Description

LEEDS

SE2934SW HANOVER SQUARE
714-1/73/202 (North side)
19/10/51 Denison Hall
(Formerly Listed as:
HANOVER SQUARE
(North side)
Denison Hall including gate piers to
north-east)

GV II*

Formerly known as: Woodhouse Park HANOVER SQUARE.
Suburban villa, now vacant. 1786, altered C19 and C20. By
William Lindley of Doncaster. For John Denison. Ashlar and
stone from Potternewton quarries, slate hipped roofs.
The S-facing garden front has a 3-storey, 5-bay block with
2-storey wings and 2 storey wing set back on left; entrance
facade on the 2-storey, 3-bay right return. Classical style.
Sashes mostly with glazing bars.
Garden front: central 3 windows in semicircular recesses,
plain string above, 4 giant Ionic pilasters extending through
2 floors, entablature, moulded eaves cornice and pediment with
arms enriched with swags in tympanum and surmounted by urn
finials. Long ashlar stacks flank central block, chimney pots
missing. Flanking bowed wings, each with 3 windows, blind
balustraded parapet.
Rear: centre obscured by added block; shallower courses to
stonework, sash windows with margin lights to ground and 1st
floors, Venetian window to 1st-floor left, central pediment.
Right return: central doorway with overlight, attached Doric
columns supporting carved entablature and pediment.
First-floor band, Venetian window above entrance, moulded
cornice, parapet ramped up to centre with 3 blind recesses.
INTERIOR: entrance vestibule with a room opening off each
side, a screen of plaster columns in antis painted in
imitation of veined marble, acroteria and swags to capitals;
fine oval stair hall beyond has a cantilevered staircase with
wrought-iron balustrade of wavy rails and figure-of-eight
design with ribbon-like centres, described as the work of John
Rodgers. Oval dome with delicate plasterwork, fan and husk
motifs, traceried top light.
Beyond the stair hall a small lobby with curved walls and
round-arched niches, the cornice overpainted; room with
moulded plaster panels beyond. 6-panel veneered doors, some
altered. A secondary staircase has turned balusters and a
moulded and ramped handrail; the service staircase reaching

from ground floor to attics, at the W side of the house, has
cantilevered stone stairs and plain square-section balusters.
On the 1st floor the principal rooms retain ceiling cornices,
several rooms partitioned; the landing has moulded
round-arched plaster panels, catch-light windows on N and E
sides, doors on S and W sides.
The E wing 1st floor is the music room, lit by Venetian
windows, coved plaster ceiling has central rose with beading
and husks, at ends a relief panel with wind instruments;
pilasters at each end have Corinthian capitals. The central
room on the S side is a narrow ante-room with rounded ends,
panelled plaster ceiling, fan motif with bows and husks,
ceiling cornice. The 4th staircase, in the NW corner of the
building, is an attic stair with ramped handrail; 4-panel
doors, partitioned rooms.
HISTORICAL NOTE: John Denison, born Wilkinson, inherited his
fortune from his uncle, William Denison, Leeds' richest
woollen merchant, in 1785. The solicitor's bills and building
accounts survive, naming the major craftsmen involved in the
work, but not the architect. Letters written by William
Lindley to a Doncaster client reveal that he was responsible
for the design here; he refers in detail to the curved inner
walls of 'Mr Denison's vestibule' and in 1777 had designed Nos
5, 6 & 7 Park Place (qqv). John Denison used the hall for only
2 years; it was advertised for sale and by 1796 was let to Sir
Richard van Dempne Johnson of Hackness. In 1823 the then
owner, George Rawson, commissioned Watson and Pritchett to
build Hanover Square with the hall as the N side.
(Yorkshire Archaeological Journal, Vol 61: Hewlings, R:
Denison Hall, Little Woodhouse, Leeds: 1989-: 173; Yorkshire
Archaeological Journal, Vol 63: Taylor, A: Denison Hall,
Leeds, a postscript to Richard Hewlings: 1991-: 220).

Listing NGR: SE2909234083

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q17533619

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

• 
  Lancashire: Liverpool and the South-West (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Old House Care and Repair
• 
  Suffolk: East (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  The Listed Buildings and Other Principal Structures at the Royal Gunpowder Mills Waltham Abbey
• 
  Development and Design of Heritage Sensitive Sites: Strategies for Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas
• 
  Historic Environment Law: Planning, Listed Buildings, Monuments, Conservation Areas and Objects by Harwood, Richard (2012) Paperback