The north is well stocked with literary shrines: the Brontës share one; Wordsworth has three; Ruskin has the one with the best view and Beatrix Potter has the one with possibly the most Japanese tourists.

Now the Manchester home of Elizabeth Gaskell, author of Cranford and the first biography of Charlotte Brontë, is to be restored and opened to the public once £2.2m has been raised for repairs and renovation.

Mrs Gaskell, wife of the minister of the Cross Street Unitarian chapel where the founders of the Manchester Guardian met, grew up in Knutsford in rural Cheshire.

She moved to Manchester in 1832 and from 1850 to 1865 lived in a large house in Plymouth Grove, where Charles Dickens and Charlotte Brontë visited her.

In Mary Barton, a story of poverty in Manchester in the 1840s, she wrote in the preface: "Three years ago I became anxious (from circumstances that need not be more fully alluded to) to employ myself in writing a work of fiction.

"Living in Manchester, but with a deep relish and fond admiration for the country, my first thought was to find a framework for my story in some rural scene; and I had already made a little progress... when I bethought me how deep might be the romance in the lives of some of those who elbowed me daily in the busy streets of the town in which I resided."

The house, built in 1838, now with a blue plaque but forlorn air, belonged to the University of Manchester from 1970 and until 2000 was the headquarters of the university's international society.

It is listed grade II* but needs major structural repairs and supporters plan to launch a public appeal and seek a grant from the heritage lottery fund. "The main reception rooms will be open to the public and used for lectures, exhibitions and seminars," said a spokesman for the Manchester Historic Buildings Trust which has acquired the house. "Once restored, the building must be self-financing so other parts will be let to provide the necessary income."