County Court, Manchester

Richard Cobden lived at the house from 1836 to 1850, and it served as his base during the years when he acted as the main spokesman for the Anti-Corn Law League. A statue of him, together with one of his fellow reformers John Bright, stands in Albert Square. The house subsequently became the site of Owens College, which, together with the Manchester Royal School of Medicine, formed the Victoria University of Manchester in 1880. When the college moved to its present site on Oxford Road in 1873, the building was purchased for use as Manchester's County Court, which opened in 1878. By the 1970s the building had become badly decayed, and first the courts and then the administrative offices were…

The house, of three storeys and a basement, is a Georgian townhouse built in the mid-18th century and subsequently extended to the rear and altered. It is constructed on a rectangular plan in red brick laid in Flemish bond on a stucco plinth. Its façade has five bays, with the centre bay set slightly forward. The central doorway has a late 19th-century pilastered doorcase with a frieze and cornice, which replaced the original raised, pedimented doorway and double flight of steps. The windows have raised sills and flat heads, with 12-pane sashes at ground and first-floor levels and 9-pane sashes on the second floor, while the basement has segmental-headed windows.