Alma Cottages to Cross Chapel Street

 

The corner of Chapel Street and Chapel Place

Continuing my British Listed Buildings Photo Challenge for Headingley, the next buildings on my list to photograph were 1 to 8 Alma Cottages, (c.1860) a group of four pairs of identical semi-detached cottages that are built in the Gothic Revival style. 

 

Nos. 1 to 8 Alma Cottages

Porter's Directory of Leeds and Neighbourhood (1872) states that these were occupied by a builder and woollen printer (Nos. 1 and 2), gardeners (Nos. 3 and 4), a warehouseman and another gardener (Nos. 5 and 6) and a laundress and yet another gardener (Nos. 7 and 8), with Historic England suggesting that some of these may be working as servants for the owners of the large houses on Alma Road. 

 

Coarse grained Rough Rock at Nos 5 and 6 Alma Cottages

They are built with dressed Rough Rock and the details of their design, which includes a central gable, corniced chimney stacks, crested ridge tiles, fish-scale Welsh slate roofs and deep carved wooden eaves brackets, set them aside from other contemporary houses that were occupied by members of the same social class. 

 

The crenellated outhouse

 

On the south side of Alma Cottages is an outhouse (c.1860) that unusually has a crenellated parapet in the Gothic Revival style, which were formerly privies but are now used as potting sheds and are Grade II listed for their group value. 

 

Nos. 79 to 83 Otley Road

 

Returning to Otley Road, I took a few photos of the short terrace of coarse gritstone built mid C19 houses comprising Nos. 79 to 83, which first appear on the 1893 Ordnance Survey map and were part of the rapid expansion of the village during the second half of the century. 

 

A detail of the 1893 Ordnance Survey map of Headingley

 

Turning down Chapel Street past Headingley Methodist Church, which I shall describe in my next post, the mid C19 Nos. 2 and 4 provide an example of a more traditional pair of semi-detached houses built in coarse grained Rough Rock, but it is of no great architectural merit. 

 

Nos 2 and 4 Chapel Street

 

On the opposite side of the road are Nos. 5 to 17 Chapel Street, which includes Nos. 6 and 8 Chapel Place, is an L-shaped terrace of mid C19 gritstone houses and includes a corner shop. These houses are quite plain and the only architectural features are a band course on the first floor and pilasters and an entablature with cornices to the doors. 

 

Nos 5-17 Chapel Street and Nos. 6 Chapel Place

 

Another L-shaped block of houses on the north side of Chapel Street - Nos 6 to 14 and including Nos.1 to 9 Chapel Terrace and Nos. 1 to 8 Chapel Square - are back to back terraced houses that were built in large numbers for the working class. Although these soon acquired a reputation for being insanitary and were later demolished as part of extensive programmes of slum clearance, these continued to be built in Leeds after their ban in 1908 and very many still exist today. 

 

Back to back houses on Chapel Street

 

Returning to Chapel Street, Nos. 19 and 21, which also includes Nos. 9 and 11 Chapel Place, appear to be a continuation of the development of the south side of Chapel Street during the second half of the C19. Although they possess the same style of 8-pane sash windows as Nos. 7-15, the doors and walling are very plain. 

 

Nos. 19-21 Chapel Street and Nos. 9-11 Chapel Place

 

Carrying on to Cross Chapel Street to take a couple of photographs of the early C19 Ivy Cottage, I immediately noticed that the sandstone used to build it is light brown/yellowish in colour, is much finer grained and has plane bedding, which are characteristics of the Elland Flags from the Pennine Lower Coal Measures Formation and not the Rough Rock.

Ivy Cottage