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Manchester, United Kingdom

Great John Street

Price per night from$157.08

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 60 days.

Prices have been converted from the hotel’s local currency (GBP112.50), via openexchangerates.org, using today’s exchange rate.

Great John Street Photos

Style

Cosy old-school conversion

Setting

Cultured corner of Castlefield

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Pay attention, class – Great John Street hotel should be the textbook example of a boutique conversion. Keeping the charming red-brick shell of the Victorian school building intact, classrooms and assembly halls are now 30 theatrical, loft-style rooms and suites, where calming greys and lilacs vie with dramatic floor-to-ceiling windows and cast-iron fireplaces. The ‘playground’ – a stylish roof terrace – is all grown up, too, with a rooftop bar and seasonal Alpine lodge.

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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.

Prices

Double rooms from £118.13, including tax at 5 per cent.

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.

Please note

The hotel is currently undergoing refurbishment until 2022 and will be closed until completion. However, the hotel's sister property King Street Townhouse will be open for bookings throughout this time. 

At the hotel

Rooftop bar, 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.

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 curious mix of Med hangout and Manc pride. A playground by nickname and nature, it has a barbecue area and panoramic views of Beetham Tower and the Coronation Street set below. Come winter the rooftop is transformed into a Alpine lodge with dinky rainbow-hued huts, full of fur throws. 

Last orders

The Oyster Bar is open 10am till late and afternoon tea is served from 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
United Kingdom

The beautifully restored red-brick building is on a quiet central street by St John’s Gardens, just below Spinningfields’ shops and bars. Albert Square is a 10-minute walk away.

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 for £30 a day – it's 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 Bird-designed Merchants' Bridge showcase the city from conception to regeneration. The Granada Studios backlot, home to the hallowed Corrie set, is nearby on Atherton Street (though sadly not open for tours anymore), 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. Venture a little outside the city to dine at Where the Light Gets In: a lofty former coffee house in Stockport where much of the – delicious – food hails from the family farm.

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 breakfast and brunch menus are excellent (French toast with a white chocolate and almond crumble, cheddar corn fritters with bacon and lime sour cream, a chorizo and manchego sandwich with caramelised onions).

Local bars

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. For laidback night-starting drinks, try Manchester's alt-neighbourhood the Northern Quarter; shabby-chic hangout Night and Day Café has vintage furnishings and live music (plus, a great menu of stomach-liners), Dusk Til Pawn is stuffed with retro curios and the Fitzgerald is a more groomed Gatsby-esque drinkery. 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. 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

By Mr & Mrs Smith

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).

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Price per night from $157.08

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