Prestwich Town Hall

The building was commissioned by a contractor and quarry owner from East Lothian, Robert Neill, as his own house. Neill made his money on a series of important construction projects including the Manchester Central Station. The site he selected was open land on the north side of Scholes Lane. The new house was designed in the Italianate style, built in ashlar stone and was completed in the 1850s. It was originally known as "Bent Hill". On the ground floor, it had a drawing room, billiard room, library and study, while upstairs were bedrooms and a bathroom, and the cellar included the servants' hall, scullery, laundry, butler's closet and pantry, and washing and brewing rooms. Among the…

The building was grade II listed in 1986. It is in the Italianate style, and is built of stone, with a slate roof. It has a tetrastyle portico, formed by Tuscan order columns supporting a prominent cornice in the middle of the three-bay frontage, with a single-bay addition to the left, and a three-storey service wing to the right. The other bays are fenestrated by sash windows flanked by brackets on the ground floor, and by a central Venetian window flanked by a pair of sash windows on the first floor. Inside, much original plasterwork and panelling survives, although they suffered vandalism while the building was unoccupied.