Proposed “Hotel Majestic” Victoria Street Manchester

A London syndicate offered Manchester Corporation almost £500,000 for the site of the Victoria Buildings on which it was proposed to build a new hotel. Theodore Clegg (Charles Clegg and Son) was the architect for the syndicate.

MANCHESTER’S NEW HOTEL - Manchester's projected new hotel is to be called The Majestic - a name appropriate to an undertaking so ambitiously conceived. The syndicate which has offered the Manchester Corporation nearly half a million for the island site between Sf. Mary's Gate, Victoria Street, and Deansgate is the Universal Finance and Development Company, Ltd., whose registered offices are in. London. ….

The site of the proposed, hotel has the shape of an isosceles triangle, with its base fronting St. Mary's- Gate and its rounded apex - now occupied by the Victoria Hotel - close to the Cromwell monument and the inclined approach to the Exchange Railway Station. The intention of the syndicate is to build one-half of the hotel at time, beginning with the half nearer to St. Mary's Gate. This end of the Majestic, if all goes well, may be expected to be finished in about eighteen months. From the plans already prepared it is evident that the designers have set out to make the Hotel Majestic a considerable addition to the architecture of Manchester. The architects are Messrs Charles Clegg and Son of Manchester, who designed the offices of the Calico Printers Association. The eleven- storey building is 110 feet high at the cornice, of granite below and Portland stone above. At the St. Mary's Gate end is a fine colonnade 24 feet high, with an entrance 30 feet high, supported by classic columns. The well-proportioned elevations facing Deansgate and Victoria Street meet at the end near the Cromwell monument, with the sharp angle between them rounded off, and high above this end of the building rises a tower surmounted by a dome. The hotel when completed will contain between 600 and 700 bedrooms. Every bedroom will have its own bathroom. Between the public corridor and the bedrooms on each floor will run another parallel corridor, and it will be possible to throw any bedroom en-suite with its own private corridor. The bedroom plan includes the provision of two "royal" suites. Each will contain two bedrooms, a dining-room, two ante-rooms, two bathrooms, and a drawing-room overlooking St. Mary's Gate. The main entrance to the hotel will be at the St. Mary's Gate end. A spacious entrance-hall, 120 feet by 60 feet, will lead into the restaurant on one side of which will be a lounge and on the other a grill room. There will be kitchens both on the ground floor and in the basement, and every floor will have its own service-room, with which every 'bedroom will be in direct communication, so as to provide for prompt service of light meals without making it necessary for them to be sent up from the main kitchens. Towards the Cromwell monument end of the hotel there is to be an arcade of 17 shops. running from Victoria Street, to Deansgate, with a sunk palm court and tea lounge. The basement will contain a large ballroom with a rocca floor, a buffet with entrances from the hotel and from the street, and a hall leading to an elaborate Masonic Babylonian- hall, with ante room and banqueting-room en-suite. Independent Turkish baths for men and women are to installed on the same floor and also an American bar. complete with an expert compounder of cocktails. Other refinements are the bakery, laundry. wine cellars - kept at guaranteed and correct temperatures, and freezing apparatus. The boilers are to be fitted with oil feed in order to obviate dust and dirt. In the entrance-hall will be a bank, a post office and a theatre ticket office.

Meanwhile a subsidiary enterprise, the erection of a garage big enough to accommodate five hundred motor cars will have been completed. The syndicate has already acquired as the site for this garage. The ground next to the Deansgate Hotel, at present occupied by Mawson Chambers and the adjoining property stretching back as far as the River Irwell. All this property is to be pulled down but the present frontage will be retained to serve as offices from the first floor upwards.  The entrance to the garage will be in Deansgate and the exit towards the river. It has been designed with an eye to allowing any car to be removed without moving the others, and it is claimed that within three minutes of the receipt of a telephone call from the hotel the car will be standing at the hotel door. The city's garage accommodation is not too plentiful at present, and this garage ought to be useful not only to the hotel guests but also as a means of relieving traffic congestion in such places as St. Ann's Square. It is expected that the building of the garage will begin immediately, and that it will be ready for use in six or seven months. [Manchester Guardian 4 January 1923 page 9]

Reference    Manchester Guardian 3 January 1923 Page 9
Reference    Manchester Guardian 4 January 1923 Page 9
Reference    Manchester Guardian 5 January 1923 page 9 – protests from existing tenants