Chetham's School of Music and Library  Manchester Cathedral
began life as a church on a sandstone bluff at the
confluence of the rivers Irk and Irwell. In 1421
it was transformed into a collegiate foundation. A
series of buildings were constructed on the site of the
manor house of the de la Warre family. The college
was dissolved in 1547 and in the years that followed the
buildings were put to a variety of uses. In 1653
the executors of the will of a wealthy merchant Humphry
Chetham purchased them and founded a library and a
bluecoat school. Here is a view of the college in
the mid 1700s from a map by Casson. There have
been a number of additions to the complex of buildings
but the ones shown above are still there.
 The view below was taken in 2009 and the core of the complex of buildings is still made up of those of the medieval college and library.    The school describes
itself as follows: "With 290 or so students, aged 8 -
18, Chetham's is the largest specialist Music School in
the UK and the only Music School based in the North of
England."
  Above: The Millgate Building with the following plaque.    Below the Vallins Arts Centre  Below: College House and the Gatehouse  The photograph below, taken in the 1980s shows the site prior to the construction of New College House.  Below is the New College House in October of 2009  Below is the Palatine
Building (the white building on the right) which is the
former Palatine Hotel built in 1842 - 3 by J. P. &
I. Holden. It was acquired by the school in 1969.
 In October of 2009
excavation began for the new extension to Chetham's
School on Hunt's Bank.
   ****** The photographs below were taken in January 2010    On the far side of the
building site you can see the entrances to the
Victoria Tunnels that have been "Bricked-in".
These tunnels were used as air-raid shelters during
WWII.
   Above you can again see the closed entrances to the tunnel system. ************ By March of 2010 the site preparation is complete.  Note that you can see the remnants of the brick walls from the former railway office building.  ******************* Update - June 6, 2010    ******************************* The site was once the
location of a set of buildings housing the offices of
the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway.
 After the building was
demolished a parking lot was created as you can see in
this photograph by Peter Whatley in 1979.
 ![Creative Commons Licence [Some Rights
Reserved]](http://creativecommons.org/images/public/somerights20.gif)
©
Copyright
Peter
Whatley and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.*************** Chetham's Library  Founded in 1653 by a bequest from
Humphrey Chetham (seen below in the monument dedicated
to him in the adjacent Cathedral), Chetham's Library is
the oldest public library in the English-speaking world.
It operates as an independent charity and remains open
to readers and visitors free of charge.
The Humphrey Chetham monument in the Cathedral *************************** The library sits across the courtyard.
The entrance to the library is through the doorway below.  ********************
The Reading Room
     In this alcove. below,
by the window, - it is said - that Karl Marx, who had
travelled up from London, met with his friend Friedrich
Engels who was living in Manchester.
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