Geograph - photograph every grid square

This red-brick and terracotta Grade listed building (English Heritage ID: 471509 Link ) with Welsh slate, roof stands on Bloom Street, not far from Salford Central Station. It was originally Salford Corporation’s Model Lodging House, a former men's hostel providing cheap accommodation for single men.

During Victorian times there was a much concern about the conditions that working people found themselves living in, especially transient and single people forced to live in privately owned lodgings that were to say the least unhealthy; often in cramped, dark, ill-ventilated and unsanitary rooms. Around the country benevolent organizations and councils began building "model lodging houses" to provide accommodation for single men and in some cases single women.

When this Model Lodging House opened in 1893, it was the first of its kind in the country. It offered accommodation for 285 men and some lodgers were said to have lived there for over twenty years. It has now been converted into luxury apartments. It is said that when the developers first bought the building, they discovered the doors would not lock. They realised that this was because they had never been locked before, as the lodging house was always open to everyone 24 hours a day.

Link Manchester History Net
Link Chapel Street Heritage Trail