storeysThe Architectural

of Leeds

How The Victorians Changed Leeds...

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The Forgotten Man…The man who helped build Leeds, yet has not much other than a Wetherspoons pub named after him, we look at why this may be the case, whilst chronicling this great man’s monumental achievements and how the city of Leeds owes its economic and cultural prosperity to this Hull born Architect.

Abbey Road Milepost…Storey’s trundled up to Abbey Road to examine this eccentric looking but visually stupendous milepost in the middle of Britain and right here in Leeds, just past Kirkstall Abbey. We unveil some interesting facts about the milepost.

A Conversation About Conservation…In these tough economic times, Leeds’ ar-chitectural heritage is under an increasing threat. Leader of Conservation in Leeds Phil Ward spoke in great depth of why conserva-tion isn’t a break on economic and could in fact help economic development.

Contents... TheVictorianEdition

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Welcome to our first ever edition of Sto-reys, your ultimate guide to the history of Leeds’ landmarks. We are very proud to present some great groundbreaking features in this edition.

This issue will look at Victorian Leeds and how the architecture of that era, helped play a role in Leeds’ development. We take an in-depth look at Cuthbert Brodrick and his works in and around the city, including the monumental Town Hall and glorious Corn Exchange, which no doubt anyone who has had the pleasure of viewing will appreciate the brilliant designs.

We also had the pleasure of being given a backstage tour of the Leeds Grand Theatre and the City Varieties. Steeped in history, with whose who of show busi-ness having played the venues, the two have been brought back to life following a down period. The restoration work has truly done wonders for both venues, as you will find inside this issue.

Cottage Road cinema in Headingley will be celebrating its 100th birthday next year, we look forward by paying tribute to another historical institution of Leeds.

We would like to take this opportunity to thank all those who have helped us put this issue together. Most notably Mike Joslin for his technical expertise, Steve Morant for providing a great deal of his expertise on Cuthbert Brodrick’s works. Other people we would like to thank are Phil Ward for taking time out to speak to us regarding Leeds’ future.

A special thanks goes to Catherine Calli-nan of Leeds Grand Theatre, for giving us a wonderful tour of both the City Varieties and Leeds Grand Theatre.

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15A Grand Day Out…The Leeds Grand Theatre has recently undergone restoration and we were given exclusive access to both the Theatre and The City Varieties. Catherine Callinan led Storey’s on an anecdote filled tour. We examine the cultural impact of entertainment venues such as the Grand Theatre as well as disclosing some real royal escapades.

To Protect & To PreserveStorey’s like the idea of preserving our great country’s heritage and who has had a bigger impact on our nation’s architecture than the Victorians. We look at the vital role played by the Victorian society in helping preserve buildings of historical significance.

Editorial

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The Forgotten Man...

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Cuthbert Brodrick opening page

The Forgotten Man...Ismail Mulla looks at the unheralded hero of Leeds’ Victorian Architecture, Cuthbert Brodrick. We explore how he gave the city its soul and the role he played in form-ing the identity of this great city. His legacy can be felt to this day with iconic buildings scattered across the city.

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Leeds owes a lot to Hull. For it was the prodigal son of a well to do ship owner from the city who helped shape the future of Leeds. Cuthbert Brodrick was born on 1st December 1821.

Privately educated but later at-tending private academy King-ston College in Hull, Brodrick would go onto to become an architect. Brodrick’s legacy can be felt to this day in the city with his iconic buildings scattered across Leeds. He is arguably the unsung hero in Leeds’ development as a major city.

Leeds is a city that was built by the Victorians and to this day it has maintained its sta-tus as a major financial and cultural hub. It was architects such as Brodrick that helped give this city and its people the confidence to step up in society.

Phil Ward, Team Leader for Conservation in Leeds said: “Economically that’s when the city made great strides and certainly the capital of what is now West Yorkshire, so it

established itself as a com-mercial capital and the mer-chants thought they were living in a golden era and they were making parallels with other eras such as renaissance Italy, they though that Leeds was a rich prosperous and also a democratic city so they drew parallels with Florence, Venice.

“So they were lavish they wanted symbols to express this newfound wealth and con-fidence and also sort of pull themselves up a bit and hold their heads high with other cities such as Manchester and Sheffield, if it hadn’t been for the Victorians Leeds would have been like Wakefield.”

English poet John Betjeman once wrote “No city of the North of England has so fine a swagger in the way of 19th and early 20th century as Leeds,” calling the Town Hall superb.

The Town Hall is the creation of none other than Cuthbert Brodrick. The Town Hall was and still is of great significance to the city. The secretary of the

Leeds Improvement Society founded in 1851 to suggest and promote architectural and public improvements in the town, Dr. John Deakin Heaton became a prime supporter of having a Town Hall for Leeds.

He argued: “if a noble munici-pal place that might fairly vie with some of the best Town Halls of the continent were to be erected in the middle of their hitherto squalid and unbeautiful town, it would be-come a practical admonition to the populace of the value of beauty and art, and in course of time men would learn to live up to it.”

This statement has been proven and reverberates to this date. Leeds is a hive of cultural activity. It is home to the Henry Moore Institute, the Leeds Art Gallery, and the Central Library and of course the beautiful architecture.

It created a sense of communi-ty and Dr. John Deakin foresaw this saying “in the most broad and liberal spirit, and…incur that which might even seem to some to be an extravagant expenditure, rather than fail in a duty which it owed to the rest of the community and to prosperity.”

The significance of the town hall was great, making the responsibility of designing it even greater. The council ran a competition for plans for the new Town Hall to be submitted, the competi-tion was to be judged by Sir Charles Barry – the architect of the Houses of Parliament. It was Sir Charles Barry who went onto play a crucial role in

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CUTHBERT BRODRICK: Im-age courtesy of Leodis

Brodrick’s design being cho-sen.

The council felt he was too young, but Sir Charles Barry had been very impressed with the plans and felt that Brodrick had what it took to carry through the project.

Steve Morrant an architect and former senior lecturer in archi-tecture at Leeds Metropolitan University said: “I just think he is an inspiring figure and the reason why, it was a particu-larly inspiring thing about the young age at which he won the competition. Somebody works this hard and produces these devastating drawings. Taking a modern day example it compares with one of the Kaiser Chiefs.”

The Town Hall isn’t the only building that Brodrick de-signed in Leeds. In fact many would argue that the Corn

Exchange is his greatest achievement, while the Town Hall was culturally significant and aesthetically grand, the Corn Exchange saw Brodrick take a different direction and draw Parisian inspired plans. It remains an iconic building in the heart of Leeds city centre.

“I think the oval Corn Ex-change is fascinating because it fits into the environment around it. The Corn Exchange would sit on the sand of the coliseum,” said Steve Morrant.

The impact of the Corn Ex-change can be felt on other buildings. “For the Trinity development which is a vast building site at the bottom of Briggate. I can’t help think-ing someone thought there’s a relationship between the Corn Exchange. I can’t help thinking that someone has been look-ing at the corn exchange.

“At night you can see this internally lit dome rising like a moon on the city scape it’s very futuristic looking even now.”

It’s fitting that our meeting with Steve Morrant should take place at the former Mechanics Institute, now the Leeds City Museum as he was responsi-ble for the design of the build-ing. Overlooking Millennium Square, where once the Orien-tal Baths stood on Cookridge Street [PICTURE BOTTOM RIGHT], yes you guessed it a creation of Brodrick as well and a few meters away is his former office, now a bar. “We could say this is a little Brodrick enclave.”

But despite the obvious im-pact of Brodrick’s buildings on the city, there remains very little to mark the great man and his achievements, aside from the Wetherspoons pub op-

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No city of the North of England has so fine a swag-ger in the way of 19th and early 20th century as Leeds.

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”John Betjeman, Poet.

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posite Millennium Square and one could argue that’s hardly befitting of a man who helped give the city its identity.

But the biggest aberration has to be the fact that at the Leeds City Museum (again a creation of Brodrick) there is nothing, no mention at all about him, but why is this the case?

“He didn’t have a son; he left his drawings to his nephew. Only certain drawings got into the RIBA collection. It seems one of his former assistants gave some of his drawings to the Royal Institute of British Architects, It’s sad that there’s nothing in this building about Cuthbert Brodrick.”

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BLUE PLAQUE: Leeds Civic Trust

ROARING: Lion of Town Hall

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Worries about conserving our great Victorian heritage aren’t new to Great Brit-ain and the city of Leeds. Since the mid 20th century, the Victorian Society has fought to help save some of the finest architecture in the country along with giving advice to help protect under threat buildings.

Founded in 1958, with founder members includ-ing poet and writer John Betjeman and historians Henry-Russell Hitchcock and Nikolaus Pevsner, the society has three main aims:

Conserving: to save Victori-an and Edwardian buildings or groups of buildings of special architectural merit from needless destruction or disfigurement.

Involving: to awaken public interest in, and appreciation of, the best of Victorian and Edwardian arts, architec-ture, crafts and design.

Educating: to encourage the study of these and of related social history and to provide advice to own-ers and public authorities in regard to the preservation and repair of Victorian and Edwardian buildings and the uses to which they can,

To Protect & To Preserve...

if necessary be adapted.

Based in London, but with regional groups across the UK, the society is also a statuary consultee in the listing of buildings and has saved major national monu-ments including the Albert Memorial in London and the Albert Dock in Liver-pool.

Local concerns can be voiced in meetings and talks by the society and Leeds’ City Museum hosted an exhibition in November, with weekly talks from the likes of society director Dr Ian Dungavell.

The exhibition, featured a number of photographs ranging from pre-1958 to the restorations and con-servation work carried out by the society.

For more informa-tion on the society and their work as well as local event listings visit www.vic-toriansociety.org.uk

Above; Dr Ian Dungavell de-livered a speech at Leeds City Museum on the work of The Vic-torian Society.Below; Statue of John Betjeman a founder member of the Society.

Hidden Treasures...

Abbey Road Milepost

Located less than a mile down the road from the beautiful Kirkstall Abbey, the milepost majesitcally stands by the side of the busy Abbey Road.

Apparently exactly two hundred miles to both Lon-don and Edinburgh, it stands, grand, in the heart between the two capitals.

Suprisingly tall, the milepost was erected in 1829 and built by Beecroft and Butler, signified by the B&B embossed on the sign, who at the time owned the Forge where the post lies.

The milepost is now Grade II listed and is a beau-tiful feature, along what is already an historic road.

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A Grand Day Out...In recent years both Leeds’ Grand Theatre and it’s City Varieties have been redeveloped and transformed back to their former glory and Storeys were given an exclusive tour from Assistant Learning Manager, Catherine Callinan. Richard Greenwood reports.

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A Grand Day Out...In recent years both Leeds’ Grand Theatre and it’s City Varieties have been redeveloped and transformed back to their former glory and Storeys were given an exclusive tour from Assistant Learning Manager, Catherine Callinan. Richard Greenwood reports.

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A great statue of Freddie Mercury looked down over City Square throughout the months of September and October meaning only one thing, We Will Rock You was in town.

Performing for the first time in Leeds, the Queen based opera was selling out at the impressive Grand Theatre and Storeys was lucky enough to be given the grand tour along with a trip to the newly renovated Leeds City Varieties, though sadly a giant figure of Omid Djalili was nowhere to be seen.

There was an excitement in the air as the Storeys team ap-proached The Grand Theatre. Entering via the performers entrance and the chance to stand on a stage where the

likes of Julie Andrews, Felic-ity Kendal and Morecambe and Wise have all performed already had us desperately seeking the make up room.

Sadly as our Freddie Mercury moustaches were non-existent and a matinee performance of We Will Rock You was about to begin, the stage was off lim-its. But the show must go on and from backstage stood the enormous fly screen. A new acquisition since the renova-tion work of 2005 and allows quicker set changes and a much more desirable experi-ence for travelling shows.

The theatre itself was opened in 1878 at a cost of £62,000, to provide a respectable alter-native to the pubs and mu-sic halls of the city. From the outside the Grand’s tall spires,

reminiscent of a church, shows characteristics of the Gothic style, no doubt to signify the importance of the building by architect George Corson.

As you step inside the Grade II listed building, Burmantoft tiles bearing the White Rose of Yorkshire, line the wide open-ing staircase, a feature, redis-covered following the reno-vation work, part funded by The National Lottery Heritage Fund, between 2005/06, rec-reating the majestic entrance. Burmantoft’s pottery and tiles were highly sort after during Victorian times and were seen as a mark of wealth, some-thing of which theatre goers in the early days had plenty of.

The opening night came on the 18th November 1878, a performance of Much Ado About Nothing where the manager at the time played the lead role. Since then thou-sands of productions have taken to the stage with an average of 280 performances a year from stand up comics, to Shakespeare productions to Rock Opera’s like today’s We Will Rock You.

As bums were hitting seats, the Grand’s stature only be-came more colossal. The 136 bulbed chandelier glistened over the excited audience in the auditorium. Heads turning to view the intricate details on the tiles and ceiling, pre-show chatting echos around the venue and you can’t help but feel with the fine architecture along with the thrill of seeing a performance that what the Vic-torians did to step away from music halls is still thoroughly appreciated today despite

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more modern theatres enter-ing the city such as The West Yorkshire Playhouse and The Carriageworks.

Catherine Callinan, Assistant Learning Manager of venues told us, “It has that feeling that draws people back to it and we’ve got that sense of history and you can’t recreate that, people will always come back to that.”

However, going back to a music hall, Leeds City Varie-ties is one of only four left in the United Kingdom and also benefited from The National Lottery’s Heritage Fund and also Leeds City Council. Built in 1865 as an adjunct to The White Swan Inn following the owners desire to have a music hall, the City Varieties has hosted a whole host of acts from Charlie Chaplin, to Houdini to more recently Ken Dodd and Dara O’Briain who described the Varieties as “the best venue for standup in the nation.”

The City Varieties has had a cheq-uered past and had become ex-tremely run down until the 2009 refurbishment. The 1950’s saw the venue briefly become a venue for Stripteases and is also the only music hall to ever have been closed down for harbour-ing prostitutes though is world famous for its BBC variety show The Good Old Days where many acts

made their name including Strictly favourite Sir Bruce Forsyth.

Popular with royalty, The City Varieties was a favourite venue for Edward VII, where the royal box was often awash with his notorious lady friends, and af-ter his coronation he donated his crest to the hall, where it still hangs above the stage today.

The venue changed massively throughout the years, and when it came to the restoration project a few years ago, spe-cialists found original features had been painted over hun-dreds of times. It cost £9.925m to refurbish the 350 seated venue including a complete re-construction of the backstage area, ceiling and plasterwork repairs along with new seating and carpeting.

The intricate detailing on much of the building has been re-stored though not before paint

analysts found over two hun-dred coats lying on the original golden leaves, and now looks fit for the next King, though with no notorious lady friends of course, as well as the loyal people of Leeds flocking back.

Catherine said, “The people of Leeds are incredibly proud of it. So many people feel own-ership of it because they’ve been coming here since they were knee high or they were involved in the pantomime when they were younger. I think most people in Leeds have some sort of identifica-tion for it so it was really im-portant to keep people happy and stick to the heritage of the building.”

Since the reopening of the venue, the Varieties have been inundated with requests for tours of which public tours are hoping to be run in the future alongside the already popular workshops that take place at The Grand Theatre.

Both venues are as vibrant and as popular as ever before and continue to stand up against modern theatres as well as providing an excellent place to meet new people, learn and most importantly have a grand day out.

For more infor-mation on cours-es & tours visit:

www.leeds-grandtheatre.com

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Phil Ward is charged with ensuring the building heritage of Leeds is preserved. The team leader for conservation talks about the financial and logistical problems facing his team and the increas-ing pressures in tough economic times. Tapping into the big society, his own personal favourite views and the impact of the Victorians on the city’s landscape.

Conservation is a very broad field, there are people pro-tecting the flora and fauna of Leeds that’s a type of con-servation but the small team that I manage, the three of us are specifically tasked with conserving Leeds’ build herit-age, that’s building and also spaces. I think it’s very, very important it’s my life’s work it’s what I live and dream and breath and eat, not quite eat but if I could I would so it’s very important to me I’ve got the dream job don’t tell anybody but I’ll do it for free.

Leeds is a fine city and if you look at any promotional litera-ture on Leeds more often than not you’ll find a historic build-ing in the background or in the foreground, activity might be going on inside a historic building and maybe because it’s such a fine city we perhaps take it for granted.

So it’s very important to Leeds, does the city council realise what it’s got, well it’d probably notice it if it wasn’t there.

Look around, the renaissance with a small “r” that has taken place in the city centre over the last 15 years has hap-

pened in a conservation area, I’m making a case here for conservation not being a brake on econom-ic development, so I think the case that conservation and economic develop-ment can go together has been made in the city centre.

If you’re looking short term and looking for a quick buck then you might see conservation as being an obstacle, but it is definitely an asset. Even in areas where there’s depravation the historic environment is an asset, look at the schemes we have got run-ning in Armley and Chap-peltown where the historic environment is being used I suppose, it’s also being appreciated for its own right.

But it is also being used as a spring forward for economic development because these things are finite that make these plac-es unique. So the strategy in Leeds again whether it is recognised or not to build on the distinctive-ness of places because wiping an old place away and replacing with some-

A Conversation about Conservation...

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thing with that looks like any-where else has been proved not to be a sustainable model.

What we’re doing is undoing some of the mistakes of the 60s and 70s which tried to do just that. Places are in competition, Chappeltown is in competi-tion with Chapel Allerton, there also competing with out of

town retail stores, what has it got that these places haven’t got, it’s got an historic environ-ment.The common denominator should be quality, whether your matching in or whether your trying to put something that is a contrast, that’s quite difficult to measure and very difficult to legislate for. It might not be a direct copy of

somewhere but there is a resonance.

Postmodernism when did it end, we’ll say 1990, we’re still trying to assess that legacy that’s been passed down to us. It’s probably fair to say that 10 years ago it’d gone out of fashion. Because some of the worst postmodern buildings just devalued the buildings that they’re trying to copy because they don’t add anything and usually the materials we’re inferior such as use of artificial stone rather than real stone, so it didn’t add anything and it argu-ably took away.

There are other postmod-ernist buildings such as Leeds Combined Courts, which will perhaps stand the test of time, not to my tastes, but I don’t think you can say it is good or bad; it’s a matter of taste.

Economically that’s when the city made great strides and certainly the capital of what is now West York-shire, so it established itself as a commercial capital and the merchants thought they were living in a golden era and they

were making parallels with other eras such as renais-sance Italy, they though that Leeds was a rich prosperous and also a democratic city so they drew parallels with Flor-ence, Venice.

So they were lavish they want-ed symbols to express this newfound wealth and confi-dence and also sort of pull themselves up a bit and hold their heads high with other cities such as Manchester and Sheffield, if it hadn’t been for the Victorians Leeds would have been like Wakefield [chuckles].

The great buildings that you see here such as the town hall probably the pre-eminent town hall in the country, think Manchester would claim that title such as the building were in [Leeds City Museum], such as the Corn Exchange, such as Temple Works, they’re the icons of Leeds.

Another thing to say about conservation is that there are no absolutes, you can’t write a rule book and apply it inflex-ibly and rigorously to every situation everything is relative.

First and foremost conserva-tion is about keeping buildings in use, because if you don’t keep them in use then they fall down. So we encourage build-ings being adapted into new uses, now the question is what is the breaking point between preservation and adaptation, how far do you go.

That’s not an exact science there are no absolutes here, it depends on lots of things, it depends on what the building

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requires to be a viable entity, it depends on the quality of the intervention. So no rule book it’s a real art but when it comes off it really is fantastic when you get the melding of new and old.

The museum here is a good example of adaptation, the tiled hall is an adaptation it’s also a restoration of a building that was abused and unloved for many years.

You go to something like Jamie’s Italian restaurant that’s a good adaptation because he took what he found; it’d been a bank with a very, very fine ceiling and in the 1960s that was all ripped out well most of it anyway. But it left an imprint so he’s taken it as found and it looks quite rich and as I say its good business, the list is endless.

There is no building in the city centre that hasn’t been adapt-ed to different degrees; some are being adapted in their existing use such as the ca-thedral where the big funeral’s happening today that’s been adapted. But some buildings have been adapted to new uses and quite radical new uses.

I think we’re in an interesting time there was a bit of a truce over the last 15 years when the economy was strong be-tween conservation and eco-nomic development. But when times aren’t that good there’s certainly on a person like me to accept more change than I would have accepted and also change that isn’t of the same quality.

I think we’re going to have lots of challenges, there’s lots of buildings that are falling out of use and they’re an increasing problem to us because there not being picked up by the market and there also being pillaged, cannibalised people are stealing things from them. So finding new uses for build-ings is going to be a challenge and as I say there are no ab-solutes you have to recalibrate all the time.

I think we’ve got a future, I think conservation is socially useful and economically useful but we have to change all the time also part of the change that is going to be challeng-ing you know upgrading the performance of buildings that’s going to be a challenge.

In all these things the problem arises when policy makers change one thing or the other thing we can actually do lots of things at the same time if we’re clever enough and patient enough and we don’t want very quick cheap solutions. Cheapness is not sustainable in the long term. Every day is a struggle but I think conservation is en-trenched in Leeds. Other people who I have worked with in Leeds for a fair few years

now are the people who have worked outside of Leeds tell me that we have got quite a good record and reputation. It’d be a bit immodest with me to agree with that.

It’s very tough at the moment we’re being squeezed on a number of fronts, public fi-nances are being squeezed so there are less of us to do the job, there’s less public subsidy from English heritage, there’s less private capital to do development to buildings, so buildings lie idle, so it’s very tough.

We’re going to have to as far as we can to tap into the big society, we haven’t really got into that but we’re starting.

There is a willingness to do something, but the problem is often in areas where there isn’t much money so if the state draws back on all fronts then these buildings are just left stranded. The government is encouraging private patron-age, in other words wealthy people to give, we’ll see how that goes, that’ll be a new area for us but we’ll see.

I think I have a favoured view and that’s looking from the junction of Great George Street and Woodhouse Lane down past the cathedral with all those red brick buildings giving me a sort of a comfort-ing feel and then the Town Hall sort of further on, its endless it’s really a sort of deep vista into that Victorian city abso-lutely remarkable really, so as a set piece I really enjoy that and also Boar Lane as well. I get my biggest thrill though from seeing buildings used,

Next Month...

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Next Month...

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Look out for our next issue in February, where we will be looking to bring you the Storey’s behind historic sporting venues from across the region of Leeds.

From historic football ground Elland Road - home of Leeds United AFC and witness to many a great sporting as well as cul-tural events. To the site where once rivals Huddersfield Town played their football, Leeds Road.

We also look at what role the Olympics will play in the future of our architectural landscape and we talk to experts who feel that Leeds’ architecture has a big role to play in attracting punters to the city.

We also look at the future of Headingley Cricket Ground and whether relegation for the Yorkshire side and the lack of an Ashes test will have an adverse effect on its future development.

We also delve in to the issue of a lack of open green spaces for our young people to utilise for physical sports activities and what the council plans to do about it.

TheSportingEdition

HERITAGE TOURS

Leeds Grand Theatre and City Varieties Music Hall offer backstage tours which

explore the venues’ intriguing stories.

Leeds Grand Theatre first opened its doors in 1878 and has continued to entertain

audiences through two world wars and beyond; ‘the show must go on!’ Be transported to the magical backstage world to see behind the scenes, learn about

the theatre’s history and try out the best seats in the house. The City Varieties, one of only four surviving music halls in the U.K., has recently

been restored to its former Victorian glory. From a music room above a pub, to the

world-famous home of The Good Old Days, come and hear the often colourful story of the City Varieties and learn about the improvements that have been made to ensure the success of the City Varieties for many more years to come.

Tour details: Tours last an hour and the following charges apply: £5/Adult and £3/Child (under 18 years) for a minimum

of 5 and maximum of 25 people.

Tours can be tailored to meet specific needs or interests. Please give details when making a booking.

To make a booking: Please provide a selection of dates that you would like to visit us and we will try and accommodate you where possible. Please note as City Varieties is a working venue, it is not always possible to have access to all areas.

Tour confirmation:

Once advised of tour availabilities, please confirm your

selected date/time/contact details as soon as possible

to avoid disappointment of losing the booking.

To

discuss your

groups’

needs or

to make a booking

please contact the Learning Team.

Catherine Callinan

Learning Officer

catherine.callinan@leedsgrandtheatre.com

0113 2977042