Elizabeth Gaskell’s House Guidebook
Elizabeth’s Bedroom
Welcome to Elizabeth Gaskell’s House
Elizabeth Gaskell’s House is the former home of the novelist Elizabeth Gaskell (1810-1865), who lived here with her family from 1850 until her death in 1865. Elizabeth wrote nearly all her best-loved works while living here, including Cranford (1851-1853), North and South (1854-1855) and the biography of her friend The Life of Charlotte Brontë (1857).
The House was built around 1838, as part of a new development in a leafy suburb on the edge of Manchester, away from the noise and pollution of the factories and mills yet within easy reach of the city centre.
Elizabeth and her husband William, along with their four daughters, moved into the House in 1850. It was their third Manchester home, and the rent was considered expensive at £150 a year.
After Elizabeth’s death in 1865, members of her family continued to live in the House until 1913. The contents were auctioned in 1914 and the House was sold to the Harper family, who lived here until the late 1960s. Manchester University then bought it to use as a centre for international students.
Elizabeth Gaskell’s House is now run by Manchester Historic Buildings Trust, an independent charity set up in 2000 to save the House. After a £2.5 million refurbishment project, funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund and others, the House opened to the public in October 2014.
The House is run by a small team of staff and a large team of volunteers. Most of the people you will meet on your visit to the House will be volunteers.
We hope you enjoy your visit.
and
South BBC adaptations
Elizabeth Gaskell’s
Major Works
Mary Barton (1848)
Ruth (1853)
Cranford (1853)
North and South (1855)
The Life of Charlotte Brontë (1857)
My Lady Ludlow (1858)
Sylvia’s Lovers (1863)
Cousin Phillis (1864)
Wives and Daughters (1866)
Cranford (top)
North and
Elizabeth The Writer
Although described by the press after her death as ‘one of the greatest female novelists of all time’, Elizabeth Gaskell’s literary fame faded in the early 20th century and for UK readers she still remains in the shadow of her contemporaries, Charlotte Brontë and Charles Dickens.
Over the last 30 years we have thankfully seen a resurgence in her popularity as new readers discover and enjoy her stories. She is now read and studied across the world, with her novels and short stories translated into many languages. Many people have also been introduced to Elizabeth Gaskell via the different TV adaptations of her works, which continue to entertain us.
Elizabeth’s writing is remarkably varied and includes almost forty short stories, ranging from social realism to ghost stories. The Life of Charlotte Brontë has been described as the first modern biography, and Cranford has never been out of print.
Elizabeth was first encouraged to write by her husband, following the death of their son William, who died as a baby of scarlet fever. It was out of this sorrow that her first novel Mary Barton was born. Published anonymously in 1848 it had a great impact on the reading public and was widely reviewed and discussed.
The John Rylands Library in Manchester holds the world’s most important collection of literary manuscripts by Elizabeth Gaskell, including the only complete manuscript of Wives and Daughters and The Life of Charlotte Brontë. This collection, along with many of her letters can be accessed online via their website.
The Morning Room
The first room you come to is the Morning Room, so called because it faces south-east and may have been originally designed as a light and bright room for taking breakfast and for morning activities.
When the Gaskell family moved in, it was used as a day-nursery and schoolroom. The eldest daughter, Marianne, was 15 and the youngest, Julia, was 3 years old. In between were Meta aged 13 and Florence aged 7.
By the end of 1850, Marianne was old enough to go away to school, while her younger sisters were taught at home by their parents and professional tutors.
Elizabeth also gave lessons in here to girls from the Mosley Street Sunday Schools, a Unitarian charity set up to educate poor children and some adults, which the Gaskell family supported.
The display case contains objects that belonged to Elizabeth and her daughters, which have been loaned to the House by Elizabeth’s great-greatgreat-granddaughter.
Elizabeth was thirteen months old when her mother died. Her father felt unable to care for the infant and little Elizabeth was sent to live with her aunt, Hannah Lumb in Knutsford, Cheshire. It was a happy upbringing: when Aunt Lumb died in 1837, Elizabeth mourned the loss of ‘my best friend’. Interestingly the idea of the motherless girl is a recurring theme in many of her novels.
Many famous writers and artists of the time visited the House and corresponded with Elizabeth, including Charlotte Brontë and Charles Dickens. Some of their letters are on display via the screen in the corner.
Elizabeth and William shared a love of poetry. This Keats poetry book is inscribed by William to Elizabeth on 25th Dec 1854. It was originally sold in the 1914 auction and has been donated to the House by Walter E Smith and Doris Kerr.
Portrait of Elizabeth’s aunt, Hannah Lumb, by Charles Allen Duval.
William was Chairman of the Portico Library in Manchester from 1849 to 1884. In 1879 the Library Committee commissioned this portrait to mark the 30th anniversary of William’s election as Chairman.
Elizabeth’s daughters Meta and Julia, chose the artist, Annie Robinson, whose work they admired. Annie Robinson was born in Hulme, Manchester, and later became Annie Swynnerton on her marriage to sculptor Joseph Swynnerton. In 1922 Annie Swynnerton became the first female associate of the Royal Academy.
This painting was bequeathed by Meta Gaskell to Manchester City Art Gallery 1914 and is on loan to the House.
The Study
Entering this book-lined room today, it is easy to imagine William Gaskell working at his desk or reading a book by the fire. Elizabeth said that he kept the room ‘terribly hot’ and, unlike her, William could shut the door on the household bustle and work in the peace of his study.
Elizabeth and William were both Unitarians. Unitarianism was considered a ‘dissenting’ religion, as it rejects the mainstream Christian doctrine of the Trinity. Unitarianism encompasses an open-minded and individualist approach to religion, giving scope for a wide range of beliefs and doubts.
During the 19th century Unitarians were very active in many social reforms such as factory reform, public health, temperance, women’s rights, prison reform, and the abolition of slavery. Many of these reforms were championed through Elizabeth’s novels and William’s career.
William was a minister at the Cross Street Unitarian Chapel from 1828 until his death in 1884 and was not only responsible for the spiritual leadership of his congregation, but was also heavily involved in the many social and educational initiatives associated with the chapel. These included the Lower Mosley Street Schools, the Domestic Home Mission, and the Mechanics Institute. He co-founded both the Unitarian Home Missionary Board, which trained working-class men to be Unitarian ministers, and the Unitarian Herald, which he edited for 14 years. In addition, he lectured widely, taught private pupils, published sermons and pamphlets, wrote and translated hymns, and sat on numerous committees.
The books on the shelves today are volumes that we know or believe that the Gaskells either owned or read. The evidence for reconstructing the Gaskells’ book collection comes from various historical and literary sources, including the 1914 auction catalogue, references in Elizabeth’s works and letters, and the records of books borrowed from the Portico Library. Please do stop and take a look, some of our books contain bookplates, which explain in detail why they are in our collection.
We believe that William had the bookshelves fitted in this room when the Gaskells moved into the House in 1850. During the restoration process it was revealed that the woodwork in this room was painted to look like mid-oak ‘graining’; now skilfully reproduced by modern craftsmen. This technique is called scumbling.
The Drawing Room
The Drawing Room was the main entertaining room in the House and would also have been used by Elizabeth and her daughters for sewing, reading, writing, taking tea with friends and other activities.
In 1859, Elizabeth had the chairs covered with chintz fabric, and wrote to her friend, Charles Eliot Norton, ‘Yes! We have got our drawing-room chairs & sofas covered with a new chintz. Such a pretty one, little rosebuds and carnations on a white ground.’
The pattern on the chintz fabric is based on this description and copied from an 1850s pattern printed in Lancashire. The hand-printed wallpaper is based on the colours and pattern of fragments of the historic paper uncovered in this room during its restoration, and the Brussels loop pile carpet, like all the carpets in the House, is a pattern from the 1850s. It was woven in 27 inch-wide strips and handsewn together.
Music was an important part of the Gaskells’ lives. William wrote and translated hymns, Elizabeth and her daughters played the piano and sang, and they all went to concerts and the opera. In 1853, Charles Hallé began to give Marianne Gaskell music lessons, a development that coincided with the purchase of the new piano: a ‘semi-grand Broadwood’. The piano in the room today is similar in size and appearance to the one bought by the Gaskells from John Broadwood & Sons, London, in January 1853.
On display is Elizabeth’s passport dated 1863 on loan to the House from the Gaskell family collection. The passport refers to ‘four daughters’ as well as Elizabeth’s maid, Ann Hearn, when Elizabeth travelled to Italy, visiting Rome, Florence, Perugia, Venice and Milan. The passport is one page and folded to fit into the leather travel purse embossed in gold.
On the wall opposite the fireplace, you will see a popular engraving by Parthenope Nightingale of Florence Nightingale and Mr Bracebridge on Cathcart’s Heights overlooking Sebastopol. According to the catalogue of sale contents in 1914 a copy was said to have been given to Elizabeth by Parthenope Nightingale (Lady Verney).
As fellow Unitarians, Elizabeth was a friend of Florence Nightingale and her sister, Parthenope, and stayed at Lea Hurst, the Nightingales’ house in Derbyshire in October 1854, when she was struggling to finish North and South.
The letters that Elizabeth wrote during this time have since helped us to restore and decorate her bedroom on the first floor.
On the writing table, you can see copies of the final pages of Elizabeth’s last, unfinished novel, Wives and Daughters, which she was writing in serial form for The Cornhill Magazine. Elizabeth died suddenly when it was almost finished, and it was completed by her editor.
The Dining Room
Overlooking her much-loved garden, a round table in the bay window was Elizabeth’s favourite place in the House to write, but it was also one of the busiest and noisiest places in the House. She was frequently interrupted by her family and servants, and the noise from the Servants’ Hall below must have infiltrated into this room.
Despite the distractions, this is where she wrote letters and worked on many of her novels and short stories, writing them on large (foolscap-sized) sheets of blue paper. Many of her novels were first published in instalments in weekly magazines, such as Charles Dickens’ Household Words and All the Year Round. As soon as she finished each instalment, she wrapped the latest batch of blue sheets into a parcel and posted it to London.
Elizabeth wrote for Charles Dickens’ weekly journal for a number of years at the start of her career. At the start of their relationship, Dickens was exceedingly complimentary of Elizabeth’s work, however over time Elizabeth found the serial form constraining and struggled to meet deadlines which frustrated Dickens and their relationship became fractious. North and South was the final novel she wrote for Dickens, and instead she began writing for the Cornhill Magazine, founded by George Murray Smith and edited by William Makepeace Thackeray.
At the other end of the room the dining table is laid for a family lunch with the two main courses of soup and roast meat presented on the table at the same time. Serving all the courses of a meal together was known as ‘à la française’. By the 1860s this was beginning to be old-fashioned as a new style of dining ‘a la russe’ was introduced, which involved serving each course separately, which is what we are familiar with today.
Green and red were popular colours for furnishing a dining room, and we know that the Gaskells’ Dining Room had green walls in the 1850s. The walls were painted rather than papered because wallpaper retained the smell of food and could not be washed. For the same reason, the seats of dining chairs were covered with either leather or, as here, with fabric made of horsehair.
The Hall
The Inner Hall and Staircase have been restored to how they were in the 1890s, after both William and Elizabeth had died and when their daughters Meta and Julia were living here.
During their lifetime the House became famous for their dinner parties and ‘at homes’ to which both friends and visitors to Manchester were invited.
The Manchester Guardian described the House as ‘a place of light and warmth for the hearts and minds’ of their guests. The sisters’ drawing room was ‘the nearest possible approach to an absolute centre of the social life of educated Manchester, and it is scarcely possible to imagine any other house holding so unique a place in that life again’.
The two portraits of Meta and Julia on the staircase demonstrate the stature of ‘the Misses Gaskell’, as they became known, in Manchester. The portraits are part of a set of 12 lithographs of prominent figures in Manchester by William Rothenstein, commissioned by Charles Rowley, a prominent art dealer, socialist and councillor.
Like their parents, Meta and Julia were passionate about improving conditions for all those living and working in Manchester. By becoming founding subscribers of the Manchester College of Music (later the Royal Northern College of Music) and donating generously to the Whitworth Art Gallery and the Hallé Concerts Society, they enabled more people to enjoy the arts.
The walls of the Hall are covered in a product called Lincrusta. Invented in 1877, Lincrusta is an embossed, decorative wall covering, made from linseed oil putty and wood flour paste, which can be both painted and washed. It is also extremely hardwearing and quickly became a popular choice for decorating areas of heavy ‘traffic’ such as hallways. The Lincrusta is still in place today: evidence both of Meta and Julia’s taste, and of the durability of the product.
The ‘Della Robbia’ style altarpiece above the door to the Drawing Room, although purchased by the sisters in Venice, was not intended for the House and was gifted to the newly opened Whitworth Art Gallery. Despite paying ‘a large sum’, the altarpiece turned out to be a copy, rather than an original, and was given to the House in 2018.
Charlotte & Elizabeth –A Friendship
Elizabeth Gaskell met Charlotte Brontë on 20 August 1850 in the Lake District, introduced by Sir James and Lady Kay-Shuttleworth.
Charlotte stayed with Elizabeth in Manchester, sleeping in this room for two days in June 1851 and for a week in April 1853. She described Elizabeth as ‘kind, clever, animated and unaffected’, liked William and adored their youngest daughter, Julia. Her last visit to Manchester was in May 1854, a month before her marriage to Arthur Bell Nicholls.
Nicholls disapproved of the Gaskells’ Unitarian faith, but he did accept that Elizabeth was ideally placed to write Charlotte’s biography after her death. This ground-breaking book is still viewed as a valuable Brontë resource. A copy of The Life of Charlotte Brontë can be seen in the lower drawer of the dressing-table.
The Brontë Room
The Brontë Room was originally the Gaskells’ guest room. Elizabeth writes in a letter to her friend, Eliza ‘Tottie’ Fox in April 1850; ‘Your room will be over the drawing-room, our’s over the dining-room – the girls over their schoolroom, Nursery over Hearn’s bedroom’, which gives us a good indication of where the household slept.
As this was the main guest room, Charlotte Brontë, the Gaskells’ most well-known visitor, would have slept in here, and the exhibition area you see today was opened in 2022 with funding from an AIM Biffa Award History Makers grant, as part of the Landfill Communities Fund.
The exhibition introduces visitors to some of the influential female contemporaries of the Gaskells. They either lived locally, visited the House, or corresponded with Elizabeth and her daughters, and include Harriet Beecher Stowe, Florence Nightingale, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and Suffragette Christabel Pankhurst. Information on these women can be found in the photo album and within the drawers on the dressing-table.
During the Manchester Art Treasures Exhibition in 1857, the Gaskell family hosted visits from many friends and relations. The exhibition ran for five months and is still recognised as the largest art exhibition ever held. Elizabeth wrote to her friend Eliza Fox
‘We have two rooms and 19 people coming to occupy them before the exhibition closes, most of them relations – as soon as they will fix when each set goes….We are so worn out with hospitality …. Oh I am so tired of it. The exhibition I mean, I should like it dearly if I weren’t a hostess.’
Elizabeth’s Bedroom
The last room on your tour of the House is Elizabeth’s Bedroom which was opened in 2021. Elizabeth’s original bedroom was larger than it is today as the corridor was added during the original refurbishment.
We can speculate that Elizabeth chose this room for her bedroom, rather than one of the larger corner bedrooms with two windows, because of the ease of access to Ann Hearn’s (the Housekeeper) room beyond the dressing room. It is also a sunnier south-facing room so would have been warmer.
With a much smaller budget than the original House restoration, it was funded by donations and sponsorship of objects. Like the rest of the House, the team of staff and volunteers used reference documents from the original House restoration, advice from curators and research to furnish the room.
During the restoration, the team found the outline of the old doorway (now behind the wardrobe) which led to a dressing room and Hearn’s room. From fragments of wallpaper found on the first floor, a cornflower design wallpaper was chosen for this room, reproduced from the English Heritage archive.
The chamber pot and washing set would still have been used in the bedroom during Elizabeth’s time, as there was no gas lighting upstairs, and it was quite a walk down to the bathroom area. The ‘oilcloth’ under the washstand was created by two volunteers to replicate a typical Victorian oilcloth, used as a water repellent floor cover before linoleum was developed in the 1860s.
The Madonna della Sedia was originally painted by Raphael in 151314 and was the most copied painting of the 18th and 19th centuries. Elizabeth refers to this image both in Cranford and in a letter to say she was hanging a copy in Marianne’s bedroom. This engraving is c1860 and has been donated to the House by Frank Galvin.
Elizabeth and William Gaskell were married on 30 August 1832 at St John’s Parish Church, Knutsford. Knutsford had been Elizabeth’s much-loved childhood home and was later immortalized in her stories of Cranford. The wedding veil (pictured) was inherited by Marianne Gaskell, Elizabeth’s eldest daughter. It is made from Brussels lace and would have been worn under a bonnet.
In July 2016, while working on the old Coach House, workmen discovered a letter wedged between the brickwork and roof trusses. Sent from Maryport, Cumberland, in June 1853, it was to William (Will) Preston, one of the Gaskells’ servants. Elizabeth Gaskell noted in a letter that Will slept in the attic space above the stables. He came to Plymouth Grove in mid-1852 from Cumbria to work as an outdoorsman.
The Coach House area of the building is now used as meeting rooms.
The Basement
This area of the House was where the work of cooking, washing, ironing, polishing and mending took place. The basement rooms were plain with stone floors (some of the original flagstones are still in place) and walls decorated with less expensive paint.
What is now the Tea Room was the kitchen, where meals were cooked and water was heated over a coal-fired range. The walls were whitewashed each year to remove the grime of cooking and make the room lighter. At the rear of the kitchen (now the back wall of the Tea Room), a flue carried heat up into a greenhouse overhead.
Next to the kitchen was the Servants’ Hall, where the servants had their meals once the family had finished theirs. It was also a space where they could sit, talk, read and sew once all the meal things were cleared away.
The precise layout of other rooms in the basement is not known. But there were certainly larders, storerooms for both wine and coal, and cupboards for fresh food, preserves and equipment.
The Gaskells employed five indoor female servants at Plymouth Grove: ‘…. cook, housemaid, waiter, nurse and sempstress.’ There was also an out-of-doors-man, or gardener.
The ‘nurse’ was Ann Hearn, who worked for the Gaskells for 50 years. Hearn not only looked after the girls, but was also Elizabeth’s lady’s maid. Elizabeth called her ‘… a dear good valuable friend.’ In fact, Hearn was essential to the smooth running of the entire household. When she was away, Elizabeth reported that the house was ‘bustle and confusion.’
The Garden
The garden was immensely important to Elizabeth and her family, and was where she could grow both flowers, and vegetables for the kitchen. The private rear garden was also a place where she could truly relax ‘without a bonnet’ away from public scrutiny.
Maps and written sources of the time suggest that, when the Gaskells moved into Plymouth Grove in 1850, it was a typical villa garden of the period. The size of her garden, somewhat bigger than today, gave Elizabeth great pleasure and she immediately made plans for planting.
In addition to the large garden, there was also a greenhouse attached to the House next to the Drawing Room (outlined by stones). This was heated from the kitchen in the basement.
Over the following years, Elizabeth wrote to her friends and family with news of the successes and failures familiar to any gardener. The ‘common flowers’ that she planted included pinks, carnations, campions, Canterbury bells, ‘thunderbergias’ and gladioli. Home-grown vegetables included cress, radishes, lettuces and cauliflowers.
As well as growing vegetables, the Gaskells had fresh eggs from their poultry, and a year after moving in, the Gaskells rented a neighbouring field, where they kept a cow to supply their own milk and butter.
An outdoor servant was responsible for managing and milking the cow, but Elizabeth was typically enthusiastic about the scheme, writing that ‘I find my proper vocation is farming.’
Today the garden has been planted to reflect the sort of garden the Gaskells enjoyed. The choice of plants has been informed by references in Elizabeth’s letters and novels, as well as by Victorian garden history. Wherever possible, varieties of plants have been selected that were available during the time Elizabeth and, later, her daughters lived at the House.
Charlotte Brontë described Elizabeth’s home in a letter to George Smith in 1851; ‘…a whispering of leaves and a perfume of flowers always pervaded the rooms.’ This quote is commemorated in the garden.
History and Restoration
Following Meta Gaskell’s death in 1913, there was an unsuccessful campaign to preserve the House and its contents as a memorial to Elizabeth Gaskell. Instead, the contents were dispersed in a six-day sale, and the House itself was sold to Charles William Harper, a manufacturing chemist. In 1968 the House was purchased by Manchester University to provide accommodation for the International Society. In 1998 Manchester Historic Buildings Trust was established with the main aim of saving this Grade II* listed building. After a long campaign, led by Janet Allan MBE, the Trust acquired the freehold in 2004. Their first priority was to make the House safe, by repairing the exterior and replacing the roof. In 2012 the Trust was given a substantial National Lottery Heritage Fund grant. This, with other generous donations, enabled the Trust to complete the restoration.
Queen Victoria visits Manchester
Charlotte Brontë’s first visit to Plymouth Grove
Elizabeth sends Dickens the first Cranford story for publication
Charles Dickens and his wife visit Plymouth Grove and he invites Elizabeth to the formal opening of the Manchester Free Library
Cotton production peaks in Manchester
Ruth and Cranford published in book form
1850 1851 1852 1853
Gaskell family move to Plymouth Grove.
Elizabeth meets Charlotte Brontë at Sir James Kay-Shuttleworth’s house in the Lake District
Elizabeth’s Lizzie Leigh is her first story to be published in Dickens’ Household Words
Charlotte Brontë’s second visit to Plymouth Grove and Elizabeth visits Charlotte at Haworth
Charlotte Brontë dies
North and South published in book form
Dickens publishes Hard Times.
Charlotte Brontë marries
Arthur Nicholls
1854
Elizabeth and Meta visit Paris
The Manchester Art Treasures
Exhibition is opened by Prince Albert
Elizabeth publishes 3 editions of The Life of Charlotte Brontë
1855 1856 1857
William Gaskell becomes Senior Minister at Cross St Chapel
Charlotte Brontë’s third visit to Plymouth Grove
Unitarian College in Manchester, founded by William Gaskell and John Relly Beard
Elizabeth visits Brussels to research Charlotte Brontë’s life
Elizabeth travels to Paris and Rome with two of her daughters and meets Charles Eliot Norton
Emmeline Pankhurst born in Moss Side, Manchester
My Lady Ludlow published
Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species published
American Civil War 1861 - 1865
Elizabeth and Meta engage in welfare committees and alternative work for mill workers impacted by the loss of American cotton
1858 1859 1861 1862
Elizabeth visits Heidelberg, Germany with Meta and Florence
John Ruskin visits Plymouth Grove
William co-founds and edits the Unitarian Herald
Elizabeth and Meta visit Paris, Normandy and Brittany
The main Victorian rooms have been restored to how they would have looked in around 1857. Elizabeth’s letters and our own research have enabled us to present the rooms as we think they were. The fireplaces, sourced locally, date from around 1840, when the House and the light fittings have all been converted from gas to electricity. Research identified the original paint colours and the styles of the wallpapers.
Original items belonging to the family on display include Elizabeth’s wedding veil, Paisley shawls, several paintings and books. Many are on loan from her descendants.
We are indebted to all those, past and present, who have been involved in saving and restoring Elizabeth Gaskell’s House.
Elizabeth’s daughter Florence marries Charles Crompton
The novella Cousin Phillis published in book form.
Wives and Daughters serialisation begins in The Cornhill
Elizabeth buys the house ‘The Lawn’ in Hampshire where she dies in Nov 1865
Manchester Weekly Times and Examiner describes Elizabeth as ‘one of the greatest female novelists of all time’
1863 1864 1865 1866
Sylvia’s Lovers published. Cousin Phillis is serialised in The Cornhill
Elizabeth and Meta visit Switzerland
Marianne is engaged to her cousin Thurstan Holland
Short story collection
The Grey Woman and Other Tales published
Wives and Daughters published posthumously
Marianne and Thurstan Holland marry
The Future
The House continues to be run by the independent charity and receives no government funding, relying on income from admissions, events, weddings, room hires and Tea Room sales, as well as donations, to keep the House open to the public.
By visiting the House and buying this guidebook, you have contributed towards preserving a vital part of Manchester’s Literary Heritage, but you can also support the House further by making a donation, or joining our Friends Scheme.
As a donor or Friend, you will be supporting the maintenance, restoration, and public activity of the House to make sure as many people as possible can experience Elizabeth Gaskell’s extraordinary legacy.
For more information go to elizabethgaskellhouse.co.uk/support-us
Annie Swynnerton portrait celebrates William as Chairman of The Portico Library for 30 years
1878
1879
William is lauded for 50 years service to the Cross St Chapel by 1000 guests at a fundraising soirée at Manchester Town Hall
1884
William Gaskell dies in Manchester
Meta and Julia buy the della Robbia altarpiece in Venice, believing it to be genuine
1898
Meta Gaskell dies
First World War 1914 - 1918
Lillian Harper sells 84 Plymouth Grove to Manchester University as a centre for the University’s International Society
1914 1969 1908 1913
Julia Gaskell dies
84 Plymouth Grove sold to industrialist Charles Harper as a family home for his wife and four children. Contents sold at auction
Manchester Historic Buildings Trust formed with the aim of saving 84 Plymouth Grove
BBC adaptation of North & South broadcast. Voted ‘Best Drama’ in the BBC annual poll for 2004
1974 1998 2004
Commemorative plaque installed on the House
Manchester University sells 84 Plymouth Grove to Manchester Historic Buildings Trust for £1
Memorial window in memory of Elizabeth Gaskell dedicated in Westminster Abbey
2010
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Elizabeth Gaskell’s House opens to the public on 5 October Manchester becomes a UNESCO City of Literature
Work starts on the restoration of 84 Plymouth Grove with support from the Heritage Lottery Fund and other donors
Elizabeth’s Bedroom opens to visitors
Elizabeth Gaskell’s House 84 Plymouth Grove, Manchester, M13 9LW elizabethgaskellhouse.co.uk
Elizabeth Gaskell’s House is owned and operated by Manchester Historic Buildings Trust Registered Charity Number: 1080606.
2024.
Design by KL Studio. Photography by Andrew Brooks, Michael D Beckwith, Christopher John and Chris Tucker. Copyright © Elizabeth Gaskell’s House