Elizabeth Gaskells rare Victorian villa reopens after £2.5m restoration

Fans of Cranford can visit the authors house where furniture, decoration and fittings have been painstakingly restored

Charlotte Brontë described it as a large, cheerful, airy house, quite out of the Manchester smoke. Now the home of Elizabeth Gaskell, one of the most important and best-loved Victorian novelists, is reopening on Sunday after a multi-million pound refurbishment.

In a painstaking and costly renovation, the Grade II* listed property, pictured right, on the outskirts of Manchester city centre has been brought back to life as it was in the mid-19th daughters. Modern day visitors can walk in the footsteps of Gaskells friends, who included Brontë, Charles Dickens, John Ruskin, Harriet Beecher Stowe and the conductor Charles Hallé.

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