Kimpton Clocktower Hotel

About Kimpton Clocktower Hotel

The building went up in 1895 as the head office of the Refuge Assurance Company, designed by Alfred Waterhouse and extended by his son, and its terracotta clocktower is one of the fixed points of the Manchester skyline. It became the Palace Hotel, then The Principal, and since 2019 has run as the Kimpton Clocktower. Successive refurbishments have gone in the right direction, stripping back partitions to expose the glazed brick and tilework that make the ground floor extraordinary.

There are around 270 rooms across the original building, ranging from compact doubles to suites in the tower itself. The scale of the Victorian structure means ceilings are high and windows are enormous, and the better rooms look down Oxford Street towards the university or across to the Palace Theatre opposite. Kimpton's house style adds colour and pattern to what could easily have been a heavy interior, and the brand's practical touches — loaner bikes, a nightly social hour, a genuinely relaxed attitude to dogs — are all present.

The Refuge, in the former public rooms, serves small plates under acres of green and brown tiling; the Winter Garden is a vast glass-roofed space used for drinks and events, and The Vault handles cocktails. Location is a strong point for anyone here for a show or a gig: the Palace Theatre is across the road, Oxford Road station is a two-minute walk, and the O2 Apollo, the university campuses and the walk into the centre are all straightforward.