Winston Churchill speaking at the Lesser Free Trade Hall, 1913.

For tour only, please book here with eventbrite.

For lunch/tea as well, please contact us to reserve a place.

Manchester’s most important building was constructed as a Victorian palace celebrating free trade (the system that made the city rich).

It is now the city’s only 5-Star hotel, stamping ground of the beautiful people: Kylie Minogue, Bill Clinton, Sven and Gordon Brown (!)

Indeed no Manchester building has a more remarkable history than the Free Trade Hall/Radisson Hotel. Here great orators (Benjamin Disraeli, John Bright, Winston Churchill) discoursed; here the Halle Orchestra made its home; here Bob Dylan was booed, Muddy Waters claimed he was, and Pink Floyd performed an acoustic Dark Side of the Moon. The Suffragettes were arrested here in 1905; Oswald Mosley outlined his plans for fascism here in the 1930s. Paul Robeson sang via a tape recording here in 1957.

And remember, this is no ordinary location. The hall was built on this site because this was where the Peterloo Massacre took place in 1819. 

Ed Glinert brings the building and its extraordinary history to life on this mesmerising and memorable tour. We end inside one of the sumptuous bedrooms; if were really lucky the same one that Gordon Brown himself kipped in!

* Scrumptious sumptuous cream tea downstairs pre- or post-tour optional.