The Hidden Gem

King Street is one of the most important thoroughfares of Manchester city centre, England. For much of the 20th century it was the centre of the north-west banking industry but it has become progressively dominated by upmarket retail instead of large banks.

Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in the 2021 United Kingdom census. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The two cities and the surrounding towns form one of the United Kingdom's most populous conurbations, the Greater Manchester Built-up Area, which has a population of 2.87 million.The history of Manchester began with the civilian settlement associated with the Roman fort (castra) of Mamucium or Mancunium, established in about AD 79 on a sandstone bluff near the confluence of the rivers Medlock and Irwell. Historically part of Lancashire, areas of Cheshire south of the River Mersey were incorporated into Manchester in the 20th century, including Wythenshawe in 1931. Throughout the Middle Ages Manchester remained a manorial township, but began to expand "at an astonishing rate" around the turn of the 19th century. Manchester's unplanned urbanisation was brought on by a boom in textile manufacture during the Industrial Revolution, and resulted in it becoming the world's first industrialised city. Manchester achieved city status in 1853. The Manchester Ship Canal opened in 1894, creating the Port of Manchester and linking the city to the Irish Sea, 36 miles (58 km) to the west. Its fortune declined after the Second World War, owing to deindustrialisation, and the IRA bombing in 1996 led to extensive investment and regeneration. Following considerable redevelopment, Manchester was the host city for the 2002 Commonwealth Games. The city is notable for its architecture, culture, musical exports, media links, scientific and engineering output, social impact, sports clubs and transport connections. Manchester Liverpool Road railway station was the world's first inter-city passenger railway station. At the University of Manchester, Ernest Rutherford first split the atom in 1917, Frederic C. Williams, Tom Kilburn and Geoff Tootill developed the world's first stored-program computer in 1948, and Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov isolated the first graphene in 2004.

St Ann's Church is a Church of England parish church in Manchester, England. Although named after St Anne, it also pays tribute to the patron of the church, Ann, Lady Bland. St Ann's Church is a Grade I listed building.

The Memorial Hall in Albert Square, Manchester, England, was constructed in 1863–1866 by Thomas Worthington. It was built to commemorate the bicentennial anniversary of the 1662 Act of Uniformity. One of the best examples of Venetian Gothic revival in the city, the hall is a Grade II* listed building.

Lincoln House was an office building on Deansgate in Manchester, England. It was designed in the 1980s by Holford Associates. It was completely clad in glass and was designed as a deliberate response to the 1960s and 1970s Brutalist architecture common in many British cities. It was built in 1986 for the Lincoln House Chambers, a legal practise based in Manchester.By the 1980s the Manchester City Council Planning Department rejected Brutalist proposals in the city believing such buildings to be cold and depressing pieces of architecture. The department were instead inclined to approve safe architecture such as brick buildings. Holford Associates set about fulfilling this move forward by proposing a glass building which demonstrated the latest technologies and improvements in neoprene sealants.It was demolished in 2017.

Cottonopolis was a 19th-century nickname for Manchester, as it was a metropolis and the centre of the cotton industry. The Manchester warehouse which we lately visited, was a building fit for the Town Hall of any respectable municipality; a stately, spacious, and tasteful edifice; rich and substantial as its respectable proprietors, the well-known firm of Banneret and Co. There are nearly a hundred such buildings in Manchester; –not so large, perhaps, for this is the largest; but all in their degree worthy of Cottonopolis.

Lawrence Buildings in Mount Street, Manchester, England, is a Victorian office block constructed for the Inland Revenue in 1874–6 by Pennington and Bridgen in the Gothic Revival style. It is a Grade II* listed building as of 3 October 1974.The building is of sandstone ashlar with a slate roof. Its skyline is dramatic, with "tourelles and slated spirelet, tall crocketed gable(s), low dormers and tall chimmneys". Heavily decorated, it displays a statue of Queen Victoria beneath a canopy on the central front, together with a doorcase flanked by "a lion and a unicorn on pedestals, with an elaborate two-storey oriel window above".Lawrence Buildings forms a group with St Andrew's Chambers, to the right, in a similar style.The ground floor is a cafe, and the remaining building, floors 1-5 are occupied by flexible office space company, incspaces.

25 St. Ann Street in Manchester, England, is a Victorian bank with attached manager's house constructed in 1848 for Heywood's Bank by John Edgar Gregan. The bank is "one of the finest palazzo-inspired buildings in the city." . It is a Grade II* listed building as of 25 February 1952.The bank is built of sandstone, "beautifully finished", while the manager's house is of more modest red brick. The ground floor is rusticated with the upper floor windows having pediments and balconies. The bank and the manager's house are linked by a single-storey entrance, "an arrangement recalling the Palazzo Pandolfini in Florence."

Kendals is the previous name of a department store in Manchester, England. Since 2005, the store now operates as House of Fraser. The store had previously been known during its operation as Kendal Milne, Kendal, Milne & Co, Kendal, Milne & Faulkner, Harrods or Watts.

Manchester Reform Synagogue, a member of the Movement for Reform Judaism, is one of the oldest Reform Jewish communities in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1857 with congregation president Horatio Michollis and Rabbi Solomon Marcus Schiller-Szinessy under the name Manchester Congregation of British Jews by a group consisting mainly of German-Jewish immigrants, the synagogue is located in central Manchester at Jackson's Row. The congregation bought that site in 1949. The current building was financed by money from the War Damage Commission, after the previous synagogue building on Park Place was destroyed on 1 June 1941 in the Manchester Blitz during the Second World War. Albert Isaacs, Alexander Levy, and Frederick Lister laid the cornerstone on 18 May 1952. After completion the synagogue was inaugurated on 28 November 1953. The building was designed by Peter Cummings and Eric Levy. John Bradshaw designed the stained glass windows, which were manufactured by the stained glass company Charles Lightfoot. The building contains a large synagogue, banqueting hall and classrooms.The building is to be demolished to make way for the St Michael's redevelopment project. Plans were announced in 2014, and in 2021 the sale of the synagogue was agreed. The building is to close in late 2022.The synagogue building at Jackson's Row was used as a filming location for the 2021 BBC TV series Ridley Road.

The Circle Club is a private members' club in central Manchester, England. It is owned by Northern Quarter-based clothing company Ringspun, who also hold various parties at the venue. Originally set up to serve those working in the city's growing media industry, the club underwent a change of management and relaxed its membership criteria in 2008 to those working in professional services. However, it is still most often frequented by those involved in media and fashion, by virtue of the events it holds. The Club was announced in late 2013 to close in December. Unusually, the exterior of the club carries no signage and is not apparent to passers-by. It is accessible via an unmarked dark green door on the Barton Square alleyway, close to Barton Arcade. It has been the venue for a number of notable events in the city in recent times, including debates featuring leaders of Manchester and Salford city councils, Ian Simpson (architect of the Beetham Tower) as well as parties for Channel M television programmes and the Miss Manchester beauty pageant.

The Sir Ralph Abercromby, also known as the Abercrombie, is a pub between Jackson's Row and Bootle Street, in Manchester, England, named after Lieutenant-General Sir Ralph Abercromby. Built in the 19th century, it is one of the few structures remaining in the area from the time of the Peterloo Massacre. Wounded people from the massacre were brought to the pub for medical treatment. Many later changes were made to the building, both inside and outside, with no substantial 19th century features remaining. It is thought to be the inspiration for the pub in Life on Mars.The pub is owned by Enterprise Inns. It has a central bar, a function room (formerly a games room) and a beer garden. In February 2016, it won a CAMRA award for "Pub of the season".In 2014, it was threatened with demolition, along with Bootle Street police station and Manchester Reform Synagogue, to make way for the St Michael's redevelopment of the area led by Gary Neville. A Change.org petition to save the pub was signed by over 3,500 people. An application by members of the Campaign for Real Ale to list the building was declined by Historic England as the building was not of "national interest". Several applications to Manchester City Council to protect the pub as an asset of community value were also declined in 2014 and 2016. The possibility of dismantling it and doing a brick-by-brick rebuild of it in a new location was aired in 2016, but is likely to be costly.On 12 July 2017, the revised plans for the development included Gary Neville's consortium buying and retaining The Sir Ralph Abercromby. Neville was reported as saying "There’s no doubt we underestimated, not the architectural importance of the pub, but the actual social community importance of the pub".