Description

This list entry was subject to a Minor Amendment on 16 August 2021 to update the name and address and to reformat the text to current standards

SE2934SE
714-1/74/136

LEEDS
COOKRIDGE STREET (East side)
Leeds City Museum

(Formerly listed as Leeds Civic Theatre and College of Music, previously listed as: COOKRIDGE STREET (East side) Leeds Institute)

19/10/51

GV
II*

Institute of science and art, now theatre and college of music. 1865-8, with alterations to interior 1949 and 1983. By Cuthbert Brodrick. Gritstone ashlar, brick, slate roof with fish-scale slates to pavilion, cast-iron details including lamp standards; wrought-iron railings. Rectangular in plan with entrance on the long side and on a steep slope; one principal storey over a battered rusticated basement podium. Italianate and Second Empire French influence.

Steps flanked by low walls with lamps, large pilasters flanking central round-arched recessed entrance with the words: 'CIVIC THEATRE'; segmental pediment over and carved tympanum with the words: 'THE LEEDS INSTITUTE', pavilion roof above. Twelve segmental-headed windows with round-arched decorated tympana over and cast-iron balconies; roundels above, deep entablature and dentilled cornice, pilasters at corners and flanking entrance surmounted by urns.

Left return, City of Leeds College of Music: brick with stone dressings to doorways, corner pilasters, sill bands; two storeys, twelve first-floor windows, steps up to double board door with overlight in pedimented surround below windows three and nine, four-pane sashes throughout. Railing with bulbous finials to standards and rails.

Right return: ashlar facade as main front, twelve arched windows, the high podium having a doorway below window ten.

Rear: brick with stone bands, the circular roof of the lecture hall/theatre has clerestory sash windows with margin lights and a louvred ventilator with pointed finial.

INTERIOR: reception area dominated by Ionic columns in antis with a central flight of stone steps up to the theatre entrance with twisted cast-iron balusters and a moulded wooden handrail; landing balustrade with scrolls and flowers; flanking straight flights down to basement area; carved stone frieze to staircase walls.

Former lecture hall, now theatre: cast-iron columns support the gallery, scrolled balustrade partly removed when proscenium arch inserted 1949, (redesigned 1983), tiled walls with flower motifs in blue/green, elaborate central ceiling ventilator with scrolls and flower bosses, restored chandelier.

Basement: the lecture hall floor is supported by a massive central cast-iron column from which fifteen beams radiate out to an outer circle of columns.

Brodrick won the design for the Institute in 1860, the building included the central lecture hall approx 22m in diameter with seating for 1500, gallery, art studios and classrooms. By 1905 the Institute comprised Leeds Girls' Modern School, Leeds Boys' Modern School, the School of Art, Technical School, School of Music and the Commercial Evening School. They were housed in the main building and immediately east and south east of it.

(Robinson's Directory of Leeds: 1905-: VIII; Leeds Mechanics' Institute Annual Report for 1901/2: 1902-; An Historical Sketch of the Leeds Institute, 1824-1900).

Listing NGR: SE2994534015

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Leeds City Museum at Wikipedia
• Leeds City Museum official website
• Wikidata Q6515923

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

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  Northamptonshire: Buildings of England Series (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
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  The green guide for historic buildings: how to improve the environmental performance of listed and historic buildings
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  Derbyshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
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  London 3: North West: North West v. 3 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
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  Sussex: East with Brighton and Hove (Buildings of England) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
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