Sackville Street (Manchester)

Sackville Street can refer to both a street in central Manchester, England and a large, historic building on that street.

The Street

Sackville Street is a street in Manchester City Centre. It runs in a north-south direction and is split into two sections by Whitworth Street, which runs in an east-west direction. At the northern end of the street is a junction with Portland Street. The northern half of the street runs through Manchester's Gay Village. Here the street runs over the Rochdale Canal and there is also a newly restored park - Sackville Gardens. The southern half of the street runs through what was the main campus of the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST), which is now part of the University of Manchester as its "north campus". Here the street runs under a railway viaduct, which carries the Manchester Piccadilly to Manchester Oxford Road line. At the southern end of the street there is a junction with the Mancunian Way (the A57). An 1801 map [http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/09/Map_of_Manchester_1801.png] shows Sackville Street extending no further than the Rochdale Canal and an 1844 railway plan indicates that the part of the road extending south of the canal was called ¨Zara Street¨ [Joseph Locke, FRS, George Watson Buck & William Baker, Engineers, Manchester South Junction and Altrincham Railway: Plan and section of that portion of the intended Railway forming the junction between the Manchester and Birmingham and Liverpool and Manchester Railways. 1844, Joule Library Rare Book Collection [http://www.mace.manchester.ac.uk/project/teaching/civil/historic_construction/sources/manbrum_P2.php] ] .

The Building

The University of Manchester occupy what is now known as the "Sackville Street building" - before the merger of the Victoria University of Manchester with UMIST, it was UMIST's "Main Building". Construction of the building began in 1895 and was opened in 1902 by the then Prime Minister, Arthur Balfour.cite web
title = UMIST campus history
url=http://www.mace.manchester.ac.uk/project/teaching/civil/historic_construction/maps/umist.php
accessdate = 2008-02-09 ] Built using Burmantofts terracotta the building is now a Grade II listed building. It was extended along Whitworth Street, towards Piccadilly Station, between 1927 and 1957 by the architects Bradshaw Gass & Hope, the delay being due to the depression in the 1930s. Originally a swimming pool was planned for the top floor, but instead it was used as gymnasium and examination hall. The ground floor houses the "Royce Laboratory"for mechanical engineering, named after Henry Royce.

The building lies between Whitworth Street and Granby Row and the original main entrance is on Sackville Street and is called the Grand Entrance. The historic Godlee Observatory sits on the roof and is still in use. The building is used by the University for a number of functions and departments. Inside is the Joule library and various offices, laboratories, lecture theatres and exam halls.

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