The Portico Library & Gallery manchester

Excellent service contributes to a unique and very diverse range of books. The food is good at the cafe. It is worth having a look at a membership if you are a researcher or appreciator of fine antiques.

Small upstairs library with rotating exhibition. Friendly and informative staff. Surprisingly good cafe service with limited but tasty menu.

Love the every corner of this library as a book worm! Highly recommend everyone to visit here while you are in Manchester

Staff really friendly. Amazing library!

Manchester hidden gem. Not familiar like the central library but very calm and peaceful place to reading for the books .one of the oldest library in Manchester. A great range of books and very good conditions. Staff is really friendly and helpful. Sitting area is really comfortable. Highly recommended if you're the books lovers you will be able to find out a good book here .

Spent 6 months at the Portico as a volunteer & researcher. It’s an amazing place for everyone! Are you looking for a delicious made-from-scratch lunch or a cup of tea and slice of cake? Sorted. Joe’s soups are amazing. Are you a tourist looking for a uniquely Mancunian experience? Sorted. Come take a step back into Manchester’s industrial past through its culture. Are you a student interested in history, literature, architecture, natural history, art? Sorted. Tons of research projects waiting to be picked up.

We visited around half an hour before the place was supposed to close, hoping for a quick look around before we'd have to leave But as we entered, the staff were wonderfully welcoming and friendly - one of them, Pat, showed us around, told us all about the upcoming exhibit and her favourite books in the place. She was very knowledgeable about the history of the library and seemed passionate to share it with us, and told us how we could become members to look at the books properly. She really made the trip - we were very impressed with her and with the beauty of the library as a whole, promising to ourselves to come back more often and to see the final exhibitions (due to start 1st July 2021)

Hidden gem. Worth a visit.

The library was lovely and so were the staff but only one small room but glad I have been

The library was the first Greek Revival building in the city. Its interior was inspired by John Soane. The library has a rectangular plan and is constructed in sandstone ashlar on a corner site at 57 Mosley Street. It has two storeys and a basement and roof space. Its facade on Mosley Street has a three-bay pedimented loggia with four Ionic columns set slightly forward and steps between the columns. Under the loggia are two entrance doors and three square windows at first floor level The Charlotte Street facade has an entrance into the loggia with a square window above and another on the first floor. A five-bay colonnade of Ionic semi-columns has tall sashed windows on the ground floor in each bay and square window above at first floor level. The attic storey is behind a pilastered parapet. Originally the reading room was on the ground floor and the library occupied the remainder of the ground floor and a mezzanine gallery. A glass-domed ceiling was inserted at gallery level in about 1920 to separate the new tenants from what remained of the library. The Portico Library, in conjunction with its cultural partners and funders, hosts a series of literary prizes throughout the year to celebrate writers and poets from Northern England and beyond. The Portico Prize for Literature was established in 1985 and awarded biennially to a work of fiction or poetry and a work of non-fiction set wholly or mainly in the north of England. The library launched the Sadie Massey Award to celebrate the North West's young writers in 2015. The library's first chairman was John Ferriar and its secretary was Peter Mark Roget. Other notable members include John Dalton, Reverend William Gaskell, Sir Robert Peel and more recently Eric Cantona.