Chepstow House and Sam Mendel

Chepstow House sits at the corner of Chepstow Street and Great Bridgewater Street in Manchester. It overlooks the famous Peveril of the Peak pub on one side, and the start of what was once the Manchester and Salford Junction canal on the other. The building is not of a regular shape, because the available land would not allow it, but this does does nothing to detract from its graceful beauty. Before it was built, the land was occupied by coal wharfs, so this must have been no small improvement. This was a very industrialised area at one time with large engineering works.

Buildings were often designed to make a statement about a company. In the Victorian era business was largely conducted face to face, so first impressions were important. In this case though,  I cannot help but think that Chepstow House was intended to be a statement about a man. Sam Mendel, the owner of Chepstow House, was immensely wealthy. He lived in a grand mansion in Whalley Range called Manley Hall. There were miles of footpaths on his 80 acre estate and his passion for gardening - particularly orchids - could be seen everywhere. There was a lake, a fountain, and even a deer park. It seems fair to say that, like Manley Hall, Chepstow House was a reflection of the man, rather than the business.

When I mention Sam Mendel I always find myself wanting to correct two persistent falsehoods about him that are repeated over and over. Firstly, he is usually portrayed as a business wizard. I have never seen him that way. He was clever, but I believe that he was mostly an ordinary man who was in the right place at the right time. Basically, he was more lucky than gifted.

The second myth is that Sam became a bankrupt when his business collapsed. This simply isn't true. Several years after the sale of the Manley Hall estate he actually bought it all back, but at that point he was more intent upon capitalising on the available building land than saving anything. Many attempts had  been made to save the estate for the public, but they had all came to nothing. Sam was obviously in no mood to see the circus continue.

After the sale of the Manley Hall estate Sam lived out his life in reduced circumstances, but not poverty. However, there was a sting in the tale that was of his own making. Sam had filled Manley Hall with works of art. After the sale of his collection he continued to dabble in the art world, but he was not successful. The result was that Mendel was at the point of being made bankrupt by his art dealer when the Grim Reaper stepped in and saved the old gentleman from that indignity. Now back to the warehouse.

The other day I chanced across an article in a copy of 'The Builder' that included a map of the first floor of Chepstow House, the floor where Sam had his offices and private bathroom. It is the nearest that we are going to get to seeing inside the building as it was because it has now been converted into flats. A while back I emailed the company that carried out the conversion and asked whether they retained any photographs of the building prior to the work. Apparently they only retain records for ten years and then they are destroyed. Surely to God they could have been donated to the Central Library, but then we all know the saying about spilt milk.

Sam Mendel was a shipping agent and played no part in the manufacture of the goods that he sent around the world. It was his job to move material as quickly and cheaply as possible in bales. The basement of Chepstow House contained steam presses that folded and compressed the finished material. These bales were taken to Liverpool, presumably by barge, and then transferred to ships.

Chepstow House was completed in 1874. Sam had previously run his business from other warehouses in the city, but it must have given him especial pride to enter this new domain on its first day of operation. Or had worry lines already appeared on his brow? The Suez Canal had opened in 1869, thus losing Sam his commercial advantage, and it was only 12 months after Chepstow House opened that he was selling his art collection and putting what personal possessions he could from Manley Hall into storage - all destroyed in a fire soon after - and handing the rest over to Christies for sale. Even without bankruptcy, it was a massive fall from grace for the gentleman. He died 9 years later.

Incidentally, if you fancy living in Chepstow House, in January 2025 there is a 2 bedroom apartment for sale. Be prepared to part with £325k for the privilege.

The above drawing is from a catalogue dated 1862 and entitled simply, Manley Hall. Within it is a list of paintings and drawings. The problem is that there was more than one Manley Hall, so is this Sam Mendel's residence that we are looking at? why were the contents of the hall being catalogued in this was so early? Well, within the pages, someone has scribbled 'W. Cunliffe Brooks', a name very much associated with Whalley Range, so I think we can safely assume that this is indeed Manley Hall in Whalley Range.

Photographs of the interior Manley Hall are just as illusive as those of the interior of Chepstow House. This is sad and also somewhat inexplicable. The hall lasted well into the age of photography, with the footprint of the hall still being visible on maps until the 1930s. My mother wrote down the account of an elderly Whalley Range resident who remembered going to dances at the hall during the early 1900s. She recalled that all the festivities had to be over by sundown, as there was no lighting in the hall by this time! However, it was there and available to anyone with a camera in daylight, so what a shame that no images have been passed down to us.

In a copy of the Graphic newspaper, dated July 17th, 1880, there are a number of illustrations of the interior and exterior of the hall. Once again they are drawings rather than photographs. However, they do manage to display something of the grandeur of the hall. As can be seen, every available space on the walls were taken up with works of art.

This wonderful illustration shows the outside of Manley Hall and some of the grounds. Once again, the scene is set in 1880, so Sam Mendel is no longer in residence, and attempts are being made to save the house and estate for the public as a new park and art gallery. In front the foreground is an ornamental lake, and beyond that a decorative fountain. In the background is the hall itself, with the greenhouses to the left.

It is interesting to consider where the artist was standing when drawing the view. I think that he was here, where the red dot is on the map. As for where that spot is today, if you live at 73 College Drive, I believe that the artist was standing in what is now your back garden, looking north.

The land to the west on the map is already marked out for development on the map.. In fact that is actually the only part of the estate that has NOT been built upon. How this came about, I do not know, but it goes to show how close we were to the complete eradication of the Manley Hall estate. Whalley Range was never quite the real estate success that that people think it was. Large pieces of land remained undeveloped until well into the 20th century.

Another unfortunate fact about the Manley Hall estate is that there is no OS map that shows the estate at it's peak. There are maps that show Whalley Range before the hall, and then there is the above map that shows the estate in its death throws. Little else exists.