15 Manchester Hotels in Banks, Cotton Warehouses and the Free Trade Hall
The 1903 railway hotel where Rolls first met Royce, the hall on the site of Peterloo where Dylan was called Judas, a Lutyens bank, and the riverside suite José Mourinho lived in for two years.
Manchester’s hotels sit in the buildings the cotton trade and the banks put up, and in the hall built on the site of the Peterloo Massacre. This list has the Midland, where Charles Rolls met Henry Royce in 1904, the Edwardian in the Free Trade Hall, where Dylan was called Judas in 1966, the Stock Exchange of 1906 with its trading floor under a dome, and the Watts Warehouse, the 1858 drapery palace with each storey in a different style.
The list is grouped by character, not ranked. Where a hotel’s own site could be confirmed, its name links there; the rest are listed without one.
Grand dames and great halls
The Midland · City centre / Peter Street
The Midland opened in 1903 as the Midland Railway’s hotel for Manchester Central station, designed by the railway’s architect Charles Trubshaw. Charles Rolls and Henry Royce met here for the first time on 4 May 1904, the lunch that led to Rolls-Royce. The hotel’s own telling has Hitler earmarking it as his northern headquarters and ordering the Luftwaffe to spare it.
Kimpton Clocktower Hotel · Oxford Street / Whitworth Street
The Clocktower was built between 1891 and 1895 as the Refuge Assurance Company’s head office by Alfred Waterhouse, architect of Manchester Town Hall. His son Paul Waterhouse added the 217-foot clock tower between 1910 and 1912, and the building is Grade II* listed. It became the Palace Hotel in 1996, then The Principal, and now trades under IHG’s Kimpton brand.
The Edwardian Manchester, A Radisson Collection Hotel · City centre / Peter Street
The Edwardian occupies the Free Trade Hall, built between 1853 and 1856 by Edward Walters on St Peter’s Field, where cavalry charged a reform rally in the Peterloo Massacre of 1819. Bob Dylan’s concert here on 17 May 1966 is the one where a fan shouted Judas at him for going electric. The hall became a hotel in 2004.
Banks and exchanges
The Rex · King Street
The Rex occupies 100 King Street, built between 1928 and 1935 as a Midland Bank by Sir Edwin Lutyens and Grade II* listed; it is described as Lutyens’s only building in Manchester. It opened as Hotel Gotham in 2015, and Leonardo Hotels relaunched it as The Rex in April 2025.
Stock Exchange Hotel · City centre / Norfolk Street
The Stock Exchange Hotel was built in 1906 as the Manchester Stock Exchange by Bradshaw Gass & Hope, with the old trading floor under a domed ceiling. Gary Neville and Ryan Giggs bought the building in 2013, and in the autumn of 2015 let homeless squatters stay in it through the winter before work began. It opened as a hotel in November 2019.
King Street Townhouse · Upper King Street / Town Hall
King Street Townhouse was built in 1872 as the Manchester and Salford Trustee Savings Bank, in the Italian Renaissance style, and is Grade II listed. Eclectic Hotels opened it as a hotel in 2015, and its rooftop infinity pool looks directly at the Town Hall clock tower.
Cotton warehouses and railway sheds
Native Manchester · Piccadilly / Ducie Street
Native occupies the Ducie Street Warehouse, the Grade II listed London Warehouse built in 1867 for the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway beside Piccadilly station. It opened in July 2019 with apartments above a ground-floor bar, restaurant and cinema.
Malmaison Manchester · Piccadilly
The Malmaison occupies the Joshua Hoyle Building, a 1904 cotton warehouse built for the spinning firm Joshua Hoyle & Sons and now Grade II listed. It opened here in 1998, one of the brand’s earliest hotels after its Edinburgh and Glasgow originals.
Britannia Hotel Manchester City Centre · Piccadilly / Portland Street
The Britannia occupies the Watts Warehouse, built between 1856 and 1858 by Travis & Mangnall as the palazzo-style wholesale drapery warehouse of S & J Watts. It is Grade II* listed, with each storey styled on a different period, from Italian Renaissance to Elizabethan to Flemish. It was saved from demolition and turned into a hotel in 1982, with the warehouse’s grand central staircase kept as the showpiece.
Whitworth Locke · Princess Street / Civic Quarter
Whitworth Locke is a converted red-brick cotton mill on Princess Street inside the Whitworth Street conservation area. It opened in 2019 with studio apartments and interiors by the New York studio Grzywinski+Pons.
The Cow Hollow Hotel · Northern Quarter / Newton Street
The Cow Hollow is a small hotel in a converted Victorian textile warehouse on Newton Street in the Northern Quarter, with the original brick and ironwork left exposed. It is named after the Cow Hollow neighbourhood of San Francisco, by the hotel’s account.
Football, television and the skyline
The Lowry Hotel · Salford / Chapel Wharf
The Lowry opened in 2001 on the Salford bank of the River Irwell, named after the painter L. S. Lowry. José Mourinho lived in a suite here for his whole spell as Manchester United manager, from 2016 to 2018. It bills itself as Manchester’s first five-star hotel.
Hotel Football · Old Trafford
Hotel Football opened in 2015 across the road from Old Trafford, backed by Ryan Giggs, Gary and Phil Neville, Paul Scholes and Nicky Butt of United’s Class of ’92. A five-a-side pitch called Heaven sits on the roof.
Mollie’s Manchester · Castlefield / Old Granada Studios
Mollie’s occupies part of the old Granada Studios on Quay Street, where Granada Television began broadcasting in 1956. Coronation Street was made on this site from 1960 until the move to MediaCityUK in 2013, and the Beatles made their first television appearance here in October 1962. Soho House opened this Mollie’s, its motel-and-diner brand’s first city-centre site, over the winter of 2023 to 2024.
The Manchester Deansgate Hotel · Deansgate / Beetham Tower
The Manchester Deansgate Hotel fills the lower floors of Beetham Tower, the 47-storey skyscraper by Ian Simpson completed in 2006, with the Cloud 23 bar on the twenty-third floor. The tower was the tallest building in Britain outside London when it opened, and is known for the hum its rooftop glass blade makes in high wind. It traded as the Hilton Manchester Deansgate until 2025, when IHG took it on.
Frequently Asked Questions
Are these hotels ranked?
No. The groups sort them by character, and the order within each group carries no meaning.
What made a hotel interesting enough for this list?
A story. Every entry was a grand hotel or hall with a documented past, a bank or exchange turned hotel, a cotton warehouse or railway building, or a hotel tied to the city’s football and television. Comfort alone did not qualify.
Why are there no prices?
Rates change daily and a priced list goes stale in a month. Where a hotel runs its own site, its name links there, so you see the current rate and book direct.
Should I stay in the city centre or out by Salford and Old Trafford?
The city-centre hotels around Peter Street, King Street and the Northern Quarter put you on foot to the bars, the galleries and both main stations. Salford and Old Trafford are ten to twenty minutes out by tram, closer to the football grounds and MediaCityUK.
Which hotel puts me closest to the day trips on this site?
Most day trips from Manchester run to the Peak District, to Liverpool, to Chester, to the Lake District, or across the Pennines to York. The hotels around Piccadilly station and Peter Street sit closest to the trains and the coach pickups.