Rylands Building a fire, in 1957, which totally destroyed the premises of Paulden's Department Store, in All Saints, the company acquired the Rylands warehouse building and converted it to a store. This was then a direct rival to the Lewis's store, on the opposite side of Market Street. In 1973 Debenhams, the owner of Pauldens rebranded the store in their name. Since that time it has remained Debenhams, Manchester's premier department store retailer, following the closure of Lewis's, Affleck and Brown and C & A, plus the splitting up of Kendal Milne. Rylands Building Rylands Building is a Grade II listed building
John Rylands Library more than 6,000 manuscripts owned by James Lindsay, 26th Earl of Crawford of Haigh Hall. The "Bibliotheca Lindesiana" was one of the most impressive private collections in Britain at the time, both for its size and rarity of some of its contents. Walter Llewellyn Bullock bequeathed 5,000 items (notably early Italian imprints) during the 1930s. The library's collections include exquisite medieval illuminated manuscripts, examples of early European printing including a fine paper copy of the Gutenberg Bible and books printed by William Caxton, and personal papers of distinguished historical figures including Elizabeth Gaskell, John Dalton and John Wesley. Nothing is