24 June 2025 - Fire hits historic Hotspur Press site in central Manchester
The haunting aftermath as part of Manchester's history is destroyed in a raging inferno
Greta Simpson and James Holt (Manchester Evening News, 23/06/2025)
On Monday afternoon, one of the oldest mills in Manchester city centre stood derelict and unkept like it has done for decades. By the evening, much of it had crumbled to the ground. There was merely a scorched shell of the Hotspur Press building left, after it was violently torn through by a devastating blaze. Thick plumes of smoke were sent into the air as the fire also caused a huge evacuation of nearby homes and the Oxford Road train station. There was panic and chaos in the city centre, as surrounding roads were taped off and a dramatic emergency services response raced to the scene to try and bring the disastrous inferno under control.
Hotspur Press left a smoking ruin after huge fire
Jonny Humphries and Lynette Horsburgh (BBC News, 23/06/2025)
A building on the site of one of Manchester's oldest mill buildings is now a smouldering ruin after a major fire. The Hotspur Press building on Cambridge Street, close to Manchester Oxford Road railway station, was destroyed by a fire on Monday, leading to its partial collapse. It resulted in the cancellation of trains through Manchester Oxford Road station with "residual" disruption expected until 09:30 BST, National Rail said. The Victorian structure had fallen into a dilapidated state since the printing press closed down in 1996, and stood in contrast with some of the modern city blocks surrounding it.
Manchester’s Hotspur Press goes up in flames
Dan Whelan (Place North West, 23/06/2025)
The derelict mill on Cambridge Street earmarked for redevelopment into a 35-storey student tower has been destroyed by a fire that forced evacuations of nearby buildings and brought city centre transport to a halt. Hotspur Press in Manchester, a former cotton mill and printing press that has been vacant since the mid-1990s, has been gutted by a blaze that ripped through the building yesterday afternoon. Twenty fire engines from across Greater Manchester were called to tackle the fire. Oxford Road Station was evacuated, as were two high-rise apartment buildings, while streets close to the building remain cordoned off.
Some say the Hotspur Press is Manchester’s oldest mill. Does it matter?
Ophira Gottlieb (Manchester Mill, 18/02/2025)
Dear Millers, many of our greatest stories have started with one of you tipping us off. So when three different readers got in touch to tell us that something strange was going on at The Hotspur Press – the picturesquely decaying warehouse by Oxford Road Station – we knew it was something worth looking into. ‘Weird lying developer ads’ read the subject line of one of the emails. ‘To list or not to list?’ went another.
United Kingdom Flag. Wikipedia, Public Domain.
.svg){kind=link}