The Portico Library

For roughly a century, the Portico Library has lived upstairs. Its green doors on Charlotte Street, at the corner with Mosley Street, open onto a winding climb that gives little away – until you reach the top and find a Regency reading room beneath a painted glass dome, one of Manchester city centre’s most remarkable spaces.

The Portico opened in 1806 as a subscription library and newsroom, before Manchester had a free public library, offering its members books, newspapers and periodicals for learning, pleasure and debate. It was purpose-built, to a Greek Revival design by the architect Thomas Harrison – columns and pediment modelled on the temples of ancient Greece. Members were all men until 1870, and early readers included John Dalton, Peter Mark Roget and Elizabeth Gaskell. Going strong two centuries on, it remains one of the city’s longest-running institutions.

It was also built with wealth from the Industrial Revolution, British empire-building and colonial expansion, and its membership reflected the inequalities of the period. That makes its collection valuable. The 25,000 books and archive items span more than 450 years and include novels, poetry, science, travel, history and maps. Together they form an extraordinary record of the ideas that shaped the city and the nation. The Portico’s programme reads that record in both directions. It looks at the voices preserved on its shelves and at those missing from them, through histories of empire, enslavement, migration and resistance.

Today the library is free to visit six days a week. It runs a busy programme of exhibitions, talks and events, the Portico Prize for writing from the North, and the Portico Sadie Massey Awards for young readers and writers. The Portico Kitchen bills itself as Manchester’s oldest lunch spot and serves food and cake under the dome.

Its biggest change in a century is now officially on the way. In September 2026, a £6.4 million grant from The National Lottery Heritage Fund secured Portico Reunited, an approximately £12 million project. It will bring the ground floor and basement back into library use for the first time in a century. Plans include a reinstated, step-free Mosley Street entrance, a lift, and the Portico LightBox, a new feature connecting the ground floor, first floor and dome. There will also be a new Northern Bookshop, an expanded Portico Kitchen, exhibition areas and learning spaces. The building is expected to close in late spring 2028 and reopen in early March 2030. During the works, the programme continues as Porti-Go! in temporary spaces, community settings and online. Entry will remain free.