Who’s to blame for the Hotspur Press fire?

Yesterday afternoon a thick black brume rose up above the Hotspur Press. We could see it from our office at the Royal Exchange — we could see it even better when we got up close: a fat fire coughing up centuries-old dust; another wall collapsing; another balcony on a nearby flat set alight as its inhabitants looked on. All around the burning building, students were filming TikToks. The Hotspur Press, one of the city’s major historical landmarks, was burning down.

And no sooner were the videos of the fire posted on social media than the speculation began. Accusations of arson, and of dodgy developers cashing in on insurance claims, ran rampant almost at once. “[I]f you set our city on fire for profit you and your buildings are not welcome here,” went one comment on The Mill’s own Instagram post, while a Reddit user called the fire “the most blatant insurance job [they've] ever seen”.

I wrote about the Hotspur Press FKA Medlock Mill back in February. At the time it had just had a listing application turned down, following a campaign launched by development company Manner, who were intent on converting the old printing press into a 37-storey student block. For the piece I spoke to various architects, conservationists, and archaeologists involved with the site, about what the future of the Hotspur Press should look like, what saving the building actually means, and who’s really trying to do it. They all disagreed with one another, strongly. The conservationists believed that the building should be listed to protect what might be Manchester’s oldest mill. The developers claimed that restoring the facade of the building, and demolishing the rest to make way for the student flats, was the only realistic and financially viable way of preserving some part of this piece of Manchester’s history. The listing application was turned down. Development was severely delayed. Now the building is a ruin.

For some, over a year of delays and uncertainty are directly to blame for what happened yesterday afternoon. Property publishers Place North West described the fire as “dilly-dallying manifested [...] in the form of an inferno,” and architect Stephen Hodder agrees — he’s the designer of the proposed 37-storey block. The plan was for the iconic facade and signage of the Hotspur Press to be restored, and for a new student tower to emerge from behind it, “phoenix-like,” in Hodder’s words. As we talk over the phone, the mill burns mere metres away from me. 

Hodder repeatedly describes the fire as a tragedy — but not a blameless one. The culprits, he makes clear, are those who sought last June, almost a year ago to the day, to have the building listed: an anonymous campaigner who submitted the listing application; Historic England; and a handful of conservation charities. “[They] really need to take a good look at themselves,” says Hodder, “because they are the ones who caused this.”