The Headrow and Oxford Place in Leeds

 

Capitals and granite columns at the entrance to Britannia Buildings

Continuing my British Listed Buildings Photo Challenge in the western part of Leeds City Centre Conservation Area, I went to explore the area between The Headrow and Great George Street – a part of Leeds that I never had reason to visit before but which the Building Stone Heritage of Leeds (BSHL) includes in Walk 1. 

 

Walk 1 in the Building Stone Heritage of Leeds

 

Turning left into The Headrow, having photographed buildings on East Parade and Park Row, the first building on my list, Athenaeum House (c.1890), was completely shrouded by scaffolding and debris netting and although the Jubilee Hotel (1904) was also scaffolded, a section of brick red terracotta was revealed on the Park Cross Street elevation. 

 

Leeds Town Hall

 

On the north side of the Headrow is Leeds Town Hall (1858), where I wanted to have another look at its stonework and photograph the Grade II listed forecourt wall, but a hoarding had been erected and I later discovered that an ongoing £18 million renovation was being undertaken. 

 

Oxford Place Methodist Church and Oxford Chambers

 

The corner of Westgate and Oxford Place is occupied by the Oxford Place Methodist Church (1835), which was remodelled 1896-1903 by G.F. Danby and W.H. Thorp in the Renaissance Revival style, with the addition of Oxford Chambers (c.1900). The Builder (1904, p.637) names the sandstone used for the dressings as Thornhill Rock from the Morley Moor quarries

 

The entrance to Oxford Place Methodist Church

 

Oxford Chambers is connected to the main façade of the church by a curved wall and its tower is surmounted with a cupola. This sandstone has been used for the ashlar at Morley Town Hall and for many substantial nonconformist chapels in Morley, but I didn't closely examine the stone used here and quickly moved on to photograph Nos. 1, 2 and 3 Oxford Place. 

 

Oxford Chambers

 

The Gothic Revival style Britannia Buildings (1868), which was not part of my Photo Challenge, is built in red brick with sandstone dressings and the HE description states that it was probably designed by Charles Fowler, an engineer and surveyor who was also well known for producing a map of Leeds in 1819, and that it was the first purpose built block of office chambers in the city. 

 

Britannia Buildings

 

It has some fine raised lettering and architectural sculpture to the door surround, Corinthian capitals and quatrefoils on the panels below the ground floor windows, but I didn't closely examine the uniformly coloured medium grained sandstone. 

 

The door surround at Britannia Buildings

 

As seen at Hepper House on East Parade, where the granite used for the porch has been considered by the BSHL to have been the first use in Leeds, the columns to the doorway and the ground floor windows are made with pink Peterhead granite.

 

A detail of the door surround at Britannia Buildings