Gaskell’s former home open for business

STOCKPORT architect the Bernard Taylor Partnership and contractor Armitage Construction have completed the renovation of the former home of Victorian novelist Elizabeth Gaskell.

The Gaskell Society has been campaigning for some time to restore the grade II-listed villa in Plymouth Grove, Manchester which is owned by the Manchester Historic Buildings Trust.

The group secured £750,000 for the exterior in 2010 and last year received £1.85m from the Heritage Lottery Fund to return the interior of the house, built in 1830, to its original state.

BTP has been working on the project for the past seven years and Armitage, also based in Stockport, carried out a complete renovation including the replacement of the ornamental plaster, new doors and windows and floor finishes. It also repaired boundary walls and installed replica iron railings.

Elizabeth Gaskell lived in the house from 1850 until her death 15 years later. During her time there she wrote Cranford, North and South and Wives and Daughters, and entertained other authors such as Charles Dickens and Charlotte Bronte. To the Gaskell Society the building’s literary significance is second only to the Bronte Parsonage at Haworth, near Bradford and it is, “therefore of international, national and local importance”.

Rob Harrington, director and lead architect on the project, said: “BTP are proud to have been the architects for the restoration and repair to Elizabeth Gaskell’s House, 84 Plymouth Grove, a rare surviving example of an 1830s Greek Revival style house in Manchester.

“We have worked on the project for seven years through three phases to support Manchester Historic Buildings Trust’s ambition to return the house to a centre focusing on the life and work of the author and thereby securing its long term future.”

Janet Allan, chair of the Manchester Buildings Trust, said: “The house is not just as a centre for the study of Elizabeth’s Gaskell’s writing, but for all the things she and the family were interested in; not just writing, but education, art and music.”