Manchester, United Kingdom

Great John Street

Rates from (ex tax)$117.00

Price information

If you haven’t entered any dates, the rate shown is provided directly by the hotel and represents the cheapest double room (including tax) available in the next 21 days.

Prices have been converted from the hotel’s local currency (GBP108.00), via openexchangerates.org, using today’s exchange rate.

Great John Street Photos

Style

Cosy old-school conversion

Setting

Cultured corner of Castlefield

School’s in: boutique hotel Great John Street is a charming Victorian conversion, just a free kick from central Manchester’s liveliest areas. The year-round hot tub and Alpine-style hangouts on the rooftop ‘playground’ are as cheekily fun as playing hooky, and views of beloved soap opera Coronation Street’s set add local character. Split-level rooms and suites – theatrically costumed in flowing drapes, cast-iron fireplaces and a hand-carved sleigh bed or two – are some of the city’s most restful, too.

Smith Extra

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A Temple Spa gift box

Facilities

Photos Great John Street facilities

Need to know

Rooms

30, including six suites.

Check–Out

11am, but flexible, subject to availability. Earliest check-in, 3pm. Guests can stash their luggage while exploring the city.

Rates

Double rooms from $117.00 (£90), excluding tax at 20 per cent.

Price information

If you haven’t entered any dates, the rate shown is provided directly by the hotel and represents the cheapest double room (including tax) available in the next 21 days.

Prices have been converted from the hotel’s local currency (GBP108.00), via openexchangerates.org, using today’s exchange rate.

More details

Rates don’t include breakfast: a Continental buffet breakfast (£16 for adults, £8 for children) with fruit, cereals, pastries and breads, porridge, eggs and juice, and warm à la carte dishes from £18.

Also

The library lounge’s vintage style has a dash of Ralph Lauren with a British sensibility. Squishy sofas are piled with Union Flag pillows, and a gramophone and vintage books add a dash of nostalgia. In winter, a wood-burning stove makes it extra cosy. Take a peek at the bookshelf in your room, too; its contents have been scavenged from charity shops and flea markets, and a few first editions have popped up from time to time.

At the hotel

Roof terrace with a hot tub and bar (a private event space, only available to guests when there is no event taking place), lounge, free WiFi throughout. In rooms: flatscreen Samsung TVs with Sky channels, iPod dock, coffee machine, kettle and a selection of teas, minibar and Temple Spa bath products.

Our favourite rooms

Room 19, an Opus Grand, is a stage set for high romance, with cascading ruby curtains and a hand-carved super-king Italian sleigh bed. The upper floor is equally decadent, with his-and-hers bath tubs and a steam shower. The Baby Grands are far from am-dram: heavy floor-to-ceiling drapes, a freestanding bath tub on the mezzanine and an elegant tear-drop chandelier make for a very polished production.

Poolside

No pool, but the rooftop hot tub is open year round (7am–10pm). Gaze out at the Beetham’s Tower and Manchester’s higgledly-piggledly spires and high rises, and summon cocktails from the petite bar a few steps away.

Packing tips

The former school lives on in framed photographs in the mezzanine lounge; follow suit by packing your essentials in a worn satchel.

Also

There’s a lift to all floors and the lounges and bars are wheelchair-accessible. Room 11 is particularly roomy and the most easily navigated. The hotel is available for booking on an exclusive basis.

Children

It may be a former school, but this hotel’s tricked-out bar and roof terrace aren’t for kids.

Food and Drink

Photos Great John Street food and drink

Top Table

In summer, the roof terrace’s wicker perches are wonderfully laid back; we like the secret indoor nook leading off inside. In winter, get cosy by the library’s log burner.

Dress Code

Let your sleek WAG fly.

Hotel restaurant

There’s no restaurant, but light dishes (salads, pastas, burgers and the like) and afternoon teas are served in the library or the Oyster Bar. Choose a dainty assemblage of sandwiches and pastries, served on mismatched chintzy china (with or without a flute of champagne), or the meatier Gents Tea – mini burgers and Scotch eggs washed down with a Jack Daniels-laced cocktail.

Hotel bar

The Oyster Bar’s distinctive style – inviting chartreuse- and latte-hued sofas, boldly patterned cushions, tea chests, flowers – is matched by its cocktail picks. The rooftop lounge is a playground by nickname and nature, with a hot tub, barbecue area and dinky rainbow-hued huts. With panoramic views of Beetham Tower and the Coronation Street set, it’s a curious mix of Med hangout and Manc pride.

Last orders

Afternoon tea is served from 12 noon to 4pm.

Room service

Dishes from the bar menu are available till 10pm.

Location

Photos Great John Street location
Address
Great John Street
Great John Street
Manchester
M3 4FD
Manchester
United Kingdom

Planes

International hub Manchester Airport is the closest, a 30-minute drive away. If flying from the US, you’ll connect via Istanbul, Dublin, Iceland or London Heathrow (British Airways runs a frequent direct service), and flights from Asia stopover in central Europe or the UAE. The hotel can arrange a taxi on request (roughly a 10-minute ride).

Trains

Manchester is well served by four main train stations: Deansgate is the closest, a five-minute walk away, and Manchester Piccadilly, Oxford Road and Victoria are all within 15 minutes’ drive. Trains from London Euston arrive at Manchester Piccadilly in around two hours and Northern Rail runs frequent services from regional destinations such as Liverpool, Leeds and York.

Automobiles

The joy of Manchester is an easy peasy A-to-B. The hotel’s central location makes hiring a car redundant; however, if you want to explore the green stretches of the Peak District or further reaches of Greater Manchester you can acquire some wheels at the Avis booth in Manchester Piccadilly and store them in the Q-Park a five-minute walk from the hotel.

Worth getting out of bed for

There’s a (Betty’s) hotpot of Mancunian history co-existing in the hotel’s neighbourhood: canal-threaded Castlefield. A reconstructed Roman fort, Victorian red bricks, the steel-and-glass Beetham Tower, ornate 19th-century railway viaducts and the winged Whitby and Bird Merchants' Bridge showcase the city from conception to regeneration. The Granada Studios backlot, home to the hallowed Corrie set, is on nearby Atherton Street for the foreseeable future, and St John’s Gardens is a pretty green spot. The Museum of Science and Industry is just next door to the hotel on Liverpool Road, where tech advances are exhibited with informative showmanship, drawing in elements of art, gaming and design. Go to the opera or ballet at Manchester’s Opera House on Quay Street, or explore LS Lowry's life, work and matchstick men at The Lowry – an award-winning concrete-and-steel building on the striking Salford Quays waterfront. Or watch Manchester United at Old Trafford; you can get hold of tickets on the website, and Stretford is easily reached on the tram’s A line. Get your shopping, socialising and fine-dining fix in one in the Spinningfields development five minutes from the hotel. Armani and Mulberry branches rub elegantly dressed shoulders with wordly eatery chains (Argentinian Fazenda, Middle Eastern Comptoir Libanais, mod-Chinese Tattu and hip tapas joint Ibérica) and super-cool bars where both molecular cocktails (the Alchemist) and craft beers (the Oast House and the Dockyard) flow freely.

Local restaurants

Restaurant Bar & Grill on John Dalton Street is popular among the Manchester chic set. San Carlo Italian restaurant, King Street West, has an impressive daily chalkboard menu, open kitchen and bustling atmosphere. Fish is a speciality here. Catalan cuisine is well represented at tapas joint Lunya, with tempting small plates: pomegranate-and-mint-sprinkled slow-cooked lamb, chargrilled octopus in smoked paprika and cumin-infused black pudding with piquillo peppers. Cold picks from the on-site deli are plentiful too. Order the tapas banquets if you have a hard time choosing. Just north of Spinningfiels, on Bridge Street, is Manchester House, where maestro Aiden Byrne has dreamt up a menu by turns tempting and bonkers: langoustines are sprinkled with obscure Mediterranean herbs, steamed pigeon bathes in a cherry broth and chocolate panna cotta is paired with cauliflower ice-cream.

Local cafés

Federal Café and Bar is run by Aussie and New Zealand transplants in the Northern Quarter, with charming lemon yellow seats and scuffed-wood tables. The brew is strong and the brunch and lunch menus are excellent (tropical granola sundae, a chorizo sandwich with Manchego and caramelised onions and a citrus avocado bagel).

Local bars

The Living Room, a sophisticated bar on Deansgate, is a very popular spot. Nab one of the tufted waltzers lined along the walls, and get stuck into the exceptional cocktail menu's globally diverse drinks. Panacea, on John Dalton Street, serves cocktails and delicious small plates. Decor is a mod-baroque extravagance of neon-orange mosaics and platinum and gold detailing, and its cocktail club has coolly kooky drinks. Despite its ironic name The Deaf Institute – housed in a gorgeous Grade-II-listed building – is a great place to catch indie up-and-comers, such as the Duke Spirit and Besnard Lakes. Its Bar and Kitchen is pleasingly slapdash too. The Manchester Academy on Oxford Road draws bright and bold acts from different disciplines and eras. Local big hitters the Happy Mondays and Stone Roses have trod the boards here, but there are plenty of newcomers to discover too.

Reviews

Photos Great John Street reviews

Anonymous review

Every hotel featured is visited personally by members of our team, given the Smith seal of approval, and then anonymously reviewed. As soon as our reviewers have returned from this intimate boutique hotel in the Castlefield district and unpacked their retro togs from the Northern Quarter and armloads of labels from Harvey Nichols and Flannels, a full account of their laid-back city break will be with you. In the meantime, take note while we school you about Great John Street…

The cheers of enthused United fans, a pulsing club beat or stage-storming band: Manchester’s a joyously outspoken city. However, Great John Street hotel – a former schoolhouse with a handsome, red brick Victorian façade – turns the volume down a bit in its intimate, inviting rooms. Super-soft beds inspire trial belly-flops, original radiators trigger nostalgic flashbacks, and you’ll soon feel at home amid hand-picked books and tchotchkes, another example of the city’s ‘come in and have a cuppa’ demeanor. You needn’t wait for the bell to frolic on the ‘playground’ roof terrace, and lounges are an extension of your room, where you can wander and slouch on the sofas with abandon. The only thing you need study is the cocktail list and afternoon tea menu (and thankfully there will absolutely not be a test afterwards).

The Guestbook

Whenever you book a stay at a Smith Hotel with us, we’ll invite you to review it when you get back. Read what other Smith members had to say in Great John Street’s Guestbook below.

We loved

The size of the rooms, the friendly staff, the central location.

Don’t expect

A credit card hold to remain on my card several days after departure and payment that is preventing me booking flights (the cost of which has already risen by 300). Still waiting for the hold to be removed and for the hotel to call me back and let me know what's going on.

Rating

Stayed on 4 Jul 2017

We loved

The room and the staff. We took a baby and staff were very helpful with him. Provided a cot and helped us to the car.

Don’t expect

A restaurant as they only served food in the bar or the room. But actually the room service food was ace.

Rating

Stayed on 19 Apr 2017

We loved

Quirky split level room. Great rooftop bar and terrace.

Don’t expect

Noise from party in the ground floor restaurant kept me awake on the 2nd floor.

Rating

Stayed on 19 Dec 2016

We loved

The ambience; lovely rooms; helpful staff; delicious breakfast! Excellent coffee at Federal Cafe. Good food at The Northern Quarter Restaurant and Bar.

Don’t expect

...to not to enjoy your stay.

Rating

Stayed on 17 Sep 2016

We loved

The dual baths and double height ceilings. Recommend visiting The John Rylands library

Don’t expect

Ultra cleanliness - it's still an older building and housekeeping could have been sharper.

Rating

Stayed on 13 Jul 2016

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