Halifax House stands across from the Sawyer's Arms on the corner of Bridge Street and Deansgate.  This red brick building sweeps around the corner with 2 bays on the Deansgate side and 4 on Bridge Street.  It features strong brick pillars between the bays and deeply recessed windows.  It has a slate clad attic level.  It was built for the Halifax Building Society in 1983 by the architectural practice of Turner Lansdowne Holt.

In the 19th Century the Deansgate Shambles sat on this site, as you can see in the 1844 map below.  In Manchester today people think of the Old Wellington pub and Sinclairs Oyster House as the Shambles.  They are indeed the surviving remanants of Manchester's Medieval "Market Place" that once stood near the Marks & Spencer store, just off Market Street.  The word shambles though is an obsolete term for an open-air slaughter house or meat market, and this appears to be the function of the Deansgate Shambles.  Nearby Pork Lane and the "Weights and Measures Office" seem to confirm this conclusion, as does the layout shown on the map below.

The Court Leet records for the Manor of Manchester cast even more light on the Shambles because they include accounts of procedings taken against meat traders at the Deansgate Shambles.  At Easter in 1834 the jurors: William Birmingham (Foreman), George Woollam, John Hall, Benjamin Beddome, Thomas Broadbent, Thomas Slatter, Nathaniel Tidmarsh, Thomas Townend, Elkanah Armitage, Robert Lees, James Hoyle, James Fernley and William Walker presided over the case against Robert Hoyle:

"And the Jurors aforesaid upon their Oath aforesaid do present that Robert Hoyle of this Manor Butcher being then and still an Inhabitant and resiant of and in the said Manor on the eighth day of February last at his house in Nelson Street in this Manor and within the Jurisdiction of this Court was possessed of large quantities of Flesh Meat to wit Four quarters of a Cow which was then and there in a diseased and putrid and unwholesome state and unfit for the food of man with intent then and there wrongfully and injuriously to expose the same to Sale contrary to the Laws and Customs of this Manor and to the common Nuisance of the Liege Subjects of our said Lord the King Whereupon it is considered that the said Robert Hoyle be amerced in the sum of Three pounds"

They also heard the case of James Moorhouse:

“And the Jurors aforesaid upon their Oath aforesaid do present that James Moorhouse the Younger of this Manor Butcher being then and still an Inhabitant and Resiant of and in the said Manor on the fifteenth day of March last was possessed of [a] certain Stall in Deansgate Shambles in this Manor and within the Jurisdiction of this Court at which he sold large quantities of Flesh Meat to divers of the Liege Subjects of our said Lord the King and did then and there knowingly and designedly keep and use a certain false and defective pair of Scales for and in the weighing and selling of such Flesh Meat as aforesaid with intent then and there wrongfully and injuriously to cheat and defraud all persons resorting to the Stall of the said James Moorhouse for the purpose of buying such flesh meat as aforesaid Whereupon it is considered that the said John [sic] Moorhouse be amerced in the sum of Five pounds.”

The Shambles were eventually swept away and a huge furniture warehouse and showroom took its place.  It occupied the whole block and ran back along both Bridge Street and King Street West. You can see an engraving of the building, dated 1855,  at the Manchester Libraries web site. (click on the link below)