The Tootal, Broadhurst and Lee Building (currently marketed as The Tootal Buildings) at 56 Oxford Street, in Manchester, England, is a late-Victorian warehouse and office block built in a neo-Baroque style for Tootal Broadhurst Lee, a firm of textile manufacturers.
History
The warehouse was designed by J. Gibbons Sankey and constructed between 1896 and 1898. It has been designated a Grade II* listed building.
Nikolaus Pevsner's The Buildings of England describes the warehouse as "large, in red brick striped with orange terracotta, but comparatively classical". The entrance has a "massive central round-headed doorway with banded surround and cartouche dated 1896, set in (an) architrave of coupled banded columns and (a) broken pediment".
The interior has been redesigned, but a First World War memorial by Henry Sellers has been retained, being "marble, with a niche from which the figure (has been) stolen".
Behind the warehouse but not visible from Oxford Street is Lee House, the stub of what would have been the tallest building in Europe at 217 ft (66 m), a 17-storey warehouse belonging to the same firm (planned 1928; part completed 1931). Both Churchgate House and Lee House are on the north bank of the Rochdale Canal; Great Bridgewater Street is immediately to the north of them.
Occupants
As of 2024, the building hosts the headquarters of the Greater Manchester Combined Authority, including the office of the Mayor of Greater Manchester.
See also
- Grade II* listed buildings in Greater Manchester
- Listed buildings in Manchester-M1
- Manchester cotton warehouses
- St. James Buildings, which faces the Tootal, Broadhurst and Lee Building across Oxford Street
Notes
References
- Hartwell, Clare; Hyde, Matthew & Pevsner, Nikolaus, The Buildings of England: Lancashire: Manchester and the South East (2004) Yale University Press
- Hartwell, Clare, Pevsner Architectural Guides: Manchester (2002) Yale University Press
- British Listed Buildings
- Churchgate & Lee House Website
External links
- The Tootal Buildings
