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One of Manchester's boldest Victorian neo-Gothic buildings, Alfred Waterhouse's Town Hall, finished in 1877, divides the plain expanse of St Peter's Square from the more harmonious Albert Square to the north. You're free to wander inside the Town Hall (Mon-Fri 9am-5pm; free) and climb one of the grand staircases to the Great Hall , with its iron candelabras, stained-glass windows and paintings by Ford Madox Brown depicting decisive moments from Manchester's past. Guided tours of the building set off from the Visitor Centre (Easter-Dec every other Sat & each Wed, usually at 2pm, though times can vary; GBP4). On the south side of the Town Hall, the circular Central Library (Mon-Thurs 10am-8pm, Fri & Sat 10am-5pm) faces St Peter's Square - built in 1934 as the largest municipal library in the world. Over on Peter Street, the Midland Hotel has worn well, and might tempt you in for tea and cakes in its lavish Edwardian interior. The hotel's earlier visitors ventured out for an evening's entertainment at the Italianate Free Trade Hall further to the west up Peter Street, original home of the city's own Halle Orchestra. The Free Trade Hall was erected on the site of St Peter's Fields, where in 1819 eleven demonstrators were killed by the local militia during an event known as the "Peterloo Massacre". South of St Peter's Square, Lower Mosley Street runs past the G-Mex Centre , now an exhibition and events centre but in use as a train station until 1969. On the other side of G-Mex rises the Bridgewater Hall , at the junction of Bridgewater Street. One of Britain's finest purpose-built concert halls - venue for concerts by the Halle - this is balanced on shock-absorbing springs to guarantee clarity of sound. The other way up Mosley Street, north of St Peter's Square, rises Charles Barry's porticoed City Art Gallery ( ), where the array of high Victorian art includes the country's finest public collection of works by the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. Following extensive refurbishment, the gallery has doubled in size and has a new extension linked by a glass public area to the original gallery. Around the corner from here, the grid of streets between Princess and Charlotte streets marks the boundaries of Britain's largest Chinatown . To the southeast, the roads off Portland Street lead down to the Rochdale Canal, where Canal Street is the heart of Manchester's thriving Gay Village . Here, canalside cafes, clubs, bars and businesses have turned a formerly abandoned warehouse district into something with the verve of San Francisco.
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