Souvenirs: A Guide to Manchester Town Hall, Manchester, Date Unknown.

Tags

Alfred Waterhouse, architecture, bee, bees, Gothic Revival, Manchester, Manchester Town Hall, Neo-Gothic, Souvenirs

A remarkable building.

Here are some interesting facts from the guide for your consideration:

• Over the main door is a statue of the Roman General Agricola, who founded Mamuciam in 79 AD.
• [Alfred] Waterhouse designed the ‘easy tread stairs’ to enable Victorian ladies in their finery to ascend the stairs without having to look down.
• The landing area outside the Great Hall is known as “The Bees”. Its mosaic floor features a pattern of bees, a symbol of Manchester’s industry which is found on the City’s coat of arms.

Bee.

I remember “The Bees”! …but what I’m left with is a general impression of the Neo-Gothic grandeur of the place and the feeling that it was very well designed. To quote the guide again, “Waterhouse successfully combined the ceremonial and workaday requirements. The Town Hall was designed in the thirteenth century Gothic style but it was, in Waterhouse’s words, a building ‘essentially of the nineteenth century'”.