Description

SE 2933 SE LEEDS CITY SQUARE
(South side)
714-1/77/10
Queens Hotel
19.03.1981
II

Hotel. Opened 1937, altered late C20. By W Curtis Green and WH Hamlyn for the London, Midland and Scottish Railway Company. In stripped Classical style. Steel-framed with Portland stone ashlar and brick facades. EXTERIOR: 8 main storeys, 2 mezzanines and an attic. 'Plinth moulding above ground floor and its mezzanine; main course above the 6th floor. 17 bays, the 3 at each end break forward, each break carries a 1-bay pilastered temple front above the ain cornice; lintel by 7th floor pilastered. Central 11 bays break forward above ground floor and its mezzanine, parapet above. The break is continued on the floor above: bays 4 and 14 only, pedimented. Central 9 bays on 1st and 2nd floors project slightly; urns at corners. Continuous staircase windows from 3rd floor, bays 4 and 14: recessed and with relieving arch below main cornice. 1-bay pilastered attic with pediment. 3-bay recessed porch with flat hood. Metal-framed casements. The left 3 bays have an access road to the railway station at ground-floor level; the porte cochere is supported on drum columns with the coats of arms of the cities served by the railway company carved in relief; the banqueting entrance is below. Of one build with the Company Offices attached to right (qv) and station concourse to rear (qv) INTERIOR: extensive alterations but main reception rooms, banqueting entrance, banqueting room, corridors have much original detailing: veneered double doors, lift fittings, lighting, flooring; bedroom furnishing remains. Opened by the Earl of Harewood in November 1937, the building is considered to symbolise the transition of Leeds from a parochial Victorian city to a national centre. WH Hamlyn was the Railway Company's architect and W Curtis, designer of the interiors of the London Dorchester, was consultant, (Powell 1985). This hotel is built on a series of brick vaults which pre-existed from the Midland Railway's Wellington Street Station built in 1846. These vaults include the culvert for the Mill Goyt which flows under the concourse and joins the River Aire to the west of the site. The vaults are part of a much more extensive series of vaults which stretch under all the listed buildings in the group as well as the approaches to and under the present Leeds Station. The present station uses the approaches and footprint of both the Midland Railway's Wellington Street Station, of which the surface buildings have now all been demolished, and the London and North Western Railway's New Station of 1869. This was demolished in 1963 and rebuilt as the present Leeds Station, leaving only the vaults and the London and Scottish Railway buildings now surviving from an earlier period. (Victorian Society, Yorkshire Group Journal: Powell, K: Transatlantic Luxury in 1930s Leeds: The Queen's Hotel: 1985-: 2).

Listing NGR: SE2988033374

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Queens Hotel at Wikipedia
• Wikidata Q7270777

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

• 
  Somerset: South and West (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Devon (Pevsner Buildings of England)
• 
  Churches: An Architectural Guide (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Introductions)
• 
  Central Leinster: Kildare, Laois and Offaly (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of Ireland)
• 
  Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990
• 
  Gloucestershire 1: The Cotswolds: Cotswolds Pt. 1 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)