Sackville Street Building

The Sackville Street Building is a building on Sackville Street in Manchester, England. The University of Manchester occupies the building which, before the merger with UMIST in 2004, was UMIST's "Main Building". Construction of the building for the Manchester School of Technology began in 1895 on a site formerly occupied by Sir Joseph Whitworth's engineering works; it was opened in 1902 by the then prime minister, Arthur Balfour. The School of Technology became the Manchester Municipal College of Technology in 1918. First designed by Spalding & Cross architects and built using Burmantofts terracotta, the building was subsequently extended along Whitworth Street, towards London Road, between 1927 and 1957 by the architects Bradshaw Gass & Hope, the delay being due to the depression in the 1930s and the Second World War. Originally, a swimming pool was planned for the top floor, but after concerns that the weight of water might cause structural issues, it was instead used as a dug-in gymnasium and in more recent years as an examination hall. The building was listed at Grade II in 1974. The building is bounded by Whitworth Street to the north, Granby Row to the south, Cobourg Street to the east, and Sackville Street to the west, where the original main entrance (called the Grand Entrance) was situated. The entrance on Granby Row was the usual entrance to the eastern part of the building (there was another entrance on Whitworth Street only for the use of the students and staff of the University of Manchester). The lower floors contained among other departments the Royce Laboratory for mechanical engineering, named after Henry Royce. Floors were denoted by letters, from BA (lowest), then A to L (highest) missing out I. The historic Godlee Observatory was located on the roof until its closure in November 2022. The building was used by the university for a number of functions and departments. These included administration, teaching and research in science and technology,…