Description

LEEDS

SE2934SW CLARENDON ROAD 714-1/73/120 (South West side) 08/05/73 No.23 Claremont, with garden wall to Clarendon Road and Kendal Lane (Formerly Listed as: CLARENDON ROAD (South West side) No.23 Claremont, including garden wall to east along Clarendon Road and Kendal Lane)

II

House, now offices, with boundary wall. Late C18 with later alterations and additions, the most important in 1856 by George Corson for Dr John Deakin Heaton. Red brick, Flemish bond, slate hipped and stone roofs. 2 storeys over cellars, almost square plan with a much-altered service range attached to the rear left corner. South front: 1:3:1 windows, centre projects slightly with pediment over containing circular window. Central porch with glazed double doors, Tuscan 3/4 columns and pediment; the single-storey, 2-window bay built out to right has a carved plaque with coat of arms between the windows. 4-pane sashes, flat brick arches, continuous sill band to 1st floor, round bosses between. Modillion eaves cornice, tall banded brick stacks to left and right. Left return: 4 bays, a wide 6-panel door with traceried fanlight to left, 16-pane sash with margin lights, sash with glazing bars and a single-storey square bay-windowed extension to far right; 4 sashes with glazing bars and a blind window to first floor. Right return: 6-panelled door with traceried overlight to right, 2 large bay windows to ground floor left, one canted and with HFH, MH, 1856, and LH in the spandrels, the other one square, 16-pane sash far right; 7 sash windows of 12 and 16 panes to first floor, the outer ones on canted corners (the right-hand window blind). Sill band and modillion cornice as front. INTERIOR: the C18 plan is of a cross corridor with service entrances surviving; Dr Heaton's alterations were recorded by him in a diary. The porch floor of polychrome tiles has the words 'SALVETE AMICI' and 'VALETE AMICI'; half-glazed inner double doors with stained glass in the fanlight; Heaton coat

of arms with the date 1856, initials and motto, 'esse quam videre', inner shutters to upper half of doors. Above the inner doors is an over-painted stone plaque with the motto, 'THOU LORD ONLY MAKEST ME DWELL IN SAFETY'. The entrance hall has polychrome Minton floor tiles laid in 1867, doorways left and right with 6 fielded-panel doors, egg-and-dart mouldings. A wide round arch opens into the stone-flagged staircase hall containing a cantilevered stair of 3 flights, knopped balusters, fluted terminal, ramped handrail, column balusters to landing balustrade. Style and roof structure suggest that the staircase is later than the original house, c1770. 2 circular vents with shutters were inserted by Dr Heaton; the oval top light has a frieze and wreaths of oak leaves. To the rear a service stair with bulbous column-on-vase balusters and ramped handrail. Principal rooms contain features introduced by Dr Heaton and the Yorkshire Archaeological and Thoresby Societies. Ground floor, front left: drawing room altered to dining room by Heaton, now lecture room: 1740 doorcase from Scarcroft Grange given to YAS in 1955, C19 fireplace (a Classical copy), flanking recesses of 1859 with panels of Minton tiles. Behind this room a storeroom altered to butler's pantry by Heaton, behind again the old kitchen/servants' hall with sliding shutters to window, probably 1849, the C18 Classical wooden fire surround from the original front drawing room; shelves and furnishings in these rear rooms 1925 by Kitson, Parish and Ledgard, adapted from the YAS's earlier premises. Ground floor, front right: the original dining room altered to drawing room by Heaton, moulded ceiling cornice, E bay window 1856, S recesses with interlaced strapwork (Corson 1865) and set of Minton tiles representing the seasons (1871). The middle room on the E side of the house is now the Heaton Room with YAS Archives section, this was Heaton's library, the oak fireplace was found in the basement in 1968. The rear right room is octagonal, with a fireplace removed from the library in 1867; behind this fireplace a 'safe' room is entered from the doorway to left of the fireplace. First floor: the 3 south rooms now occupied by the Thoresby Society contain 2 Adam-style marble fireplaces from Osmondthorpe Hall (Whitkirk) acquired by the Society in 1925 and moved from their earlier premises in 1967; the carving is said to be by John Flaxman. The 16-pane sash windows on the first floor were taken from the ground floor when the bay windows were inserted. The rear service range contained stables and brewhouse, rebuilt by Heaton and remodelled as student accommodation mid C20. SUBSIDIARY FEATURES: boundary wall, C18 with rebuilding on

Clarendon Road 1991. Red brick, stone coping. Linked to the rear service wing, it extends along Kendal Lane, the original N boundary of the Claremont estate, ramped down from approx 5m to 3m high. 2 further ramps (rebuilt) at the Clarendon Road corner reduce the wall to approx 2m. HISTORICAL NOTE: see Payne, 1980. Dr Heaton was a physician at the Leeds General Infirmary and first chairman of the Council of the Yorkshire College of Science, later the University of Leeds. (Payne, B & Payne, D: Claremont, Leeds: Leeds: 1980-).

Listing NGR: SE2922034103

External Links

• Wikidata Q26655903

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