Masonic Temple, 36 Bridge Street, Manchester

Built for the East Lancashire Masonic Benevolent Institution as a result of an architectural competition, the temple is the most monumental neo-Classical building in Manchester. The interior is notable for its grand scale, particularly in the main hall with its coffered barrel vaulted ceiling supported on ionic columns. With Ship Canal House and the Midland bank building it marks the end of an era in which a structural steel frame and reinforced concrete floors were clothed in a heavy casing of Portland stone with a brick backing as the costs of heavy ashlar casings became increasingly prohibitive [Ref Manchester Buildings]

TEMPLE FOR EAST LANCASHIRE MASONS - The Prince of Wales will pay his third visit to Manchester on October 24 for the sole and express purpose of dedicating the new Masonic Temple of the East Lancashire Province in Bridge-street. He will be assisted by Lord Derby, Provincial Grand Master. The ceremony will take place in the presence of the high officers of the Provincial Grand Lodge and of 230 Lodges of the Province, and the occasion will mark a red letter day in the history of Lancashire Free-masonry.

At present most of the constituent elements of the Province are scattered inconveniently here and there. The Benevolent Institution, a powerful institution, has no real home, the chief officers of the Province and the Freemasons Club are in Cooper-street, Manchester, the many Lodges have their meeting places in all sorts of halls and buildings; there is no centre of an adequate kind. That this should be the position in the 103rd year of the Province is obviously inconvenient and for over twenty years work has been in active progress to alter it. Land for a Masonic Temple was purchased as far back as 1909, but various delays were followed by the war period, and eventually the present excellent scheme was drawn up. The design of the Temple was entrusted to Messrs. Thomas Worthington and Sons of Manchester, architects of national eminence, and the foundation stone was laid in October 1925 by the Earl of Derby. He performed the feat, it may be remembered, by pressing a button in the Free Trade Hall. Now that the Temple is completed (save for the inevitable mass of details to be finished off in the interior, it can be realised, even by the layman, that East Lancashire Freemasons have a home to be proud of. The classic dignity of the exterior, one of the finest achievements Messrs Worthington have to their credit, will for all time be an outstanding feature of Manchester architecture, while the artistry and fine proportion of the interior is no less admirable. Externally, the front to Bridge-street is of Portland stone, an excellent example of stone-craft, the whole treated in a massive but simple manner with large plain spaces of masonry crowned with a rich carved band in the place of the more conventional cornice. The pavilions flanking the recessed centre with its ranges of sash windows and weighty balcony have delicate outlines showing a batter on the angles which gives a slight entasis as on a classical column. There is little carving but what there is is good. The entrance doors of teak are hung in a broad teak frame with low relief ornament.

THE HALL OF MEMORY - The building, as already indicated, has to serve the purposes of a Temple with accommodation for the meeting of Lodge; of chief offices; and Benevolent Institution offices and also of a home for the Masonic Club. The entrance Hall from Bridge-street has on one side offices and on the other board rooms and auxiliary rooms. It gives on to the central hall in which is a memorial to the Freemasons of East Lancashire who fell in the war. A monumental character is fitting, the dedication on the Memorial on the west side recording that AThis hall enshrines the memory of all Freemasons from the Province of East Lancashire who of their faith and valour made the supreme sacrifice for King and Country during the years of War 1914-1918.  This hall consists of a nave separated from the aisles by two rows of polished French limestone columns surmounted by entablature and cornice, which carry a semi-circular vault. There are great arched recesses at either end, and in the one opposite the entrance a flight of steps leads to the ante-room to the principal lodge and its dining-room. Other similar suites are below and above it. [The Manchester City News, Saturday 20 July, 1929]

MANCHESTER’S NEW MASONIC TEMPLE - If anyone not a mason is allowed inside this building after it has been opened today he may have cause, as I had, to revise his preconceived ideas of Freemasonry. He will realise that the term “temple” is no so inappropriate as he may have thought. Dr Worthington, the architect, has so arranged his building that all who enter it must pass through the great columned and vaulted hall whether they approach the small and rather mysterious door up the steps at the far end leading to the chief lodge rooms or turn to the left to reach, by the staircase or lifts, the other lodge rooms and club. All, as they pass, must be touched by the solemnity of this fine restrained apartment, to be known as the Hall of memory and containing a tablet to the Masons of East Lancashire who died in the war, which the Prince of Wales will unveil. The rest of the large interior, for this is a big building costing nearly a quarter of a million pounds, does not fall far behind the note struck at the outset. The four great lodge rooms are all very dignified halls panelled in great solemn panels of figured oak or walnut. The fact of them having no windows adds very much to their solemnity. Opposite each, but divided from it by an ante-room, is a banqueting hall. In these one is on more familiar ground, but even there the architects have been successful in avoiding any tinge of the ordinary restaurant or hotel room. The same pleasant air of solid worth and refinement – an air almost of an Oxford common room – is to be found in the club rooms on the first floor, and in the library and museum on the top. Indeed, but for its greater solidity throughout, and the disproportionate number of its dining rooms, the new Masonic Temple conveys as a whole something of the atmosphere of a more prosperous and solid-looking London Athenaeum Club. Such an interior is a great addition to the architecture of any of our northern cities, and cannot be without its influence on the many thousands of Masons who will use the building during the year. The exterior, which is more impressive when seen straight across the street, has a very dominating appearance owing to the massiveness of its parts, and to the fine area of plain walling rendered possible by a windowless lodge room being placed at the front of the building on the top floor. This exterior seems to me to strike exactly the right note for the general purpose of the building, which is obviously neither that of an office for a charity nor the home of a club. While having something of the character of both it has an added solemnity. Perhaps more interesting to the general public, the building has, too, a very modern look owing to the suppression of any overhanging cornice at the top of the structure, a fact which allows the mass of the three main portions to tell to the utmost. While emphasising the massiveness of his structure in this way, the architect has nevertheless, and without any loss of scale, achieved great refinement in the detail of his windows, balconies and smaller features. – Professor C H Reilly [Manchester Guardian 24 October 1929 page 9]

Foundation stone laid 4 October 1925. Opened on 24 October 1929

See also Broadbent for a proposed scheme before 1914

Reference    Manchester City News, Saturday 20 July 1929
Reference    Manchester Guardian 24 October 1929 page 9
Reference    Builder 21 March 1930 Page 572
Reference    Architects Journal 8 January 1930 page 57