King Street is one of the most important thoroughfares of Manchester city centre, England. For much of the 20th century it was the centre of the north-west banking industry but it has become progressively dominated by upmarket retail instead of large banks.
King Street began in the 18th century at the Spring Gardens end when the Jacobite party in the town created James's Square and to the west of it a fine street. Beyond what is now Cross Street it was much narrower and one 18th-century building remains (a former District Bank). Further west beyond Deansgate is King Street West on a different alignment. By the 1970s, there was a clear demarcation between the eastern section of mainly financial and office buildings and the narrower section to the west a mostly upmarket shopping street (later pedestrianised). Subsequently, the eastern section had the monumental National Westminster Bank offices built at no. 55 and some years later further changes increasingly brought more upmarket retail. In 2008, the grand Midland Bank building of Edwin Lutyens was vacated by HSBC Bank.
Manchester's original civic administration (a commission of police) was housed in the Police Office on King Street from 1772; it was near the junction with Deansgate and Police Street is so called because of it. [1] It was replaced by the first Town Hall, to accommodate the growing local government and its civic assembly rooms. The Town Hall, also located on King Street at the corner of Cross Street, was designed by Francis Goodwin and constructed during 1822–25, much of it by David Bellhouse. The building was designed in the Grecian style and Goodwin was strongly influenced by his patron John Soane. As the size and wealth of the city grew, largely as a result of the textile industry, its administration outstripped the existing facilities and a new building was proposed. The King Street building was subsequently occupied by a public library and then Lloyds Bank. The façade was removed to Heaton Park in 1912, when the current building was erected on the site (53 King Street).
Many notable buildings survive and are preserved in a conservation area. On King Street there are 11 buildings listed Grade II, two listed Grade II* and one Grade I; on King Street West is one at Grade II and on South King Street nearby three more at Grade II. [2]
King Street (along with Bridge Street) is considered Manchester's most upmarket shopping area; it has included the Manchester branches of Hermès, Whistles, Gant, Karen Millen, King Street Grooming, [4] Emporio Armani, DKNY, Diesel, Timberland, Calvin Klein Jeans, Polo Ralph Lauren, Max Mara, T. M. Lewin, Jaeger, Cecil Gee, Agent Provocateur, Mulberry, Thomas Pink, Crombie. (However some of these are on Bridge Street to the south of King Street West.)[ citation needed ]
The part west of Cross Street was already a shopping street in the early 20th century.
Roger Oldham's 1906 Manchester Alphabet booklet includes the following lines:
There's King Street
And there's King Street South
And also King Street West,
They each of them begin with K,
I know which I like the best--
The one in which the cake shop is--
Let's go inside and rest. [5]
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100 King Street, formerly the Midland Bank, is a former bank premises on King Street in Manchester, England. It was designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens in 1928 and constructed in 1933–35. It is Lutyens' major work in Manchester and was designated a Grade II* listed building in 1974.
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Deansgate is a main road through Manchester City Centre, England. It runs roughly north–south in a near straight route through the western part of the city centre and is the longest road in the city centre at over one mile in length.
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The architecture of Manchester demonstrates a rich variety of architectural styles. The city is a product of the Industrial Revolution and is known as the first modern, industrial city. Manchester is noted for its warehouses, railway viaducts, cotton mills and canals – remnants of its past when the city produced and traded goods. Manchester has minimal Georgian or medieval architecture to speak of and consequently has a vast array of 19th and early 20th-century architecture styles; examples include Palazzo, Neo-Gothic, Venetian Gothic, Edwardian baroque, Art Nouveau, Art Deco and the Neo-Classical.
Bridgewater House is a packing and shipping warehouse at 58–60 Whitworth Street, Manchester, England. It is recorded in the National Heritage List for England as a designated Grade II listed building.
Whitworth Street is a street in Manchester, England. It runs between London Road (A6) and Oxford Street (A34). West of Oxford Street it becomes Whitworth Street West, which then goes as far as Deansgate (A56). It was opened in 1899 and is lined with many large and grand warehouses. It is named after the engineer Joseph Whitworth, whose works once stood along the route. Whitworth Street West runs alongside the viaduct connecting Oxford Road and Deansgate railway stations: beyond Albion Street the Rochdale Canal is on the northern side. On the Albion Street corner is the building once occupied by the Haçienda nightclub at nos. 11–13, as well as the Twisted Wheel Club at no. 6, while further west on the opposite side is the Ritz.
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1–3 Churchyard Side is a grade-II-listed Victorian Gothic building in Nantwich, Cheshire, England, located on the corner of Churchyard Side and Pepper Street, opposite St Mary's Church. Built in 1864–66 to a design by Alfred Waterhouse as the Nantwich branch of the Manchester and Liverpool District Bank, it is among the most notable examples of Victorian corporate architecture in the town. The building remained a branch of the District Bank until the late 20th century, and is still in use as a bank.
Charles Henry Heathcote was a British architect who practised in Manchester. He was articled to the church architects Charles Hansom, of Clifton, Bristol. He was awarded the RI Medal of Merit in 1868, and started his own practice in 1872.
Manchester Cenotaph is a war memorial in St Peter's Square, Manchester, England. Manchester was late in commissioning a First World War memorial compared with most British towns and cities; the city council did not convene a war memorial committee until 1922. The committee quickly achieved its target of raising £10,000 but finding a suitable location for the monument proved controversial. The preferred site in Albert Square would have required the removal and relocation of other statues and monuments, and was opposed by the city's artistic bodies. The next choice was Piccadilly Gardens, an area already identified for a possible art gallery and library; but in the interests of speedier delivery, the memorial committee settled on St Peter's Square. The area within the square had been had been purchased by the City Council in 1906, having been the site of the former St Peter's Church; whose sealed burial crypts remained with burials untouched and marked above ground by a memorial stone cross. Negotiations to remove these stalled so the construction of the cenotaph proceeded with the cross and burials in situ.
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India House in Whitworth Street, Manchester, England, is a packing and shipping warehouse built in 1906 for Lloyd's Packing Warehouses Limited, which had, by merger, become the dominant commercial packing company in early-20th century Manchester. It is in the favoured Edwardian Baroque style and is steel-framed, with cladding of buff terracotta and red brick with buff terracotta dressings. It is a Grade II* listed building as of 2 October 1974.
53 King Street is an Edwardian Baroque bank on King Street in Manchester, England. Designed by architect Charles Heathcote, it opened in 1913 and was granted Grade II listed building status in 1974. It used to house a branch of Lloyds TSB. In 2009, the building was sold for £6 million. The building stands on the site of the old Manchester Town Hall.
Spring Gardens is an important thoroughfare in Manchester city centre, England. This L-shaped street, formerly the centre of the North West's banking industry, has five Grade II listed buildings and is part of the Upper King Street conservation area.
Heathcote is a Neoclassical-style villa in Ilkley, West Yorkshire, England. Designed by architect Edwin Lutyens, it was his first comprehensive use of that style, making it the precursor of his later public buildings in Edwardian Baroque style and those of New Delhi. It was completed in 1908.
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