Motel One, 34 London Road, Piccadilly, Manchester. Archaeological Building investigation.

Olympian Homes has obtained planning consent to erect a multi-storey, 330 bedroom hotel on an L-shaped plot at the junction of London Road with Whitworth Street in the Piccadilly area of Manchester (Application Ref: 099250/FO/2012/C2). The development will necessitate the demolition of four existing buildings. These include an L-shaped block that fronts onto London Road and Whitworth Street, which was
built in c 1876 as offices for the Manchester, Sheffield & Lincolnshire Railway Company; it was used most recently as a budget hotel. A multi-storey block that occupies the north-western part of the site is an earlier structure, dating to the early nineteenth century, and seemingly represents a survivor from Piccadilly’s former focus as an area of cotton mills. The other buildings to be demolished are Nos 4 and 6
Whitworth Street, which both comprise three-storey warehouses blocks that date to the second half of the nineteenth century.
In order to secure archaeological interests, Manchester City Council recommended that a programme of archaeological investigation was carried out in advance of development, and attached two archaeological conditions to planning consent. One of these (Condition 22) required a full photographic record of the buildings to be compiled prior to the commencement of any demolition.