St. Michael's Road in Headingley

 

A grotesque on St. Michael's church

Continuing my British Listed Buildings Photo Challenge for Headingley, from Ash Crescent I headed back to North Lane and along St. Michael’s Road, where the first building on my list was Muir Court (c.1830) on Sagar Place, which is built with yellowish sandstone from the Elland Flags, with which I had by now become familiar. 

 

Muir Court

After a taking a couple of photos of its front elevation, I crossed St. Michael’s Road to photograph Nos. 11 and 13, including No. 1 Sagar Place, which is an early C19 corner  terrace, where yellowish sandstone is again used for the walling that has dressings of the same stone and is not reinforced with larger quoins. 

 

Nos. 11 and 13 St. Michael's Road

 

On my exploration of Headingley to date, although many of the buildings have been demolished, the listed buildings recorded on the 1851 edition of the Ordnance Survey (OS) map, surveyed in 1847, are built predominantly with sandstone from the Elland Flags, which I presume was quarried just over 1 km away at Woodhouse. 

 

The 1851 OS map of Headingley

By the second half of the C19, the technology existed to grind down the mudstones from local Pennine Lower Coal Measures Formation strata to produce extruded bricks and, as in other northern industrial cities, the development to the north side of St. Michael's Road – first seen on the 1909 OS map – uses these for a variety of houses, including back to back terraces. 

 

Brick built terraced houses

 

Passing Spring House (c.1864), which was partly covered obscured by trees and vegetation in its front garden, I just took a few record photos of the rear of the house, where the west wall and the boundary walls are built with thin bedded sandstone that is again probably from the Elland Flags, but much of the rear wing is built in red brick. 

 

Views of Spring House

 

A little further along the road, buildings that share a corner with King’s Place are marked on the 1851 OS map but, looking at the photo that I took of the terrace of four houses comprising Nos. 1 to 7, the pattern of the masonry is more like the Rough Rock at Alma Cottages and Chapel Street, seen earlier on my walk, and their style makes me think that they are later Victorian. 

 

Nos. 1 to 7 St. Michael's Road

Turning down King’s Place to take a quick look at Deans Cottage, which is again built with yellowish sandstone from the Elland Flags and has a rear wing dated to the C17 and the front range is a late C18 Methodist chapel, which was converted into houses c.1845. 

 

Deans Cottage

 

Moving on to Headingley parish hall (1844), which was formerly a school, the shape of the blocks and greater depth of courses to the masonry also looks to me more typical of the Rough Rock,  but I didn’t look at it closely. 

 

Views of Headingley parish hall

Along the boundary of the grassed area in front of the parish hall, the monolithic square section bollards are clearly made of coarse grained gritstone from the Rough Rock and, together with the attached iron railings, are Grade II listed for their group value. 

 

Bollards outside Headingley parish hall

 

Arriving at St. Michael’s church, the Gothic Revival style gate piers with pyramidal capstones on St. Michael Road and Headingley Lane are also Grade II listed for their group value, together with the boundary wall to the churchyard. 

 

Gate piers at St. Michael's churchyard

 

St. Michael’s church (1885) was not on my list of buildings to photograph, but it is a very imposing building with a tall tower and slim spire, which Pevsner describes as “proud and prosperous” and, above the door to the porch, the church website names the sculptures as Jesus, St. Peter, St. Paul, Daniel and Isaiah. 

 

The porch

 

Although Headingley is mentioned in Domesday Book, the first church was not built until C.1627 and the present church is the third one on the site, which was designed by the Gothic Revival architect John Loughborough Pearson - whose work I had often seen on my travels.

 

The tower of St. Michael's church

 

I only had a very quick look at its exterior and took just a few record photos and didn’t examine the stonework very closely, but I could see that it is essentially built with coarse grained gritstone from the Rough Rock; however, looking at my photo of the surround to the east door, its distinctly yellow colour makes me wonder if the massive variety of the Elland Flags, as seen at the former Parochial Institute on Bennett Street, has been used for this.

 

The surround to the east door