The Tootal Buildings
The Tootal Buildings
Location within Greater Manchester
Former names	Tootal, Broadhurst and Lee Building Churchgate House
General information
Type	Commercial office
Town or city	Manchester
Country	England
Coordinates	53°28′31″N 2°14′32″W / 53.4752°N 2.2422°W / 53.4752; -2.2422
Construction started	1896
Inaugurated	1898
Renovated	2015
Owner	Helical Bar PLC
Technical details
Floor count	6
Design and construction
Architect(s)	J. Gibbons Sankey
Main contractor	Capital Properties (UK) Ltd

The Tootal, Broadhurst and Lee Building (currently marketed as The Tootal Buildings^[1]) at No. 56 Oxford Street, in Manchester, England, is a late Victorian warehouse and office block built in a neo-Baroque style for Tootal Broadhurst Lee, a firm of textile manufacturers.

History

It was designed by J. Gibbons Sankey and constructed between 1896 and 1898.^[2] It has been designated a Grade II* listed building.^[3]

Nikolaus Pevsner's The Buildings of England describes the warehouse as "large, in red brick stripped with orange terracotta, but comparatively classical".^[2] It has a "massive central round-headed doorway with banded surround and cartouche dated 1896, set in (an) architrave of coupled banded columns and (a) broken pediment".^[3]

The interior has been redesigned, but a First World War memorial by Henry Sellers has been retained, being "marble, with a niche from which the figure (has been) stolen".^[4]

Behind it and not visible from Oxford Street is Lee House, the stub of what would have been the tallest building in Europe at 217 ft (66 m), a 17-storey warehouse of the same firm (planned 1928; part completed 1931).^[5] Both Churchgate House and Lee House are on the north bank of the Rochdale Canal; Great Bridgewater Street is immediately to the north of them.

Occupants

The building currently hosts the headquarters of the Greater Manchester Combined Authority, including the office of the Mayor of Greater Manchester.^[6]