‘Not so much like rail travel as time travel’ : a weekend at the Station Agent's House
Author and journalist Dixe Wills was among the first through the doors of our newest Landmark, the Station Agent’s House in central Manchester. Here Dixe reflects on his highlights from a weekend stay.
Our guide Gemma Gibb from the Science and Industry Museum was showing us around the world’s first railway station – Liverpool Road – opened in 1830 for a line that would connect Manchester and Liverpool. And from the outside it looked suspiciously like the company’s architect had simply drawn them a larger than usual townhouse.
It must have been rather exciting to have been involved in the first ever railway line for passengers and freight. I can imagine a lot of trial and error as the engineers made the rules up as they went along. For example, no one thought of having platforms. They preferred, instead, to install steps from every carriage. There wasn’t even the basic railway vocabulary that we take for granted nowadays.
Into this mælstrom of heady uncertainty came the Station Agent’s House. The building actually pre-dates the station. The classical-style three-storey trapezoidal house had been thrown up in 1808 for a wealthy partner in a local dye works and its appropriateness as a station manager’s home/office was one of the reasons why the station was built where it was.
The house, now in Manchester’s Castlefield Conservation Area, would enjoy a somewhat restless existence. By the 1870s it had been converted into four flats, while in the last century the ground floor became a shop selling car parts and sausages (though not at the same time). By the 2020s, when the Science and Industry Museum asked the Landmark Trust if they’d like to do something with the structure, it had been serving as the museum’s offices.
But when my companion and I turned the key and stepped inside for the first time one sunny summer afternoon, none of this turbulence was apparent. It was so tranquil inside. Only when we opened one of the large sash windows were we greeted, appropriately enough, by the clanking of a passing train. The house is located between its original (now defunct) line and the viaduct carrying the Ordsall Chord, which links the city’s Piccadilly and Victoria stations.
The bespoke noise-reducing double-glazing is just one of the many sustainable improvements the Landmark Trust has made. An air source heat pump supplies heating and hot water; chipboard floors have been replaced with redwood pine; and the walls have been insulated with wool and given a lime and cork plaster to retain heat.
But of course, none of that matters if the house isn’t a pleasure to be in. Thankfully, it passed on that score too. We spent our first half-hour exploring the high-ceilinged rooms and clambering up and down the stylish original staircase, topped by a new oval Regency-style skylight. We examined the railway-themed paintings, posters and paraphernalia that lined the walls – classic station advertisements for the Yorkshire Dales and Scarborough; a Welsh timetable from 1883; and dire warnings about the carrying of dangerous goods (we ferried our coffees carefully past that one). And at the Terence Cuneo prints, we had fun searching for the tiny mouse that the artist put in all his pictures of steam railways.
In the evenings we repaired to the lounge end of the open-plan lounge/dining room/kitchen to sink into the voluminous sofas with books lifted from the house’s specially curated library where we found everything from an obscure novel by Manchester Guardian journalist Madeline Linford to the autobiography of poet Lemn Sisay.
Of course, the question of what era to choose when furnishing a property like this is a tricky one, so I enjoyed the description given in the house literature: ‘The furniture is generally honest Arts and Crafts pieces of the early 20th century lifted with a touch of the Jazz Age and the glamour and excitement of rail travel at the time.’ Going by the effect, we should all have a little more Jazz Age in our lives.
We chose one of the top floor bedrooms, principally because it was next door to our favourite bathroom, replete with Art Deco style tiles and an enormous freestanding bath with views across the original 1830 viaduct.
Leaving the house, we either wandered about on foot – there was always something going on at the Aviva Studios art centre just a few steps along the River Irwell – or used the city’s two free buses, one of which (the number 1) handily runs between Liverpool Road and Manchester Piccadilly station (Salford Central and Deansgate stations are within easy walking distance too).
After our visit to the nearby People’s History Museum – a fascinating look at ordinary people’s struggle for rights and votes – we learned that when the Prime Minister, the Duke of Wellington, turned up at the inauguration of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway on 15th September 1830, he was greeted with such loud booing from the public that he refused to leave his carriage.
Later, at the Science and Industry Museum, we looked around a wide range of exhibits telling the stories of how science has changed the planet and includes an extraordinary replica of the enormous 1948 computer on which Alan Turing worked. The museum covers 6.5 acres of the former Liverpool Road station, which spent most of its life as a freight terminus before eventually closing in 1975, part of it becoming a set for Coronation Street.
Gemma told us of the museum’s ambitious plans to re-open the whole station to the public ‘in plenty of time for its 200th anniversary in 2030’. For anyone staying at the Station Agent’s House that means they’ll have their own private walkway from the second floor down to where the very first rail passengers boarded the very first passenger trains. It should make the experience of staying there not so much like rail travel as time travel.
The Station Agent's House sleeps up to eight people. Read more about the building's history and restoration, and book your stay via the link below.
