Elizabeth Gaskells’ House at 84 Plymouth Grove, Manchester

Elizabeth Gaskells’ House at 84 Plymouth Grove, Manchester, was the home of the novelist Elizabeth Gaskell, one of the nineteenth century’s most important women writers, from 1850 until her death in 1865. During this time she wrote most of her famous novels including ‘Cranford’ (1853), ‘Ruth’ (1853), ‘North and South’ (1855) and the unfinished ‘Wives and Daughters’. Visitors to the House during this time included Charlotte Brontë, Charles Dickens, John Ruskin, Harriet Beecher Stowe and conductor Charles Hallé. Charlotte Brontë described it as “a large, cheerful, airy house, quite out of Manchester smoke”. Her husband Reverend William Gaskell was a Unitarian minister and a pioneer in the education of the working class who was also notable for his many charitable works. The House itself was built between 1835 and 1841 and is a rare surviving example of a suburban villa and is listed Grade II*. elizabethgaskellhouse