Elizabeth Gaskell’s House
Home to Mrs Gaskell, an English novelist, biographer and short story writer.
84 Plymouth Grove, Manchester, M13 9LW
Elizabeth Gaskell’s House welcomes visitors with physical, sensory and learning disabilities. The team will do all they can to ensure that your visit is both comfortable and enjoyable.
If you have questions regarding your visit or would like more specific information please email [email protected]
Elizabeth Gaskell’s House and Garden has step-free access throughout with full access for wheelchair users. There is a lift to all floors and access ramp at the side of the House to avoid the front stepped entrance.
Wheelchairs, mobility scooters and other walking aids can be used within the building and in the Garden
Accessible toilets on the lower ground and first floor. If you require a Changing Places toilet during your visit, the nearest one to us is in Manchester Museum, which is 0.57 miles away from Elizabeth Gaskell’s House. (Their address is Manchester Museum, Oxford Road, Manchester, M13 9PL.)
There are two bookable accessible parking spaces available on-site for Blue Badge holders. Please phone 0161 273 2215 or email [email protected] to book a space. If you do not book we cannot guarantee there will be a space available during your visit.
Registered careers may visit free of charge with a paying visitor
Only trained assistance dogs, including guide dogs, are permitted inside the House, including in the Tea Room. Emotional support animals including dogs are not permitted inside the House.(Drinking water for assistant dogs isn’t supplied as standard so please ask if any is required)
Braille copy of the House guide book is available on request at the welcome desk and we can also provide large print copies of most of the reading material – please ask on arrival. Recommended quiet times to visit are Wednesday and Thursday afternoons, outside of school holidays
The majority of the collection and furnishings in the House can be touched and chairs sat on – our volunteers will advise.
Volunteers provide verbal interpretation in most of the rooms. Please let them know if you need any special accommodations (e.g. if you would like them to speak louder/quieter, more slowly or if you would like them to describe objects visually.)
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.
Elizabeth Gaskell’s House welcomes visitors with physical, sensory and learning disabilities. The team will do all they can to ensure that your visit is both comfortable and enjoyable.
If you have questions regarding your visit or would like more specific information please email [email protected]
Elizabeth Gaskell’s House and Garden has step-free access throughout with full access for wheelchair users. There is a lift to all floors and access ramp at the side of the House to avoid the front stepped entrance.
Wheelchairs, mobility scooters and other walking aids can be used within the building and in the Garden
Accessible toilets on the lower ground and first floor. If you require a Changing Places toilet during your visit, the nearest one to us is in Manchester Museum, which is 0.57 miles away from Elizabeth Gaskell’s House. (Their address is Manchester Museum, Oxford Road, Manchester, M13 9PL.)
There are two bookable accessible parking spaces available on-site for Blue Badge holders. Please phone 0161 273 2215 or email [email protected] to book a space. If you do not book we cannot guarantee there will be a space available during your visit.
Registered careers may visit free of charge with a paying visitor
Only trained assistance dogs, including guide dogs, are permitted inside the House, including in the Tea Room. Emotional support animals including dogs are not permitted inside the House.(Drinking water for assistant dogs isn’t supplied as standard so please ask if any is required)
Braille copy of the House guide book is available on request at the welcome desk and we can also provide large print copies of most of the reading material – please ask on arrival. Recommended quiet times to visit are Wednesday and Thursday afternoons, outside of school holidays
The majority of the collection and furnishings in the House can be touched and chairs sat on – our volunteers will advise.
Volunteers provide verbal interpretation in most of the rooms. Please let them know if you need any special accommodations (e.g. if you would like them to speak louder/quieter, more slowly or if you would like them to describe objects visually.)