Looking at Buildings

, printed from the Looking at Buildings website on Thursday 28th March 2024

Shelters and Hostels

Great Ancoats Street [1] and George Leigh Street, opened in 1899. By W. R. Sharp, of four storeys on a narrow site with an oversailing timbered atticGlossary Term [2] storey and an orielGlossary Term [3] to Great Ancoats Street. There was a coffee tavern on the ground floor, and the rest was divided between a night shelter, a home for women needing 'further care and discipline' and a home for domestic servants, who were being offered an alternative to the moral perils of the lodging house.

Nearby, on Hood Street [4], is the Methodist Men's Hostel by J. Gibbons-Sankey, dated 1903. Its sheer size gives some idea of the demand for decent lodgings and the strength of Methodist commitment to social service. It is not wholly utilitarian either, with buff and brown terracottaGlossary Term [5] banding and a central pedimented entrance bayGlossary Term [6] flanked by turrets which were formerly domed. It had lodgings for weekly boarders, day lodgers and casuals, accommodated in cubicles, each with its own window.

Last updated: Monday, 26th January 2009