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Britannia Hotel
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- Manchester, Britannia Hotel, Portland Street
In the 1840s Manchester was the central market for the 280 cotton towns and villages within twelve miles of the centre, and a larger population beyond. Booming trade brought redevelopment of the centre, where commercial buildings, particularly warehouses sprang up in streets near the Exchange. Travis & Mangnall's Watts Warehouse (now the Britannia Hotel), on Portland Street, (1851-6) was the king of the home trade warehouses, and remains one of the largest and most impressive buildings of its type in the centre. Home trade warehouses served the home market with retailers visiting the premises to inspect the goods and make ordersGlossary Term. Emphasis was on display and good lighting for viewing the goods, and there would usually be an impressive hall or foyer and show rooms with mahogany counters beneath the windows where goods could be inspected. The industry encompassed made-up clothing, haberdashery and a wide range of fancy goods.
S. & J. Watts was the largest wholesale drapery business in Manchester and the owner James Watts typical of the city's new mercantile princes, a self-made man who espoused the free-trade cause. His warehouse aptly encapsulates the spirit of self-confidence mixed with a touchGlossary Term of brashness. The length is twenty-three bays or c. 300ft, the height nearly 100ft. There are four roof towers but the ranges of gables between and on top of the towers shown on C19 engravings have been lost.
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- Manchester, Britannia Hotel, Portland Street
The general outline resembles the Fondaco dei Turchi in Venice. Each of the six floors is given a different treatment ranging from Italian RenaissanceGlossary Term to ElizabethanGlossary Term, culminating with wheel windows in the roof towers. This fantastic mixture is held together by an orderly rhythm and the confidence of the composition, so it is more than just a curiosity. The building had four large internal wells and a system of circulation which segregated customers, staff and porters. Inside the original sumptuous staircase is preserved, as are the generous landings with their ornate cast-iron columns.
Glossary
- Elizabethan
The English architecture of the later 16th century, marked by a decorative use of Renaissance ornament and a preference for symmetrical fa
- Orders
The differently formalized versions of the basic post-and-lintel (column and entablature) system in classical architecture. The main orders are Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian. They are Greek in origin but occur in Roman versions. Tuscan is a simple variant of Roman Doric. The Composite capital combines Ionic volutes with Corinthian foliage. Though each order has its own conventions of design and proportion, there are many minor variations. Superimposed orders: orders on successive levels, customarily in the upward sequence of Tuscan, Doric, Ionic, Corinthian, Composite.
- Renaissance
The revival of classical architecture that began in 15th-century Italy and spread through Western Europe and the Americas in the following two centuries, finding distinctive forms and interpretations in different states and regions. From c. 1830 the Italian version was revived in Britain as a style in its own right (sometimes called Neo-Renaissance or Italianate), i.e. as distinguished from the native Georgian classical tradition.
- Touch
Soft black marble quarried near Tournai in Belgium.
Inside Explore Manchester:
Last updated: Monday, 26th January 2009