| Summary : Former Great Northern Railway Company Goods Station, later known as Deansgate Goods Station. Parliamentary authority for construction was obtained in 1895, but the main period of construction was 1897-99. The extensive site, entered from Watson Street, Deansgate and Great Bridgewater Street, consisted of a combined warehouse and goods station with associated high and low-level marshalling yards, and a carriage ramp for hauliers' access, together with GNR offfices on Peter Street and a development of 34 shops with offices and warehouses above them along Deansgate. The intention to link the goods station with the Manchester and Salford Junction Canal, opened 1839, may not have been effected. Though built late in the history of Manchester's railway developments, the building brought new technical sophistication to the storage and handling of goods. Built to be fully fireproof, the main building is of steel-framed construction with brick jack arches and walls of red brick with blue brick bands, all under a slate roof. It is rectangular in plan, five storeys high, and on all four sides its frieze bears the words, in white glazed brick, 'GREAT NORTHERN COMPANY'S GOODS WAREHOUSE'. The carriage ramp which enters the first floor of the goods station from the north west has brick arches and then a steel-frame with brick jack arches supporting the road surface. The upper train deck and associated inclines south of the goods station are of similar construction. After its closure in 1954 the building was used as a car park until the mid 1990s. In 1996 consent was given to turn the listed warehouse site into an extensive leisure and retail complex. The development of 1999-2000 resulted in the demolition of the listed carriage ramp, of much of the train deck and inclines, and of the offices and attached, earlier buildings fronting Peter Street. |