Unlocking the past Brand new chapter for'hidden' library

It is arguably one of Manchester's most overlooked establishments: an atmospheric 217-year-old library on top of a city centre pub in a building that resembles an ancient Greek temple.

- Mark Brown

To find the Portico library people have to know where they are going. The entrance is not the building's main one and visitors have to trudge up several flights of stairs, but once they get there, what a sight: it is a book-lined step back in history where you can almost hear the echoes of 19th-century Manchester radicals debating the Corn Laws.

Big things are being planned for the "hidden gem". "We hate the side entrance, we hate the buzzer, we hate the stairs, we want to change all that," says its librarian, Thom Keep.

Portico library has secured £453,964 in national lottery money to develop a £7m plan that will transform the library. The ambitious plan includes creating dining and exhibition areas, a new collections "care lab" and spaces for events and meetings, and developing a "northern bookshop".

The Portico opened in 1806 after members of Manchester's professional classes jealously watched the creation in 1802 of the Lyceum library in Liverpool.

They liked what they saw, including Thomas Harrison's Greek revival architecture, and essentially asked him to do the same thing, on a smaller scale, on Mosley Street in Manchester.