, it defines the city's skyline in much the same way that Big Ben does in London. It's a building that critics have called a 'Victorian Gothic masterpiece'. And most Mancunians would agree – they have repeatedly named it as their favourite building, no small thing in a city weighed down with monumental buildings.It was built in 1877, both to house the local government offices of a rapidly expanding city, and to act as a beacon of Manchester's growing wealth and power. Some see the strong resemblance between the Town Hall and London's Palace of Westminster as no coincidence – Manchester wanted to be compared to – and to outshine – the southern capital.Viewed from the outside, the six storey hall, with its grand sandstone spires, looks magnificent enough. But the architect, Alfred Waterhouse, paid as much attention creating something sensational on the inside of the Town Hall, as he did on the outside. And the two rooms that illustrate that most powerfully are the Great Hall, and the Sculpture Hall.The Great Hall is the better known. It sits on the first floor, and looks every inch like a medieval banqueting hall, with it stone-ribbed ceiling and tall stained-glass arches. Here, everything is symbolic. The adjacent landing has a mosaic floor of bees (for industry) and cotton flowers (for the plant that made the city rich). The ceiling shows the heralds of the towns that Manchester has traded with, while the walls are decorated with Ford Madox Brown's famous 'Manchester Murals'. They illustrate twelve joyful scenes from Manchester's long history.The Sculpture Hall is also splendid, but in a different way. It is arrayed with pink-and-black striped arches, veined-marble columns, intricately designed floors – and pristine white marble busts of Manchester notables in the arts, sciences and politics. But best of all, part of it serves as a tea room, decked out with the finest furniture. Only in Manchester can you sit in such opulence, at the heart of local government, sipping your tea, and sampling the delights of Lancashire hotpot.
