Albert Square, Manchester

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search
Albert Square, overlooked by Mancester Town Hall

Albert Square is a public square in the centre of Manchester, England. It is dominated by its largest building, Manchester Town Hall Grade I, a Victorian Gothic building by Sir Alfred Waterhouse. Other smaller buildings from the same period surround the square, many of which are listed.

The square also contains a number of monuments and statues, the largest of which is the Albert Memorial, a monument to Prince Albert, Prince consort of Queen Victoria. The square, also named after the Prince, was originally laid out to provide a space for this memorial in 1863-7.

The new Manchester Town Hall was constructed on the square in 1877.

Contents

[edit] History

The Albert Memorial (Thomas Worthington & Matthew Noble, 1869)
Albert Square on 6 July 2006

The area in which the square now stand was once derelict land and dense housing area near the Town Yard and the River Tib.[1]

The creation of the square arose out of a project by Manchester Corporation's Monuments Committee to erect a memorial to Prince Albert who had unexpectedly died of typhoid in 1861. After some initial proposals to create a memorial library, museum or botanical gardens, the committee decided to erect a statue in a deocrated canopy. It was originally planned to place the monument in Piccadilly Gardens, but it was felt that its ornate design was not in keeping with the surrounding buildings. In 1863, land was offered by the Corporation which was cleared to make way for a public space.[2]

The project won much public support; the Manchester Bricklayers' Protection Society donated 50,000 bricks towards the construction of the monument, "as an expression of sympathy towards our beloved Queen". When construction problems arose (the site was found to be riddled with drains and culverts) and these bricks were used up on the foundations alone, a further public subcription was launched in 1865 and a further £6,249 was raised, in spite of the hardships of the Cotton Famine.[2]

Clearing the buildings began in 1864, and required the demolition of over 100 buildings, including the Engraver's Arms pub, a coffee roasting works, a smithy, a coal yard and various warehouses. The project was encouraged by the visit of the Prince and Princess of Wales to open the Albert Monument in 1869.[2]

It was also decided to construct a new town hall for Manchester, as the old building in King Street had become too small. Following an architectural competition, Gothic designs for a building with a high bell tower by Sir Alfred Waterhouse were selected, and the Town Hall was completed in 1877.[2]

In the early 1970s, there was a plan to build an underground station under Albert Square and neighbouring St Peter's Square, as part of the ill-fated Picc-Vic tunnel project.[3] The project was eventually cancelled and the station was not built.

In April 1972, the Albert Square area was designated a conservation area, and this was extended in 1981 to include the neighbouring, newly created Lincoln Square.

The central area of Albert Square was originally laid out in the form of a traffic circle. In 1987 the square was redesigned and the eastern side in front of the town hall was pedestrianised. The square was laid with fan-shaped granite setts, York stone paving and 'heritage'-style cast-iron street furniture.[1]

[edit] Monuments

[edit] The Albert Memorial

Close-up of the Albert Memorial
The Albert Memorial, London (George Gilbert Scott, 1872)

Albert Square's largest monument is the Albert MemorialGrade I, commemorating Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. It features a marble statue of Albert standing on a plinth and facing west, designed by Matthew Noble (1862–1867). The figure is placed within a large Medieval-style ciborium which was designed by the architect Thomas Worthington. Noble was commissioned by the then mayor, Thomas Goadsby, to sculpt the Prince's likeness, and the designs were personally approved by Queen Victoria.[2]

Worthington himself had, at the age of 18, been presented with the Royal Society of Arts' Isis Gold Medal by Prince Albert for a design for a Gothic-style chancel. His Medieval-style design for the Albert Memorial was inspired by the Church of Santa Maria della Spina in Pisa. Although his design was unsual for its time, commentators have suggested he may have been influenced by George Kemp's Scott Monument in Princes Street, Edinburgh, built 20 years earlier.[2]

The Memorial is topped with an ornate spire, and on each side a crocketed gable with canopied pinnacles on colonettes. Within the canopies stand symbolic figures representing art, commerce, science and agriculture. Below these stand secondary figures representing particular disciplines:

  • The Four Arts: painting, architecture, music, sculpture
  • Commerce: the Four Continents
  • The Four Sciences: chemistry, astronomy, mechanics, mathematics
  • Agriculture: the Four Seasons

The coloured sett paving which was laid around the Memorial in 1987 depicts floral representations of the Four Home Nations of Great Britain and Ireland.

The Memorial was completed in 1865 and was the first of several Albert Memorials around the United Kingdom. Manchester's Albert Memorial bears a noticable similarity to the Albert Memorial in Kensington Gardens, London, completed some seven years after the Mancunian monument, although claims that Worthington's design influenced George Gilbert Scott in his London monument are disputed. Scott, writing in his Recollections, stated that his idea of building a medival canopy was original, "so new as to provoke much opposition".[2]

Proposals to move or demolish the Albert Memorial have been made; a plan to replace Prince Albert with a war memorial following World War I was defeated; and when the Albert Memorial had fallen into disrepair, it was proposed that it should be demolished. It was rescued from destruction seveal times by campaigners, and was finally restored in 1976-77.[4]

[edit] Other monuments

Within the square are several other monuments:

Neighbourng Lincoln square, created in 1981, features:

  • a fountain commemorating the wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer in 1981
  • a statue of Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865), 16th President of the United States. The Lincoln statue was originally located in Platt Fields Park and was presented to the city in 1919 in recognition of the support from the citizens of Manchester for Lincoln's campaign against slavery. It was moved to the square in 1986.

The fountain in Albert Square, erected for the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria

Statue of Oliver Heywood

Statue of John Bright

Grade II listed statue of James Fraser (1818–85), Bishop of Manchester (1870–85). (Thomas Woolner, 1888)

Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) statue in neighbouring Lincoln Square

[edit] Notable buildings

The Albert Memorial in front of the Town Hall

Albert Square is bounded by a varied selection of listed Victorian buildings, the largest being the Town Hall. Only the western side of the square (facing the town hall) has lost its original buildngs and is now occupied by brick and glass office blocks erected during the 1980s. Buildings in Albert Square include:

[edit] External links

Sister project Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Albert Square, Manchester

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b "Albert Square Conservation Area". Manchester City Council. http://www.manchester.gov.uk/site/scripts/documents_info.php?documentID=934&pageNumber=2. Retrieved on 2009-03-21. 
  2. ^ a b c d e f g Parkinson-Bailey, John J. (2000). "6: Confidence and Civic Pride". Manchester: An Architectural History. Manchester University Press. pp. 566. ISBN 0719056063. 
  3. ^ SELNEC PTE (October 1971), SELNEC Picc-Vic Line, SELNEC PTE  publicity brochure
  4. ^ Wyke, Terry (2005). Public Sculpture of Greater Manchester. Liverpool University Press. ISBN 0853235678. 

Coordinates: 53°28′46″N 2°14′42″W / 53.47944°N 2.245°W / 53.47944; -2.245

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Square,_Manchester"
Personal tools