A marvel revived

A major restoration project has brought one of Britain's greatest Victorian buildings back to splendour and life. Steven Brindle explains the extraordinary story of how it came to be

- Steven Brindle

We cannot have beauty without paying for it.' So said George Leach Ashworth, the Mayor of Rochdale, at the opening of its new Town Hall on September 27, 1871. His words had a point, for the cost of the building had spiralled from an initial budget of $20,000 to the vast sum of $154,755. This had aroused great controversy, but the Mayor could claim in justification that the result was a masterpiece: Rochdale Town Hall is one of the most magnificent Victorian buildings in Britain. Now, its superb qualities may once again be appreciated fully, for the Town Hall has just emerged from a major renovation project at a cost of $20 million. In 2024-as in 1871 -the results amply justify the expense.

Today, the borough of Rochdale forms the north-eastern part of the metropolitan county of Greater Manchester. The landscape is undulating, rising to the moors to the north and east, and centred on the valley of the River Roch: hence the name. Rochdale originated as a large medieval parish embracing several hamlets, with the big church of St Chad at its heart. The area began to specialise in manufacturing woollen textiles and, when Celia Fiennes visited in about 1700, she found a 'pretty, neat town, all built of stone'. Cotton manufacturing arrived in the 1790s and, by the 1840s, the cotton mills rivalled the woollen mills, but the town's prosperity  lay in the combination of the two. Rochdale was a Puritan town, with a radical, liberal tradition; it was also the birthplace of the Co-operative Movement in the 1840s.