England Guide
The Northwest
Albert Square
Opening time: Town Hall: Mon– Fri 9am–5pm
Until recently at least, Manchester's only real claim to architectural merit was its panoply of neo-Gothic buildings and monuments, most of which date from the city's salad days in the second half of the nineteenth century. One of the more fanciful is the shrine-like, canopied monument to Prince Albert, Queen Victoria's husband, perched prettily in the middle of the trim little square that bears his name – Albert Square. The monument was erected in 1867, six years after Albert's death, supposedly because the prince had always shown an interest in industry, but perhaps more to curry favour with the grieving queen. Overlooking the prince is Alfred Waterhouse's magnificent, neo-Gothic Town Hall, whose mighty clocktower, completed in 1877, pokes a sturdy finger into the sky, soaring high above its complementary gables, columns and arcaded windows.