84 Plymouth Grove, now known as Elizabeth Gaskell's House, is a writer's house museum in Manchester, England. The Grade II* listed neoclassical villa was the residence of William and Elizabeth Gaskell from 1850 till their deaths in 1884 and 1865 respectively. The Gaskell household continued to occupy the villa after the deaths of Elizabeth and William. The death of Elizabeth Gaskell's daughter, Margaret Emily "Meta" Gaskell, in 1913, brought to an end the Gaskells' residence there.
The house itself was granted listed building status in 1952, partly due to its association with the Gaskells. This granted it protection from demolition, however, 84 Plymouth Grove slowly descended into a state of disrepair due to neglect.
The Manchester Historic Buildings Trust commenced a restoration project in 2009, aiming to see 84 Plymouth Grove returned to its state as the Gaskells left it. By 2011, the Trust had finished the exterior, which included structural repairs and removing the pink paint that had coated the house for various years. However, in May 2011 their project was marred by the theft of the lead roof, which caused "extensive damage" according to the BBC. On completion of the £2.5m restoration, the building was reopened to the public on 5 October 2014.
History
84 Plymouth Grove was designed in the Regency style, probably by architect Richard Lane, , and was speculatively built as part of a wider development catering to the burgeoning middle-classes in the area, then on the outskirts of the city. The villa comprised drawing and dining rooms, seven bedrooms and a coach house wing. The lavish house was built in response to the newly emerging middle class citizens of Manchester. The city, which had rapidly expanded due to the industrial revolution, held various degrees of housing, ranging from, poverty-ridden slum housing to the new era of luxurious housing such as 84 Plymouth Road.
The design is striking; the house contains twenty rooms on two floors over a concealed basement with a front porch containing four columns carved with a lotus leaf shape, reminiscent of the Tower of the Winds in Athens. Stucco features on the front facade of the house. Despite the house's facade having a pink coat for years, earning it the nickname 'The Pink House', during the times of Elizabeth Gaskell the walls were described as a "stone-colour".
The Gaskells' residence
Elizabeth and William, along with their children, Marianne, Margaret Emily "Meta", Florence, and Julia, moved into the house (then numbered 42 Plymouth Grove) in June 1850, after the publication of Elizabeth's first novel, Mary Barton. However, they had lived in Manchester for some time previously as William Gaskell's job of assistant Minister at Cross Street Unitarian Chapel, required the family to move from Knutsford, in neighbouring Cheshire. The family had stayed at two different locations in Manchester, both of which have now been demolished.
84 Plymouth Grove's spacious accommodation concerned Gaskell, who, despite calling the house "a beauty", was concerned about residing in such an expensive house (the rent was £150 per annum) while others lived in poverty. Despite Elizabeth's concerns, the Gaskells were not frugal, with the twenty room house costing half of William's salary in rent. Elizabeth, feeling guilty, justified it by stating, "It is [William] who is to decide on all these things". Until the birth of their children they required only one servant, Betsy, however, at Plymouth Grove much more domestic staff were employed, including a cook, several maids, a handyman for outdoor work, as well as a washerwoman and a seamstress. Elizabeth trained her staff and looked after their welfare whilst they were employed at the house.
Charlotte Brontë, who visited the house three times between 1851 and 1854, described it as "a large, cheerful, airy house, quite out of Manchester smoke". The "Manchester smoke", as Brontë described it, was generated from the hundreds of textile factories and cotton mills situated within the inner city, in particular the Ancoats area. In the 1850s there were over 100 mills in Manchester. On one occasion, the meek Brontë even hid behind the curtains in Gaskells' drawing room as she was too shy to meet the other guests.