Description

LEEDS

SE2736SE ALMA ROAD, Headingley
714-1/61/718 (North side)
17/10/73 No.11
Moorfield House

GV II

House, now architects' offices. 1855/56, restored 1979-80. For
William Glover Joy. Coursed squared gritstone and ashlar,
ornate slate roof with fish-scale pattern. 2 storeys and
basements and 3-storey large octagonal tower on right. In
Tudor Gothic Revival style.
Main facade faces E; 6 first-floor windows, the third in a
projecting canted bay with projecting single-storey porch,
possibly an addition. The porch has 4-centred arch doorway
with 3 cusped lights over, in architrave carved with crouching
dogs and a deep hoodmould with male and female heads in the
stops; octagonal corner turrets rise to cornice with traceried
panels and tall ogee domes with crocketed finials linked by
embattled parapet with small gable over central plaque with
shield. The main range has tall windows with restored cross
frames, hoodmoulds, moulded string course, embattled parapet
and octagonal spire above entrance bay; tall Tudor-style
chimneys with 2 or 3 octagonal shafts each.
Tower right has Gothic traceried ground-floor windows,
machicolated and embattled parapet with gargoyles and with
attached octagonal stair turret with short spire.
INTERIOR: hall with stone cusped arches on polished granite
columns, wrought-iron balusters to open-well stairs. Gothic
Revival vaulted octagonal chapel and rooms with Tudor arched
panelling and ceilings with pendants.
HISTORICAL NOTE: 1856-77 the Glover Joy Family (William was
mayor of Leeds in 1869); 1877-c1885 Samuel Smith, tanner and
currier of Meanwood; c1885 re-acquired by the Joy family; 1891
sold to John Carr Nicholson, dry salter and manufacturing
chemist; 1936 bought for »1,650 by Elsie Thackrah of Harrogate
and became the Moorfield House Missionary College (the grounds
to E sold for 'Moorfield Estate' housing); 1939-44 taken over
by Secretary of State for Air as wartime administration
offices; 1944-73 Automobile Association regional offices,
additions to rear; 1979 extensively refurbished for use by
Fletcher Ross and Hickling, now Fletcher Joseph partnership,
architects.
(Michael Devenish (Fletcher Joseph Partnership) pers. comm.).

Listing NGR: SE2799136438

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Moorfield House, Headingley at Wikipedia
• Wikidata Q6908376

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

• 
  Cork: City and County (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of Ireland)
• 
  Specifications for Building Conservation: Volume 1: External Structure: Practical Examples v. 2
• 
  Kent: North East and East (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Somerset: North and Bristol: The Buildings of England (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Devon (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Oxfordshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)