A design-led stay in Manchester’s Village, with a beautiful accessible room, a proper bath and very little compromise.

Manchester and I are spending quite a lot of time together lately, but this trip had a slightly different pace.

After our last visit with the kids had us racing across the city, disappearing into giant bubbles and ending the day surrounded by basketballs and board games, this time it was just Martin and me.

Two nights in The Village. Somewhere lovely to stay. Good food, a few cocktails and plenty of time to wander wherever took our fancy.

LEVEN Manchester suited that mood almost immediately.

First impressions? Very me

LEVEN sits on the corner of Chorlton Street and Canal Street in a landmark early 20th-century building. It began life as a cotton warehouse and was later used as a brewery and comedy club, but old Manchester is still very much in the bones.

Red brick, huge Crittall windows, high ceilings and original industrial details give the building so much of its character. Halliday Meecham Architects’ £7.5 million redevelopment extended and restored the warehouse to create the 42-room hotel, which opened in 2021.

LEVEN is a joint venture between Branco Capital and Wellbrook Hospitality. Wellbrook led the interior design and provided pre-opening project management and technical services for the hotel.

Inside, there’s a warmth to it that I loved. Plants and greenery appear throughout the hotel and bedrooms, bringing even more life to the space.

The first-floor reception and bar might have been my favourite part. Dark green, almost teal interiors, vibrant artwork, quirky little pieces and big sofas with that cosy lounge feeling that could quite easily lose you an afternoon to a good book.

The team were lovely throughout too. Warm, friendly and always happy to help, from check-in and local recommendations to anything practical we needed. They made the whole stay feel easy without ever making a fuss of it.

You reach it by stairs or lift.

And yes, even the lift was rather lovely.

Apparently vertical transport can be aesthetically pleasing too. 😂

But first, obviously, we needed to see the room.

No episode of Changing Rooms before the kettle goes on

One of the first things I noticed was how easy the room was to settle into.

Our accessible version of LEVEN’s Living Space had loads of usable floor space, but it still felt warm and full of personality. Timber, clean modern furniture, beautiful finishes, artwork and greenery carried the hotel’s design straight through the door.

Usually, within about thirty seconds of arriving somewhere, I’ve mentally moved half the furniture.

Chair over there. Table slightly left. Suitcase somewhere it won’t become an obstacle course. Martin recruited into whatever spontaneous episode of Changing Rooms I’ve decided we’re filming before either of us has even put the kettle on.

At LEVEN, everything was already where I needed it.

I could move comfortably around the living space and pull up to the dining table. The kitchen was within reach too, so I could use it properly. It gave us the option to cook and dine in if we wanted, whether for breakfast, a slower evening or a longer stay. That flexibility made the Living Space feel much more like somewhere to live than simply somewhere to sleep.

And, naturally, it passed the obligatory spin test.

Then I found the bathroom

Now this was nice.

Like, really nice.

Chrome finishes, contemporary fittings and a large wet room that felt completely at home with the rest of the space.

There were no dangling red pull cords. Instead, chrome call buttons had been incorporated at different heights around the bathroom, including at floor level.

There was plenty of room to manoeuvre, a level-access shower with grab rails positioned around the shower seat, two basins and an accessible toilet.

Everything I needed was there, with the same attention to finish and aesthetics that had gone into the rest of the room.

And then I turned around.

Wait. Is that a bath?

Yes.

A proper freestanding bath.

In the bedroom.

With room to transfer straight from my wheelchair.

Hello.

This is where LEVEN and I became very good friends.

I love a bath. Always have. So discovering that I could have the large accessible wet room I needed and the deep freestanding bath that forms part of the Living Space design was a very welcome surprise.

Having a room that felt indulgent, and somewhere we genuinely wanted to spend time, was part of the pleasure of the trip.

One of my favourite observations about the room actually came from somebody who wasn’t there.

After I shared it on Instagram, a friend messaged me convinced I was staying in the same room she’d previously booked at LEVEN.

I knew I wasn’t.

She hadn’t stayed in an accessible room.

That told me more about the design than almost anything else could.

The bath, décor, finishes and overall feeling she remembered were all there in my adapted room too. The access features had simply been incorporated into the LEVEN room experience.

They were there because I needed them.

The style was there because I was staying at LEVEN.

Cocktails seemed like the appropriate next step

After exploring our space, approving the minibar snacks and doing a final lap of the room, we wandered the few metres back along the first floor to the bar.

This seemed like an appropriate point to officially begin the stay.

With cocktails.

LEVEN’s cocktail menu has all the right amount of personality, with twists on classics and names including Respectful Vimto and Mash & Air (Remix).

Exactly the sort of menu that’s going to get my attention.

Martin would also like it officially recorded that the cake was very good.

Mr Sweet Tooth takes these things seriously, so I’m inclined to trust his judgement.

So we found ourselves back on those comfy sofas, drinks in hand, deciding where we wanted to eat.

Which naturally led to one of my favourite travel habits.

Asking the people who actually live there.

Follow the local recommendations

I always ask locals where they eat.

I’ll look online, scroll Instagram and save recommendations beforehand, of course, but I still want to know where the person behind the bar goes for dinner.

The LEVEN team gave us a few ideas and pointed us towards the hotel’s local guide to Manchester.

We still went for a wander around The Village because apparently choosing a restaurant and walking directly towards it would be far too efficient.

Canal Street was busy, colourful and very much alive around us. We strolled and perused a few menus…

And eventually ended up almost exactly where we’d started.

At HOME Chinese.

Just across the road from LEVEN.

HOME Chinese, and I’m prepared for the controversy

I realise I may be saying something controversial here.

But HOME might be the best Chinese food I’ve had in Manchester.

And it isn’t in Chinatown.

There. I said it!

HOME serves Cantonese and Sichuan dishes alongside dim sum, with one of those menus that makes our usual “we’ll just order a few things” approach completely unrealistic.

We were shown to the stairlift and guided downstairs into the lower dining room. As it happened, everybody else seemed to be eating upstairs that evening, which meant we unexpectedly ended up with the lower room almost completely to ourselves.

It turned into such a lovely dinner.

We ordered far too much, as predicted, took our time over everything and Martin decided the relative privacy made it the perfect opportunity to work on his chopstick technique.

I’ll leave the results between him, me and the tablecloth!

The food was beautiful though. The kind of meal where another dish arrives and you somehow discover that, yes actually, you can manage a little bit more.

By the time we wandered back to LEVEN, there was only one place I wanted to be.

In that bath.

I added an entirely unnecessary amount of bubbles, made full use of the gorgeous bathroom products and stayed there for considerably longer than necessary.

Cocktails, Chinese food and a bubble bath.

A very respectable first evening, I think.

Naturally, we bought a plant

The following day we returned to LEVEN’s recommendations and headed to Nice Things Plant Shop.

Or, as I renamed it almost immediately:

The Pretty Plant Shop.

Having already spent a day surrounded by all the greenery woven through LEVEN, perhaps buying another plant was inevitable.

Nice Things is packed with them. Big ones, tiny ones, trailing ones, pots, beautiful displays and enough temptation to completely undermine the sentence, “We’re only having a look.”

We were not only having a look.

Obviously we came home with a new addition.

I don’t make the rules.

Staying right in The Village

Location is a huge part of the LEVEN experience.

Canal Street is quite literally outside, so The Village isn’t somewhere you need to travel into from the hotel. You open the door and you’re there.

Bars, restaurants, people, music, nightlife. It has that energy around it that makes you want to go out and see where the evening takes you.

It’s also worth being honest about what comes with that. The Village is lively, and some rooms will hear it. Our first-floor room had a LUMI sound-and-light machine and earplugs, and we found it easy to wind down. It added a sensory layer that I wouldn’t normally think about, but it was a lovely addition. If you’re sensitive to noise, though, I’d ask about a room away from the street or on a higher floor before booking.

There were also ridiculously cosy LEVEN bed socks waiting for us.

And yes, the socks came home.

Obviously.

What LEVEN confirmed before our stay

Before I travelled, I was given detailed information about LEVEN’s accessible accommodation.

LEVEN confirmed that it has four rooms it describes as fully accessible. All four can be configured as twins and include wet-room bathrooms, emergency call provision, visual fire alarms and additional emergency lighting. The accessible rooms can also interconnect with an adjoining room, giving more flexibility for people travelling with children, friends, family or a personal assistant.

The arrival worked well too. Manchester City Council lists two 24-hour Blue Badge bays outside LEVEN, at 40 Chorlton Street and accessed from Richmond Street. They’re public bays rather than hotel-controlled parking, so availability can’t be guaranteed.

Some general access information is available through Visit Manchester’s LEVEN listing, but the detail about the accessible rooms is still difficult to find on LEVEN’s own website.

I came away thinking LEVEN might be underselling itself.

The accessible rooms aren’t listed on the hotel’s own website, yet what exists in practice is genuinely impressive.

Of course, as I’ve written before, no accessible hotel bathroom works for every disabled traveller. If you need a particular transfer side, bed height, turning space or bathroom arrangement, I’d always recommend speaking to LEVEN directly before booking and asking about the exact room being offered.

For my own needs, though, this was some of the best accessible accommodation I’ve stayed in in Manchester.

LEVEN already has something very good here. I’d love to see it talk about these rooms with the same confidence it brings to the rest of the hotel.

Would I stay at LEVEN Manchester again?

Very happily.

By the time we left, there was a new plant coming home with us, LEVEN socks tucked into the luggage and I’d made extremely good use of that bath.

But more than anything, the stay had been exactly the sort of couple of days we’d wanted.

We had somewhere beautiful to come back to, a bar we genuinely enjoyed spending time in, The Village right outside and some excellent food practically on the doorstep.

The room worked so naturally for me that we could unpack, make coffee, get ready, go out, come back and simply enjoy being there.

LEVEN now feels like one of those Manchester stays I can see us choosing again, especially if we had plans in the city centre.

Next time I’ll probably tell myself I’m not buying another plant.

But we all know how that’s going to end.

Continue exploring Access Manchester

This stay forms part of Access Manchester by The Inclusive Edit, exploring how the city works in practice for travellers who want access without compromising on quality, atmosphere, design, service or experience.

Luxury travel reviewed against the standard it sets itself.