Sackville Street is a street in Manchester city centre

Manchester City Centre

Manchester city centre is the central business district of Manchester, England. It lies within the Manchester Inner Ring Road, next to the River Irwell...

, England.

The street

Sackville Street is a street

Street

A street is a paved public thoroughfare in a built environment. It is a public parcel of land adjoining buildings in an urban context, on which people may freely assemble, interact, and move about. A street can be as simple as a level patch of dirt, but is more often paved with a hard, durable...

 in Manchester city centre. It runs in a northwest-southeast direction and is split into two sections by Whitworth Street

Whitworth Street

Whitworth Street is a street in Manchester, England. It runs between London Road and Oxford Street . West of Oxford Street it becomes Whitworth Street West which then goes as far as Deansgate . It was opened in 1899 and is lined with many large and grand warehouses. It is named after the engineer...

, which runs in a northeast-southwest direction. At the northern end of the street is a junction with Portland Street

Portland Street

Portland Street is a popular street in Kowloon, Hong Kong. The street is known for its business and retailing skyscraper complex Langham Place, numerous restaurants and its famous red-light district.-Geography:...

. The northern half of the street runs through Manchester's Gay Village

Gay village

A gay village is an urban geographic location with generally recognized boundaries where a large number of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people live or frequent...

 and past Chorlton Street Coach Station. Here the street crosses Canal Street and is carried by a bridge over the Rochdale Canal

Rochdale Canal

The Rochdale Canal is a navigable "broad" canal in northern England, part of the connected system of the canals of Great Britain. The "Rochdale" in its name refers to the town of Rochdale, Greater Manchester, through which the canal passes....

 and there is also a small public park, Sackville Gardens. Beyond Whitworth Street the southern half of the street runs through what was until 2004 the campus of the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST), which is now part of the University of Manchester

University of Manchester

The University of Manchester is a public research university located in Manchester, United Kingdom. It is a "red brick" university and a member of the Russell Group of research-intensive British universities and the N8 Group...

 (the Sackville Street Campus). Here the street crosses Granby Row and runs under a railway viaduct, which carries the line between Manchester's Piccadilly

Manchester Piccadilly station

Manchester Piccadilly is the principal railway station in Manchester, England. It serves intercity routes to London Euston, Birmingham New Street, South Wales, the south coast of England, Edinburgh and Glasgow Central, and routes throughout northern England...

 and Oxford Road

Manchester Oxford Road railway station

Manchester Oxford Road Railway Station is a railway station in the city of Manchester, England. The station is located at the junction of Whitworth Street West and Oxford Street, on an elevated line between Deansgate and Piccadilly stations....

 railway stations. It then continues past Charles Street (right) to its southern end where there is a junction with the Mancunian Way (the A57

A57 road

The A57 is a major road in England. It runs east from Liverpool to Lincoln, via Warrington, Cadishead, Irlam, Patricroft, Eccles, Salford and Manchester, then through the Pennines over the Snake Pass , around the Ladybower Reservoir, through Sheffield and past Worksop...

).

An 1801 map shows Sackville Street extending no further than the Rochdale Canal

Rochdale Canal

The Rochdale Canal is a navigable "broad" canal in northern England, part of the connected system of the canals of Great Britain. The "Rochdale" in its name refers to the town of Rochdale, Greater Manchester, through which the canal passes....

 and an 1844 railway plan indicates that the part of the road extending south of the canal was called ¨Zara Street¨.

The Sackville Street Building

The University of Manchester occupies what is now known as the "Sackville Street building" which, before the merger with UMIST in 2004, was UMIST's "Main Building". Construction of the building for the Manchester School of Technology began in 1895 on a site formerly occupied by Sir Joseph Whitworth's engineering works; it was opened in 1902 by the then Prime Minister

Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the Head of Her Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom. The Prime Minister and Cabinet are collectively accountable for their policies and actions to the Sovereign, to Parliament, to their political party and...

, Arthur Balfour

Arthur Balfour

Arthur James Balfour, 1st Earl of Balfour, KG, OM, PC, DL was a British Conservative politician and statesman...

. The School of Technology became the Manchester Municipal College of Technology in 1918.

Built using Burmantofts

Burmantofts Pottery

Burmantofts Pottery was the common trading name of a manufacturer of ceramic pipes and construction materials, named after the Burmantofts district of Leeds, England....

 terracotta

Architectural terracotta

Terracotta, in its unglazed form, became fashionable as an architectural ceramic construction material in England in the 1860s, and in the United States in the 1870s. It was generally used to supplement brick and tiles of similar colour in late Victorian buildings.It had been used before this in...

 the building is now Grade II listed. It was extended along Whitworth Street, towards London Road, between 1927 and 1957 by the architects Bradshaw Gass & Hope

Bradshaw Gass & Hope

Bradshaw Gass & Hope is an English firm of architects founded in 1862 by Jonas James Bradshaw . The style "Bradshaw Gass & Hope" was adopted after J. J...

, the delay being due to the depression in the 1930s

Great Depression

The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...

 and the Second World War. Originally a swimming pool was planned for the top floor, but after worries the weight of water might cause structural issues it was instead used as a gymnasium and in more recent years as an examination hall. The lower floors contain among other departments the Royce Laboratory for mechanical engineering, named after Henry Royce

Henry Royce

Sir Frederick Henry Royce, 1st Baronet, OBE was a pioneering car manufacturer, who with Charles Stewart Rolls founded the Rolls-Royce company.-Early life:...

. Floors are denoted by letters, from BA (lowest), then A to L (highest) missing out I.

The building lies between Whitworth Street and Granby Row (with Cobourg Street to the east) and the original main entrance is on Sackville Street and is called the Grand Entrance. The entrance on Granby Row is the usual entrance to the eastern part of the building (a little used entrance is on Whitworth Street). The historic Godlee Observatory

Godlee Observatory

The Godlee Observatory is an old astronomical observatory located in a tower on the roof of the University of Manchester's Sackville Street building , in the City Centre of Manchester, England. It was gifted to the city of Manchester by Francis Godlee when construction was completed in 1902...

 sits on the roof and is still in use. The building is used by the University for a number of functions and departments. These include administration, teaching and research in science and technology, and examinations.

Inside on floors E and D is the Joule Library (now an outlying part of the John Rylands University Library

John Rylands University Library

The John Rylands University Library is the University of Manchester's library and information service. It was formed in July 1972 from the merger of the library of the Victoria University of Manchester with the John Rylands Library...

) and various offices, laboratories, lecture theatres and exam halls. The Joule Library was given this name (commemorating the physicist J. P. Joule) in 1989 when it was refurbished.

In July 2009, The Ahmed Iqbal Ullah Race Relations Resource Centre moved from its original location on Oxford Road to J floor of the building. The centre was set up by Professor Louis Kushnick (OBE) in 1999 to provide anti-racist educational resources to its users.

There are inscriptions at the Grand Entrance and at the Whitworth Street entrance recording important events in the history of the building. The later part of the building was built on the site of St Augustine's Church, the third Roman Catholic chapel in Manchester. It was replaced by the second St Augustine's Church in York Street, Chorlton on Medlock. There is also a plaque recording the previous existence of Ivan Levinstein's laboratory on the site.