Free Trade Hall, Manchester

The Free Trade Hall is located on Peter Street, close to the Manchester Opera House in Manchester City Centre. It was built on Saint Peter’s Fields in 1856. The fields are famous in Mancunian folklore as the site of the Peterloo Massacre. In 1819, the fields were the site for a mass political demonstration, which was ended by brutal military invention, resulting in fifteen deaths. The massacre was a watershed for the city of Manchester, which grew into a more prosperous and democratic settlement in the following fifty years.

A large public concert hall, the Free Trade Hall was built to commemorate the repealing of the Corn Laws in 1846, which opened up the United Kingdom to free trade. Despite damage during the Blitz and declining audiences in recent years, the hall was Manchester’s premier classical concert venue until the opening of Bridgewater Hall in 1996. The hall has also hosted famous rock artists, including Bob Dylan and the Sex Pistols, whilst a young Winston Churchill gave a speech at the hall in 1904.

The Grade II listed building, designed in the Italian cinquecento style, now houses a hotel. The ground floor and stairwells still display artifacts from the hall’s heyday, including the coats of arms of Lancashire towns which fought the Corn Laws 150 years ago.