Celebrating our Municipal Town Halls part 6 .......... Manchester Town Hall*

Well I could hardly leave our own Town Hall out of the collection.*

It is a building I have been fascinated by for nearly half a century, although when I first saw it I was not convinced.  Back then I was still into classical buildings and rather was disdainful of all that Gothic stuff.

Plenty of people would come to its defence including one friend who pointed out that it had just been cleaned as if that would make me like it all the more.

Of course that Gothic prejudice has long vanished and during the 1970s into the 90s I spent many hours in the building and came to fully appreciate it as a fine statement of all that municipal power.

And here I have to mention Mr Tidmarsh whose illustraions have been regularly used by any one wanting to show our city in the last decades of the 19th century.

Many of them can be found in the three volumes of Manchester Old and New by William Arthur Shaw published in 1894.

I noticed a recent auction of the 3 which estimated that they might go for

£30-£40, and there are also paper back versions as well as an e book.

I chose to opt for the Library copies which once ordered up arrived at Chorlton Library in a matter of days, something I am sure would have pleased the Corporation's Library Committee back at the beginning of the last century.









Pictures, Manchester Town Hall, by H.E. Tidmarsh from Manchester Old and New, William Arthur Shaw, 1894

*Our Municipal Town Halls, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Our%20Municipal%20Town%20Halls