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Midland Hotel
The Midland Hotel stands
on the western end of St. Peter's Square and across
Windmill Street from what was Central Station. It is a
railway hotel built by the Midland Railway as the
counterpart to the St. Pancras Hotel at the other end of
the railway, in London. The designer was the Midland
Railway's architect Charles Trubshaw. Construction began
1893 and it was completed 5 years later. Reflecting its
role as a railway hotel it had a covered walkway from
Central Station to the Windmill Street entrance.
Below: is the hotel in the
1980s with a rather odd looking entrance.
The ground floor is
built of a pink granite from Peterhead interlaced with
bands of a darker Shap granite. The upper floors are
built of brick faced with burmantoft terracotta. There
is nothing plain about the hotel. There is a great deal
of decoration made from glazed terracotta as you can see
both above and below.
 It has always been one of
Manchester's premier hotels and a plaque in the
entrance way commemorates the fact that it was here
that Henry Royce and Charles Stewart Rolls first met.  
Above: an early photograph of
one of the dining rooms in all its Victorian finery.
In its heyday the hotel
had a palm court, an elaborate concert hall, a
winter garden, both Russian and Turkish baths, and a roof
garden.
23 lifts transported
guests between floors and there were 400 bedrooms
distributed along three and a half miles of
corridors. **************************** Central Station closed in 1963 so any role as a railway hotel was clearly irrelevant. The hotel has changed hands a number of times over the years. At one time it was a Holiday Inn Crown Plaza but today it belongs to the Q-Hotels chain. The owners say this of the Midland:
"Following a £15 million refurbishment, this grand
establishment effortlessly mixes decadent glamour with
four-star, twenty-first century sophistication.
Fourteen suites and 298 en-suite bedrooms of
award-winning design offer guests all the facilities
one would expect in a hotel of this calibre." |
