The Council and democracy Our Town Hall Project - the transformation

What we've been doing

Stained glass windows 

Work on the Town Hall’s 4,459 windows is now complete. Many of them were bowing and buckled after almost 150 years of keeping out the Manchester weather. Now the beautiful stained-glass windows have been restored, repaired or re-leaded and reglazed.  In a painstaking operation, teams from Recclesia and Shepley’s Engineering Ltd cut open each window’s leaded lights. Undamaged glass was cleaned and kept, but broken pieces were replaced with matching glass, retaining as much of the original material as possible.

Heritage lectures

Since winter 2022, we’ve invited some of our Artisan Trades to come and tell more about the work they’ve been doing in a series of free Heritage Lectures, hosted at Central Library. We've enjoyed six lectures to date. They all focus on elements of the job that won’t necessarily show to the untrained eye when we reopen the building, because they’re preserving the heritage, not replacing it or changing it. These works are what we’re calling the “invisible story” of the project. Painstaking attention and long-learnt skills are conserving the historic parts of the building to safeguard them for future generations of Mancunians. 

Great Hall update 

Work on the ceilings, stonework and windows inside the Great Hall has now finished and the scaffolding cage has been removed. Floorboards have been removed for a good clean and treatment. While the space below is exposed it’s also being cleaned. What the team didn’t expect to find underneath the flooring was an internal, horizontal chimney flue! It must have been added after the original building opened in 1877, but it’s not on the plans. 

Albert Memorial

Under the scaffolding and protective sheeting, the Albert Memorial is partway through its restoration. The memorial pre-dates the Town Hall by 12 years. It was unveiled in 1865. The work is intended to make it look beautiful again, but also – and more importantly – to make it safe for generations to come. The memorial is made from limestone, granite and marble. Some areas are badly worn, while other sections only needed professional cleaning. Our architects, Purcell, and stonemasons, Bullens, found a lot of erosion and breakages throughout. Parts of the limestone in the lower tiers had to be replaced with new stone. Other work included a new arm for Prince Albert, careful restoration of the beautiful angels that adorn the upper eaves and ‘honest’ repairs (fitting new stone into the old) made to much of the main structure. 

Moving the statues 

The imposing marble statues of Dalton and Joule have sat at the Town Hall’s main entrance since the building was opened, but we really needed to move them. Our objective to improve the building’s accessibility meant several new lifts, one of which is at that entrance. The heavy – yet delicate – task of moving these two was done. See how the teams got on - view our Moving the Statues album on flickr.com

Summer 2023

Although we’re now over halfway through the construction phase, there are challenges ahead that will impact the project’s final costs and completion date. You can read our full report online

Golden ball! 

At the highest point of the Town Hall is a finial. It’s a golden ball that measures two feet in diameter and is covered with spikes. As the termination of the lightning conductor, it does an important job but also looks great from the street below. It proved difficult and awkward to remove from its lofty position: the fixing rod had fused to the fixing bolt with rust! 

Once the complex scaffolding had been built to allow access, the ball was removed and taken to Heritage Project Contracts in Shrewsbury. Their apprentice, Georgia, was tasked with cleaning and regilding. See the results of the work and pictures of the process in our online Golden Ball album at flickr.com.

Update film

We made an update film at the end of 2022. It's a while since we did the filming but it gives a fabulous view of the inside of the building as a construction site. It's good to catch a glimpse of the improvements that are being made for when the building re-opens. Watch the film on You Tube and - if you'd like to - you can also read a transcript of the film.

Chronological slideshows of progress

To find out more about the work that’s been going on, see our Progress Slideshows on YouTube. Alongside our photographer’s stunning images we’ve added captions to help tell the story.

Slideshow #1

This first presentation on you Tube starts in January 2018, when we officially closed the building. It details lots of the work that went into emptying the building of 140 years of history and heritage, and almost a century and a half as the beating heart of civic Manchester. 

Slideshow #2

Our second slideshow takes us from April 2020 to March 2021. This was a time that Covid restrictions limited access to the building, but we made sure that our photographer was able to safely capture plenty of what was being achieved in this strange time. 

Slideshow #3

The third slideshow features images captured between May and December 2021. As well as the careful removal of the iconic Town Hall Clock, there are fabulous close ups of the ceilings afforded by the intricate scaffolding and some stunning shots of the Albert Memorial.

Slideshow #4

Featuring images captured between January 2022 and February 2023, our fourth slideshow shows progress throughout the building. From the tip of the golden ball on the spire all the way down to the basement system installations; our photographer is on site regularly and capturing some fascinating detail of what's being achieved.

Behind the scenes

A fascinating one-hour documentary was made in Autumn 2021 as part of the Fixing Britain's Landmarks series. It was aired on UKTV just before Christmas but you can still watch it online at https://uktvplay.co.uk/shows/great-british-landmark-fixers/series-1/episode-5/6285407274001

COVID-19

Lockdown presented us with the same complexities faced by sites up and down the country. The site was temporarily shut, while our management contractor assessed the works that could still be undertaken safely and in accordance with Government Guidance and Safe Working Protocols. When the site re-opened, there were strict limits on how many staff were allowed on site at any one time, new rules to follow and changes to previous working practices with social distancing a priority.

Hoardings

The hoardings that surround the Town Hall and Albert Square on all three sides, offered us a fantastic blank canvas. Our design includes lots of imagery and photographs and tells some of the Town Hall history. It gives detail about the improvements we're making and updates on progress. We refreshed the design when the need to move and relocate the hoarding panels gave us the opportunity. You can view all of the current hoardings artwork on this flickr.com album.

Scaffolding

January 2020 saw preparation in the moat areas surrounding the Town Hall. This enabled the vast network of scaffolding that’s now the largest single scaffold project in Europe. We’ve been capturing progress from across Albert Square for a bird’s eye view. See our clip of the scaffolding being built from across Albert Square, on our You Tube playlist. We find the clock hands quite mesmerising! An article in trade press Scaff Mag includes plenty of facts and figures plus some amazing photographs.

Courtyard

The inner courtyard features original gas lamps, smut stained stonework and intricately leaded windows. There are original 19th century cobbles, which are edged by original york stone paving. A specialist team lifted the entire courtyard, painstakingly and row by row. After numbering, the cobble sets were loaded into labelled crates, which were catalogued before going to storage. As the york stones were lifted, they were also numbered and mapped, so that their eventual return will see the courtyard faithfully restored. A new concrete slab foundation has been laid to support the scaffolding. This will also serve as a foundation for the replacement of the cobbles and york stones.

Albert Square site offices

Work is well underway on restoring and repairing the Grade 1 listed Albert Memorial.

The stones in the patterned cobbled areas, laid when the road outside the main entrance was closed off and the square partly pedestrianised in the 1980s, have now been lifted, bagged and removed for storage. These have now been used in open spaces around Manchester, such as Heaton Park. The old-fashioned style lamp-posts that were such a feature in the square will also be reused by the team at Heaton Park’s Tram Museum.

Organ - contract and plans

The removal of the Cavaille-Col organ in the Great Hall is now complete. The contract for the work to restore and rebuild it was awarded to two firms, who tendered jointly. Find out more on the dedicated organ webpage.

Apprentices

The Our Town Hall project is providing opportunities for a variety of apprenticeships. As well as our PlanBEE apprenticeship scheme, the contractors onsite are taking the opportunity to offer apprenticeships, training and jobs for local people. Read more about the apprenticeships and training and how to apply.

Paintings removal and conservation

The Town Hall Collection includes about 80 large scale oil-paintings and watercolours. These were all removed from the building in a painstaking operation. Conservation work has already been done on some of these, and more is underway. The paintings were packed away in individually built wooden boxes and put into storage for the duration of the Our Town Hall Project. See some of the photographs of this work in our flickr album.

Sculpture cleaning, conservation and relocation

Artworks, statues and sculptures were taken away to keep them safe and out of harm’s way during the building works. After a time of cleaning and restoration, 34 of the sculptures and statues were relocated to other venues around the city and beyond. The temporary sites were chosen for their relevance to the individual sculpture. You can see pictures and more detail in our sculptures photo album on flickr.com.

Intrusive surveys

At the start of the Project, in 2018 / 2019, a programme of intrusive surveys was undertaken. This included interior work, such as taking down false walls and ceilings to investigate what's behind, and checking utilities throughout the building. 

Expert conservators advised how best to proceed with unique aspects of the building, such as the condition of the paint on Ford Madox Brown's 12 murals in the Great Hall, and the 'slab' that the mosaic floors are set into. Their reports were vital to planning the work that will see the building through the next century or so.

External work was done too: Albert Square's foundations were assessed, as were external parts of the building, to check levels of stonework damage in key areas.

Official 'closing' ceremony - January 2018

Once the decision had been made to close the building, and properly address the repairs and renovations required to make the building fit for modern requirements, the doors were officially closed after a rousing send-off on Sunday 14 January 2018. Almost 4,000 people attended, having claimed the free tickets that allowed them free rein to explore the courtyard, magnificent state rooms, Great Hall and the famous Bees mosaic floor. The day ended with the Lord Mayor of Manchester Cllr Eddy Newman symbolically handing over the building’s keys to the Our Town Hall Project team.

Was this page helpful?

Fields marked * cannot be left blank

Feedback submitted to us on this form is monitored but you won’t receive a reply. In an emergency, visit our emergency contact details page. Please don't include any personal or financial information, for example your National Insurance or credit card numbers.