The Building Stones of Leeds - Part 4

An ornate keystone on Moorlands House

In preparation for a field trip with the Sheffield U3A Geology Group, to investigate ‘The Building Stones of Leeds’, it needed two recces to turn an idea raised at the first meeting of 2019 into a viable day out that could entail a walk lasting 5 hours or more. 

The former Church Institute

Having already identified potential stopping points during a couple of visits to Leeds the year before, by the time that I had taken a good look at the County Arcade during my last visit, I decided that the group should take a lunch break at the junction of Albion Place and Lands Lane. 

Grey granite seats on Lands Lane

Here, a series of grey granite benches with comical bronze sculptures of dogs, by the artist Lucy Casson, were installed as part of the renewed urban landscaping in 2009. From this point, a good variety of architectural styles and materials can be seen in the buildings –especially the former Church Institute - and on Albion Place, another series of seats carved out of Portland Roach by Peter Yarwood form part of the same development. 

Portland Roach seats on Albion Place

Continuing along Albion Place, there are various listed buildings where local Carboniferous sandstone is the principal building stone and on the corner of Albion Street/Commercial Street, the highly ornamented Moorlands House utilises three varied sandstones from the Millstone Grit. 

Moorlands House

Before cutting through to Park Row, via Bond Street, I had a quick exploration of Albion Street to find the sculpted granite seats in the form of feet and with both polished and tooled surfaces. 

Granite seats on Albion Street

Arriving on Park Row, which I had surveyed a few days earlier, the route of the “Building Stones of Leeds” field trip with the Sheffield U3A Geology Group was now effectively set in my mind; however, having not yet explored Walk 3 from the Building Stone Heritage of Leeds, I finished my day by following it very quickly on the way back to Leeds railway station, after I had looked at the white marble war memorial on The Headrow.

The war memorial on The Headrow

When planning this field trip, I had always wanted to concentrate on the most interesting historic buildings of Leeds – from an architectural perspective – rather than organise a “rock spotter’s guide” and the highlight for me in the financial quarter was St. Paul’s House, a former factory that makes extensive use of Doulton terracotta in the dressings of a building made out of brick.

St. Paul's House