IMAGES TAKEN NEAR TO
Spring Gardens, MANCHESTER, M2 1AB

The Post Office on Spring Gardens was once a huge Victorian building http://manchesterhistory.net/manchester/gone/generalpostoffice.html That building was demolished in the 1960s and a new building at 26 Spring Gardens was designed by Cruickshank and Seward and built in 1969. It was composed of a three-storey podium block with an 8-storey tower above. Its major tenant was the Post Office. In 2005 a £70 million refurbishment began that was completed in 2006. The building was then renamed The Zenith Building Image http://manchesterhistory.net/manchester/tours/tour5/area5page54.html

Built as a post office, a function the ground floor still fulfils. Underneath this recently-remodelled exterior is a slab-and-podium block by Cruickshank & Seward, 1969. Now offices, re-named the Zenith Building.

With a tinge of Scottish Baronial perhaps, not that Portland stone was the usual material of choice in Scotland. Two great round machicolated towers with conical roofs, linked by a mighty arcade. By Wolstenholme & Thornely, 1908-10. Grade II listed. Built for the Palatine Bank. I'm not sure what's here now, but probably offices.

Former National Westminster Bank, Grade II listed. http://www.britishlistedbuildings.co.uk/en-458626-former-national-westminster-bank-on-corn

St James Court on Brown Street in the centre of Manchester. Currently under redevelopment by Boultbee Brooks Real Estate.

A mixture of old and new in the centre of Manchester just a stride away from the busy shopping streets. Housed in the original Edwardian building that was once the Manchester Stock Exchange are an Italian restaurant and Hammicks Legal bookshop.

This fine Baroque building dates from 1902, designed by Charles Heathcote, for Parr's Bank, later part of the National Westminster group. After the bank closed it became a pub called the Atheneum. It now houses an expensive restaurant, part of a rather superior national chain. This is a grade II listed building. See https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1255042

Very opulent, even by bank standards. For a start, the whole facade is of red sandstone. By Charles Heathcote, 1902, in "his usual bold Edwardian Baroque, with Art Nouveau motifs in the ironwork." A splendid dome too, and pairs of Doric columns on very high pedestals and crowned by strange panels and brackets. Grade II* listed. These days the opulence is reserved for those dining at Brown's. Pevsner remarks that the interior is "amongst the most opulent of its date surviving in Manchester, or for that matter, in London."

Looking up the west side of this building Image The projections beneath the windows look like balconies but in fact they are solid.