Victoria Square

Victoria Square features a distinct, curved red brick facade that wraps around the corner of the block like a fortress. Built in eighteen ninety-three, it provided the first municipal housing in Manchester. The city council constructed it to replace the squalid cellar dwellings common in the Industrial Revolution. Thomas Horsfall, a philanthropist who campaigned for better living conditions for workers, pushed the city to prove that quality housing could be both affordable and profitable. Tenants once shared a communal rooftop drying area.