Description

LEEDS

SE2835NW BUCKINGHAM ROAD, Headingley
714-1/64/723 (East side)
04/07/96 Ford House (Leeds Girls' High
School)

GV II

Formerly known as: Buckingham Villas BUCKINGHAM ROAD
Headingley.
Pair of semi-detached houses, now school, with terrace steps.
Late C19, altered C20. For Mrs C and Mr J Kirk. Coursed
squared rock-faced gritstone, ashlar details, blue slate
gabled roof with fishscale slates to turrets. Gothic Revival
style. A mirror pair, 2 storeys with basement and attics, 8
bays with entrances bays 2 and 7.
The projecting entrance bays have half-glazed double doors
with cusped traceried fanlight in a round arch with attached
columns; these bays rise as square turrets with ornate
terracotta plaques between the 1st-floor and attic windows
with the letters 'CK' and 'JK'; brick corbel and eaves bands
and pyramid roof surmounted by a wrought-iron finial.
Plate-glass sashes, some altered to top-hinged casements;
square bay windows with pierced quatrefoil balustrades to
ground-floor bays 1, 4, 5 and 8, the central pair probably
lacking the cusped heads which remain in ground and 1st-floor
windows. Bays 1, 4, 5 and 8 have gabled attic windows and
wrought-iron finials. Continuous moulded first-floor band.
Tall corniced stacks forward of ridge, between bays 3 and 4,
and 5 and 6. Left and right returns: elaborate 3-light stair
windows with quatrefoil tracery and stained glass.
INTERIOR: alterations to accommodate the school have included
the removal of walls and the partitioning of larger rooms but
the original plan of principal south-facing rooms separated
from the rear service rooms by a long corridor can be traced.
Also of note are: the elaborate wooden Gothic-style staircases
with pierced balustrade and brass handrail; the tiled floor in
the stair hall, blue brown and white, possibly Minton; doors
with 4 chamfered panels; ceiling cornices in the principal
rooms, ground and 1st floors, the entrance hall having a
deeply-moulded bracketed cornice; several rooms have ceiling
roses. To rear, centre, a projecting single-storey bay is a
top-lit ?billiard room with elaborate timber roof.
Terrace steps: the entrances are flanked by low stone walls
with chamfered copings; the steps continue beyond the footpath
and have elaborate balustrades with quatrefoil piercings and
terminals with stepped pyramid capstones.

Built as Buckingham Villas, the 1886 Directory reveals that
the occupants were Mrs C Kirk and Mr John Kirk, a stover and
dyer.
(Kelly's Directory of Leeds: 1886-).

Listing NGR: SE2846235637

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26547356

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990
• 
  [(Cumberland and Westmorland)] [By (author) Nikolaus Pevsner] published on (January, 1967)
• 
  The green guide for historic buildings: how to improve the environmental performance of listed and historic buildings
• 
  Old House Eco Handbook: A Practical Guide to Retrofitting for Energy-Efficiency & Sustainability
• 
  Cork: City and County (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of Ireland)
• 
  Renovating Old Houses: Bringing New Life to Vintage Homes (For Pros By Pros)