Next tours: Thu 10 May (5.30pm)…Mon 21 May (5.30pm)…Sun 27 May (12 noon)…Mon 18 June (2.30pm), Mon 25 June (5.30pm)…Tue 10 July (11am)…Mon 23 July (11am)…Sun 5 Aug (12 noon – Murals only)…Tue 7 Aug (5.30pm)…Thu 16 Aug (5.30pm)…Mon 20 Aug (11am)…Tue 11 Sep (5.30pm)…Tue 18 Sep (5.30pm).
Meet: Midland Hotel steps, Peter Street.
Cost: £5.
Why meet there and not at the Town Hall? Albert Square is often packed with market stalls or cordoned off, and the main entrance into the Town Hall blocked. And as there is no one obvious landmark or meeting point within the building, we meet nearby at the Midland, which is always accessible, is unambiguous and is under cover! This way we can also build up to the great sight that is the Town Hall.
Do I need to book? No, but please drop us an e-mail if there is a group of you.
Bring: Expectations of being overawed and amazed.
End: Closely examining the famous Ford Madox Brown murals or supping in the sumptuous Sculpture Hall cafe (evening tours excepted).
You’ve not truly experienced Britain’s greatest municipal building until you’ve been taken round on a tour by Ed Glinert, New Manchester Walks’ guide and author of The Manchester Compendium.
When the BBC’s Antiques Roadshow team wanted to gain an understanding of the history of the building for their forthcoming programme they went to Glinert. When BBC Radio Manchester want a greater understanding of this municipal palace they phone Glinert. When Phil Tufnell and the BBC One Show hit the Town Hall they called for Glinert.
Ed Glinert has been working in and studying the Town Hall since 1983. He was there when the post of Lord Mayor was abolished (temporarily, it turned out) in 1984 and when Graham Stringer’s ruling group abandoned plans to bring down Maggie Thatcher in 1986. He’s had his tours interrupted by Michael Heseltine (Tarzan had first claim on the Lord Mayor’s Parlour that day) and the waltzers of the monthly tea dances. On entering the building recently he has bumped into the Rev Jesse Jackson (wow!) and Ed Miliband (who?).
On a New Manchester Walks Town Hall tour, Glinert covers everything you ever wanted to know about this grandest of Gothic Gormenghasts. He explains why the building deliberately looks like a mediaeval cloth hall, shows you pictures of some of the 130 designs that didn’t win (Thomas Worthington’s Gothicier-than-thou nightmare is a hoot), introduces you to the serpentine animal that guards the main entrance, and relates the links between the king commemorated in stone on the outside of the building who kick-started the local textile economy, and the glorious and famous crest that decorates the foyer ceiling.
Glinert then takes you into the courtyard with its huge overawing walls of blackened stone and antiquated cobbled passages, up to the Sculpture Hall, inhabited by Cromwell, Gladstone, Fairbairn and various Potters, and then on to the grand stare rooms – the Lord Mayor’s Parlour, Banqueting Hall and original council chamber. Unfortunately, he can’t for now get over the bridge to the modern-day council chamber and wall of Freemen owing to the massive refurbishment project taking place, but you won’t miss out on any stories.
The highlight of the tour is the Great Hall, described by the great art critic John Ruskin as the “finest Gothic apartment in Europe”. Here amid the statues, stained glass and shields are the 12 murals of Manchester history painted 1879-93 by Ford Madox Brown, mentor to the Pre-Raphaelites. Here Glinert will explain why the Town Hall fathers refused to allow depictions of Peterloo and the opening of the world’s first railway station in Manchester, as well as revealing the hidden histories within these great works – from the Roman governor’s son kicking the Nubian slave to Geoffrey Chaucer’s taking notes at the trial of the Bible translator John Wycliffe; from the connections between the introduction of weights and measures into medieval Manchester and the CWS providing Mancunians with pure food in the late 19th century; from the arrival of Flemish weavers in the 14th century to the beginnings of the industrial revolution with the cotton machines of the mid-18th century.
• Even though we arrange these tours with the Town Hall’s events managers to make sure you can see as much as possible, the Town Hall is a working building and some state rooms may not be available due to meetings and events. If you feel you haven’t had your money’s worth, New Manchester Walks will take you on another Town Hall tour free of charge.
