South Wing: Peel Park Museum & Art Gallery Peel Park the Crescent Salford

MANCHESTER —To the Salford Royal Museum and Library a new wing is about to be added from the designs of Messrs Travis and Mangnall. Several estimates had at various times been submitted, but all came out too high. Now, however, one by a local builder, named Harrap, has been adopted; the amount is £2552. There is to be a large upper room devoted to local exhibitions, and a ground-floor to be divided into two to contain framed engravings, drawings, and small paintings. The new corridor is to be devoted for casts from the antique, statuary, &c. The basement is for the geological collection, and for models of machinery, works, and other large objects. In addition to forming this new wing, it is intended to pull down the present old and dilapidated portico on the east front, and to build another. The design is Doric, entirely stone, and shows four fluted columns, with a broad flight of steps approaching from the front only. As a statistical matter, it may be added that the average number of visitors to the museum is about 2000 a-day. [Civil Engineer and Architects Journal 1856 page 356].

In 1864 a portico built at the eastern entrance to the building. In 1874 Langworthy bequeathed £10,000 to the Library and Museum. Of this £8000 was expended on the Langworthy Wing of the museum, intended as a permanent art gallery, and other building projects. The Langworthy Gallery was opened by Alderman Walmsley on 14 August 1878, the Reading Room in August 1879 and the extension to the Library on 13 October 1879. Built in the Italian Renaissance style, first used for the museums in South Kensington, it now forms a long block of red brick with stone entrance porches. In 1938 the original part of Lark Hill House was demolished after being found to be in poor structural condition, and a new east wing added.