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What would Mr Gladstone say?

The men who originally stumped up the cash to make it all possible had much the same views of the place. But they belonged to a very different time, with very different ways of spending leisure hours.

What is now the Hurricane Bar and Grill, and was for some years the swanky Reform restaurant, was the Reform Club - a gentlemen's haven for Liberal politicians and their supporters in the Manchester area. Established in 1867, it moved there after a short time renting three rooms above a warehouse in Spring Gardens.

From modest beginnings, the club grew mightily. And it wasn't long before the great and the good were making serious policy here. One was the prime minister, William Ewart Gladstone, whose statue still stands in the building. He was the VIP guest when the new club building opened, on October 17, 1871.

Other former members include the one-time Liberal MP for Oldham, Winston Churchill, and Lloyd George, who went on to become PM like Gladstone (Churchill, of course, was to be an even more famous Conservative premier).

Designed by Edward Solomons and John Philpot-Jones, the Reform Club was one of the last places in the city to be built in the then-popular Venetian Gothic style. Its unofficial name was "The Lighthouse of Liberty".

Imposing

It was, and is, an imposing sight. The building comprises three storeys, topped by a balustraded parapet and with corner rounded gable-end towers with lanterns and spires. The windows of the first floor have small balconies, with a larger balcony over the main ground floor entrance (it was from here that Winston Churchill gave a famous election victory speech back in 1906).

At one time, there was talk of all this grandeur disappearing under the bulldozer, because of redevelopment plans.

But the building was saved by the developers, Bruntwood, who invested over £1m and made it their business to retain many of the original features, including the grand staircase, with its wood panelling, climbing up to what was the billiard room. During refurbishment, the builders uncovered, behind the wooden panelling, a copy of the New York Times bearing the date of the club's opening.

It was here that the city's gentry escaped from industrial grime to sample privacy, quietude and the company of like-minded chaps.

It was also here, in the late 1990s, during its brief incarnation as "Reform", that young dudes like David Beckham, Ryan Giggs and Mick Hucknall swanned around - to the delight of female celebrity-spotters, sipping then vogueish drinks such as absinthe (specially imported from France) - and champagne cocktails.

Sadly, for those who loved the brash reds, golds and purples of the restaurant and bar opened by Belgian Bernard Carroll, its fortunes gradually changed for the worse. As, indeed, the old Reform Club's prospects had waxed and waned over the decades, as political fortunes changed.

In the 1920s, the club gleaned much custom from the Royal Exchange, just down the road. Much business was done in the old billiard room.

In the 1930s, it opened its doors to non-political members, but its client base remained those sympathetic to Liberal Party ideals.

Landslide

With the rise of the Labour Party, and the landslide Attlee government in 1945, the long-term writing was on the wall.

Liberalism wasn't quite the force it had been in Gladstone's and Lloyd George's day, and the club went slowly downhill.

Faced with declining membership in the late 20th century, the Reform Club merged with the Engineers' Club in 1967, to form the Manchester Club, a brave stab at keeping the old traditions going.

All kinds of wheezes were thought up, including a fancy dress disco. But this wasn't enough to balance the books, and the club was eventually wound up in 1988.

Reform Club records are now kept in the John Rylands Library on Deansgate. They include minute books of the club's many committees, financial papers, membership records, all kinds of records relating to the building, cuttings books and a photograph album.

As well as illuminating the history of the club, the collection is still avidly perused by those who study 19th-century radicalism and the history of the Liberal movement in Manchester.

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