The Grade 1 listed “1830 Warehouse” is part of the Museum of Science and Industry which occupies a number of industrial buildings on the site of the former railway yard beside Liverpool Road in Castlefield.  This historic site was the terminus of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway. 




Across the tracks from the warehouse is the Grade 1 listed Liverpool Road Station (below) which when it was opened on the 15th of September, 1830,  by the Duke of Wellington, was the fist passenger railway station in the World.


On 3 April 1830, the Liverpool & Manchester Railway Company placed a notice in the Manchester Guardian inviting tenders for the construction of five brick warehouses. What they got turned out to be one warehouse with 5 bays.  The winning proposal was submitted by David Bellhouse Junior, the son of a leading local timber merchant.  The Bellhouses lived in a house that still stands in Grosvenor Square in Manchester across from the park that was once the churchyard of All Saints Church.


Below you can see the Bellhouse home today.  It is being used by Manchester Metropoliatn University but back in 1910 it was converted by Thomas Worthington into the Manchester Ear Hospital and it continued in that role well into the 1960s.


Bellhouse built the  1830 Warehouse in record time and refreshments were served on the top floor on September 15 for the Iron Duke and the other guests.  The  unusual speed of construction may be explained by the fact that it has a wooden frame rather than a fire-proof cast iron one.  It may have also been related to the fact that the Bellhouses had a timber company.



For a while cotton was stored in the 1830 Warehouse but by 1831 two cotton stores were built nearby and from then on goods kept here included corn, groceries, butter and spirits, meats, bananas, chemicals, and judging by the shells that were found in the warehouse it probably stored shellfish.

Originally manual hoists were used to move goods in and out but these were later replaced by steam powered hoists and after 1880 hydraulic power was used.

The aerial image below was taken in 1953 and you can see the warehouse in a still an operating goods yard.  It continued to be used until 1975.

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