Description

LEEDS

SE2835NE HEADINGLEY LANE, Headingley
714-1/65/756 (South West side)
19/03/70 No.29
Rose Court with terrace wall and
steps (Leeds High School for Girls)
(Formerly Listed as:
HEADINGLEY LANE, Headingley
(South West side)
No.29
Rose Court, Leeds High School for
Girls, including gate piers in front
to north)

GV II

Large house, now part of school, with terrace wall and steps
on S side. c1842, altered C20. Probably by John Clark.
Possibly for George Smith. Ashlar, slate hipped roof.
2 storeys and basement/cellars. North front: 5 bays, the
central hipped bay breaks forward with a wide porte-cochere on
4 Tuscan columns supporting entablature and shallow pediment.
Entrance: a wide 6-panel door with overlight, the top 4 door
panels and the overlight with X-pattern glazing bars.
Fenestration: narrow moulded architraves, aprons below taller
ground-floor windows, casements. Double string course, eaves
band and brackets, tall ashlar stacks to left and right of
centre bay.
Rear, S front: the slope allows a high terrace with retaining
wall and steep flight of steps. The wall has 8 round-arched
niches and the end bays break forward, in rock-faced ashlar
(later concrete buttresses and railings), the central steps
are flanked by a rusticated ashlar balustrade. The central
garden entrance to the house is recessed behind 2 Tuscan
columns in antis, the tall ground-floor windows have a plain
pulvinated frieze and cornice, architraves and string course
as front.
Left return: the music room window is a deep square bay with
pilasters and deep blocking course. Right return: service
rooms demolished; single-storey addition late C20.
INTERIOR: the circular staircase hall has a fine mosaic floor
with Greek motifs, cantilevered staircase with scrolled
cast-iron balusters and mahogany handrail, domed ceiling on
detached composite columns.
The S rooms are linked by fine 6-panel double doors in swagged
architraves, the central room is octagonal (opening from the
garden) with vaulted ceiling and niches; the music room, left,

has fine plaster decoration including pilasters, a frieze of
putti with lyres and a coved and panelled ceiling; the door
has a surviving pair of Dresden china finger plates with
family crest. The right room has a bucranium frieze;
fireplaces concealed or removed. To right of the entrance hall
a fine spiral service stair with turned balusters.
First floor: the main stair rises to a balustraded landing
with columns supporting a vaulted ceiling; the central rear
dressing room is octagonal. Extensive vaulted cellars.
HISTORICAL NOTE: the land on which the house was built was a
part of the Fawcett Estate which was sold in building plots
1837-42. George Smith was a Leeds banker and one of the first
to move from the city centre into Headingley. By 1886 the
occupier was Miss Caroline Lambert. The design of the stair
hall and the cast-iron balustrade is identical to those in
Woodhouse Hall, Hyde Terrace (qv), also by Clark.
(Douglas, J (Victorian Society) pers. comm.; RCHME: Report:
Rose Court, 29 Headingly Lane: 1995-).

Listing NGR: SE2875235562

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26547560

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

• 
  London 6: Westminster (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England): Westminster v. 6
• 
  [(Bedfordshire, Huntingdon and Peterborough)] [By (author) Nikolaus Pevsner] published on (January, 1968)
• 
  Hertfordshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Pioneers of Modern Design: From William Morris to Walter Gropius (Penguin Art & Architecture)
• 
  A Buying and Owning a Listed Building: A Brief Guide
• 
  Old House Eco Handbook: A Practical Guide to Retrofitting for Energy-Efficiency & Sustainability