Description

LEEDS

SE23NE TOWERS WAY, Meanwood
714-1/6/983 (North West side)
05/08/76 Meanwood Towers
(Formerly Listed as:
PARKLAND DRIVE, Meanwood
Meanwood Towers)

II

Formerly known as: Carr House Meanwood.
Large house, now 12 flats. 1867, converted C20. By Edward
Welby Pugin for Thomas Stuart Kennedy.
Coursed rock-faced gritstone with ashlar details, slate roofs.
3 storeys with attics and cellars, a single-storey 5-bay
service wing with projecting octagonal 'bell turret'. In High
Victorian, Gothic Revival style.
Asymmetrical facade includes buttressed entrance tower with
Gothic arch, attached columns, oriel window on deep brackets
above, moulded coping; tall gabled bay with mullion and
transom windows, carved stone detail includes gargoyles and
deep eaves brackets, copings and finials; the multi-flue
stacks part dismantled.
The long low wing to right has mullioned windows, gable with
cusped window, surviving full-height 2-flue ashlar stack; the
octagonal bay has louvres and pointed roof.
The rear (SW) facade very elaborate: 4 bays, the outer bays
gabled, with bay windows, balcony, traceried stained-glass
windows, gabled dormers.
Left return: projecting central gabled bay with tall canted
oriel stair window, quatrefoil tracery, 4-light transom and
mullion window in apex.
INTERIOR: original features include: steps up through the
porch to outer double board doors; inner elaborate timber and
painted-glass screen with poem/quotation in Gothic lettering.
Rectangular tall inner hall with galleried landing, 9-panel
doors, panelling, overpainted marble columns and Gothic arches
to black marble staircase with carved stone balustrade and
wide pink marble moulded handrail. Balustrade with chamfered
rails to landing, doors opening off; a narrow staircase with
elaborate turned newels rises on the NE side to the 2nd floor;
stone chamfered arches to upper gallery, part blocked. The
ground-floor rooms examined have inserted partitions, one
retains a large stone medieval-style fireplace. Other rooms
retain fireplaces and much fine stained glass.
Thomas Stuart Kennedy was a machine maker; the house was
originally 'Carr House'. An organ built by Schulze and Sons of
Paulinzelle, Germany for his wife was housed in a separate
wooden organ house which seated 800 people; it was moved to St
Bartholomew's Church, Armley in 1879 (qv).
(Linstrum D: West Yorkshire Architects and Architecture:
London: 1978-: 85, 116; Linstrum D: The Historic Architecture
of Leeds: 1969-: 78; Hopwood WA & Casperson FP: Meanwood;
Village, Valley, Industry and People: 1986-: 68).

Listing NGR: SE2916037866

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26547402

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

• 
  Huddersfield in 50 Buildings
• 
  Essex: Buildings of England Series (Buildings of England) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Gwent/Monmouthshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of Wales)
• 
  Pevsner's Architectural Glossary (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Introductions)
• 
  Georgian Style and Design for Contemporary Living
• 
  Somerset: North and Bristol: The Buildings of England (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)