GWR’s Liverpool warehouse is transformed into £5m exhibition venue
A WAREHOUSE built for the GWR at the eastern terminus of the Liverpool & Manchester Railway has been reborn as the new £5 million Special Exhibition Gallery at the Science and Industry Museum in Manchester.
The museum is located on the site of Liverpool Road station, the world’s oldest surviving passenger station, which opened on September 15, 1830. However, the Grade II listed New Warehouse itself was completed for the GWR in 1882 and originally used as a goods store, providing much-needed storage space for the freight coming into and leaving the station. The GWR had shared facilities at Liverpool Road with operator the LNWR from 1858 onwards.
Constructed from brick, cast and wrought iron, and sandstone, it was designed to support the weight of goods wagons entering the building and unloading cargo, which would have been moved through to the lower ground floor through ceiling hatches still visible today.
Thanks to a £3.8 million grant from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport – plus extra support from the Wellcome and Garfield Weston Foundation, the Kirby Laing Foundation and the Zochonis Charitable Trust – the lower ground floor of the warehouse, which was used as museum stores until recently, has been transformed into a 725sm flexible public exhibition space, while the historic fabric has been revealed and restored.
Features
The conversion was designed by awardwinning architectural practice Carmody Groarke, working alongside Manchester building contractor HH Smith & Sons.
It will allow visitors to experience the grandeur and scale of the original warehouse space while enjoying some of the world’s best science exhibitions in the north of England,
Key features include beautifullyrestored Victorian industrial architecture, such as thick red brick walls with blue brick detail, steel and brick ‘jack arch’ ceilings, including a focal high section beneath the historic platform above (now the Textiles Gallery on the upper level).
These historic features have been enhanced with high quality contemporary materials and design including signature illuminated fibreglass panels in the external and front-of-house areas, which light the space with a warm glow.
In the gallery, new walls house all of the necessary services for the space and are a blank canvas for exhibitions.
An improved outdoor welcome area in the lower courtyard of the museum is fully accessible and provides stunning vistas under the adjacent historic viaduct (also known as the Pineapple Line after the Georgian period Pineapple Inn which stood beneath it until 1986), with its monumental round cast iron and square sandstone pillars infilled with brick jack-arching.
Museum director Sally MacDonald said: “We are dedicated to inspiring audiences with ideas that change the world.
“It is the first project in our long term multi-million pound restoration programme to conserve our historic buildings, open up new spaces for all to enjoy, play and learn in and to generate vital skills opportunities to support our innovators of the future.”
Manchester City Council leader Sir Richard Leese said: “The impact of this transformational project on our city will be immediate.
“The incredible new experiences this spectacular gallery will bring will be integral to the cultural and skills recovery of our city through science, arts, technology and innovation for everyone.”
Culture Minister Caroline Dinenage added: “This new gallery opens up a wealth of opportunity for the Science and Industry Museum and demonstrates the importance of not only the heart of Manchester but the whole of the North West.
“I can’t wait to see what fascinating exhibitions they have in store.”
Displays
The inaugural exhibition hosted in the new gallery once the museum reopens after lockdown will be Top Secret: From Ciphers To Cyber Security, curated by the Science Museum Group with the help of expert advisors GCHQ, the UK’s intelligence and cyber agency.
Visitors will uncover the world of codebreaking, ciphers and secret communications by exploring over a century’s worth of communications intelligence. From the First World War to the latest in cyber security, fascinating stories will be explored through handwritten documents, declassified files and artefacts from the Science Museum Group’s and GCHQ’s historic collections.