British Muslim Heritage Centre

The college was built as an independent Congregational institution between 1840 and 1843, designed by Irwin and Chester. It stood in a new suburb begun about 10 years earlier by Samuel Brooks, later known as Whalley Range. The Lancashire Independent College was established by the Lancashire Congregational Union to provide higher education for Non-Conformists, who were excluded from the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge until 1871. Its creation involved constructing a new building and transferring staff from Blackburn Academy, which then closed. The founders were George Hadfield, Thomas Raffles and William Roby, minister of the Grosvenor Street Chapel on London Road in Manchester.…

The building is faced in sandstone, with brick used at the rear and slate roofs. Its plan is an extended E‑shape, with the main front facing north and two wings behind it, the central one containing the former chapel or hall. The design follows a Gothic‑influenced style, and the long front, raised above a full basement and centred on a tower, has a symmetrical layout with the middle and end sections projecting slightly. The entrance block is highly elaborate, with stepped buttresses finished as pinnacles, a flight of steps leading to a Tudor‑style arched doorway beneath a carved shield, and a tall oriel window above. This window has several tiers of glazing, a clock set into the panelling,…