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Manchester ARTICLES

Forty-Seven Grade I Listed Buildings in Greater Manchester

18th April 2008

Greater Manchester has a wealth of industrial heritage that is supported by outstanding industrial architecture.

Grade I structures are those that are considered to be ‘buildings of exceptional interest’. The building or structure that becomes listed is of special architectural, historical or cultural significance.

The non-departmental public body that is sponsored by the department for Culture, Media and Sport is entrusted to be the authority for listings under planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas (Act 1990).

With Manchester being the world’s first industralised city it has fifteen of Greater Manchester’s forty-seven Grade I listed building.

The majority of Grade I structures in Greater Manchester have a municipal, ecclesiastic or other cultural heritage.

This is the highest number of Grade I listed buildings in one borough. Oldham is the only borough that does not have any Grade I listed structures.

A large number of the listed buildings in Greater Manchester date back to the Victorian and Edwardian periods.

A publication by the Association for Industrial Archaeology said, ‘ one of the classic areas of industrial and urban growth in Britain, the result of a combination of forces that came at the 18th and 19th centuries.

‘ A phenomenal rise in population, the appearance of the specialist industrial town, a transport revolution and weak local lordship’.

Historically much of the region was localised in Lancashire and was the forefront of textile manufacturing during the period of the early 19th century to the early 20th century. The county holds some of the historically important former mill towns.

The Parish Church of St Mary the Virgin in Eccles is the oldest Grade I listed structure in Greater Manchester. The church was completed in the 13th century but has been greatly expanded over the centuries.

Wardley Hall is one of the eight manor houses grade listed and is the residence of the Roman Catholic Bishop of Salford. The hall is also home to the skull of St Ambrose Barlow, who was one of the forty Martyrs of England and Wales.