16 Crown Point Road, City and Hunslet, Leeds

Summary

Terraced house, built between about 1863 and 1866, architect unknown.

Description

Terraced house, built between about 1863 and 1866, architect unknown.

MATERIALS: red brick laid in irregular English bond (five rows of stretchers to one row of headers) with buff-coloured Millstone Grit ashlar dressings, and originally blue Welsh slate roof coverings (currently covered in corrugated iron).

PLAN: a two-storey terraced house with a basement. An L-shaped plan on a corner site; forming a variation or adaptation on a two-room smaller Victorian villa, the rear rooms being transferred to the sides. The rear elevations are largely blind, with comparatively few openings, probably due to the proximity of neighbouring properties.

EXTERIOR: the main entrance front is at the west; a symmetrical three-bay composition with a central porch flanked by segmental-headed windows on the ground-floor and then a further three segmental-headed windows to the first-floor. A brick and ashlar plinth runs beneath the windows and around the terrace. The entrance is approached by stone steps and the porch comprises columns, each with a moulded base and delicately-carved foliage capital, supporting chamfered monoliths and a lintel surmounted by a cornice. The ground-floor windows have stone lintels with elaborate floral decoration to the keystones. Beneath each window sill is a brick panel and nailhead decorative course. All the windows are currently blocked with brick and concrete blocks but behind this recent infill are two-over-two sashes with slender glazing bars to the ground-floor. The first-floor windows are four-over-four sashes which have plain segmental heads and sills supported by stone corbels; a stone string course runs between the sills, continuing across and around the terrace. There is a hipped roof with deep eaves supported by corbels above a moulded white brick eaves band and nailhead decorative course. A single chimney stack is built into the south wall.

The north elevation comprises, from left to right: a segmental-headed window matching those on the west front, a segmental-headed doorway with decorative keystone and then a large canted bay window to the ground-floor, followed by two plain segmental-headed windows to the first-floor. The bay window has consoles supporting a moulded cornice. Where the sashes survive behind the recent brick and concrete infill, they match those to the west front. A chimney stack rises over the centre of the roof and another is built into the east wall separating the property from 18 Crown Point Road. At the rear, the south elevation contains a single window opening at ground-floor level whilst the east elevation has a low projecting two-storey, two-bay, lean-to containing windows (lighting the stairs) and a back door. The window openings, which are currently blocked, have rubbed-brick voussoirs forming the slightest of cambered arches. A small single-storey addition with a timber-framed doorway is built into the south end of the east wall where it meets the adjoining terrace.

INTERIOR: the main entrance on Hunslet Road leads into a wide hallway, which retains remains of a plaster cornice and decorative ceiling rose. This in turn leads off left and right into two reception rooms. The reception room on the left retains timber panelling beneath the sash windows but is missing the chimneypiece. A plaster cornice largely survives but the ceiling, which had a plaster rose matching that in the hallway, has collapsed. The second reception room is entered through a flush timber door and has a 1930s fireplace. The third room on the ground-floor is accessed from beneath the mid-landing; it contains a sash window in each of its two external walls but has had its fire surround removed. In the hallway a dog-leg staircase extends from the basement up to the first-floor; it is missing the original column-on-vase balusters and ramped handrail. The mid-landing of the staircase leads into a bathroom to the right, then carries on to the first-floor landing. A large bedroom is entered to the left, with a bathroom to the centre, over the entrance porch. To the right is a second bedroom with a small alcove beside the chimney breast. All first-floor rooms are plainly-plastered and have no remaining chimneypieces.

Note: the interior was not inspected and the description is based on internal photographs and a drone survey.

History

Hunslet is now an inner-city area of Leeds immediately south of Leeds City Railway Station, bounded on the north and east by the River Aire. It was a rural village until rapid growth during the C19 as a result of the Industrial Revolution. Hunslet became a major industrial and manufacturing centre, later dubbed the ‘workshop of Leeds’, including mills, foundries, railway and engineering works, a gasworks, chemical works, dye works and leather works, as well as workers' housing. It contributed to Leeds’s status as one of England’s most important commercial and industrial cities, becoming known as ‘the city that made everything’. Industrial expansion went hand-in-hand with an increase in the labour force and the construction of new workers’ housing, especially in the heartland of Leeds bordering the River Aire; the population of Hunslet expanded nearly twelve-fold over the course of the C19. In the 1840s and 1850s, there was a re-planning of the infrastructure in the area. A new river crossing (the second such crossing) was created linking Hunslet to the city at Crown Point Bridge. Two principal streets were laid out; Crown Point Road, extending south-west of the new bridge, and what would become Black Bull Street, extending south of the bridge, both linking to Hunslet Lane. The large triangle of largely open land between these streets passed between several owners before being speculatively divided into smaller plots with a network of subsidiary streets. One of these plots forms the area covered by the current terrace houses. It was advertised in the Leeds Intelligencer on the 21 January 1860 as having extensive frontages to Crown Point Road, Grey Street (now known as Hunslet Road), and an intended street that would become Sheaf Street. In 1862 the area was described in the Leeds Times as ‘one of the most improving parts of the town of Leeds’.

The subject site is shown as vacant, without any houses, on a map of Leeds drawn by B R Davies for the Weekly Dispatch Atlas published in 1863. (It should be noted that the area may have been surveyed some time before the publication date). A map of Leeds produced by W Brierley in 1866 depicts a set of buildings with a rectangular footprint on the corner of Crown Point Road and (what later became) Hunslet Road; the first of these terrace houses. By 1872 the block of houses is shown as broadly L-shaped in footprint, extending to the north-east. The veracity of depictions of individual buildings or houses on these two small-scale maps is uncertain. The first detailed plan of the area is the 1891 Ordnance Survey (OS) map, which depicts all the current dwellings, divided into five separate buildings, including ash pits and outdoor lavatories in the backyards. Addresses and numbering of these properties have varied over time, and multiple addresses have sometimes been given for single properties. The houses were re-numbered in 1901. The rear elevations of the properties gained additional duplicate addresses (as Nos 2 to 10 Sheaf Street) at a later date, which appears to have been either because they were sub-let with multiple occupants or on the assumption that several of the dwellings were back-to-back houses.

16 Crown Point Road is a single dwelling forming one of the five buildings shown on the 1891 OS map, being situated at the corner of the two roads. It is also known under the address 35 Hunslet Road. The historic maps indicate that it was built in around 1863-1866. A report (Stephen Levant Heritage Architecture, 2018) provides documentary information regarding the former occupants (with the acknowledgement that due to the changing of house numbers and street names, findings dating to the early 1870s could not be substantiated), summarised as follows. In the 1871 census George Brown, a currier employing 44 men, was living at the property with his wife, five children and a domestic servant. In the mid-1870s the property may have been used together with 18 Crown Point Road as the St Ann’s Cottage lodging house but this use appears to have ceased by the 1880s when there were single families living at the addresses. Later occupants included: Reverend Frederick Marshall in 1892; William Clarke, a labourer, and his family plus five boarders in 1901; John Webb, a clothier, and his family in 1911; William Idle, a horse keeper, and sub-tenants in 1920. The building was used as an office for the Trade Technical Service of Joseph Tetley & Son Brewery in the 1960s. It remained in use until about the 1980s but became derelict in the 1990s and is currently (2018) unoccupied.

Reasons for Listing

16 Crown Point Road, built in about 1863-1866, in Hunslet, Leeds, is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Historic interest:

* as a surviving example of mid-C19 workers’ housing in Hunslet, a major industrial and manufacturing centre following the Industrial Revolution dubbed the ‘workshop of Leeds’;
* as a well-documented workers’ house with a list of known occupants, including a currier, clothier and horsekeeper, professions which are particularly representative of the working population of this important area.

Architectural interest:

* for the plan form as a relatively unusual variation or adaptation on a two-room smaller Victorian villa, the rear rooms being transferred to the sides and the back elevations being largely blind;
* for the external architectural features and detailing, such as the porch columns with delicately-carved foliage capitals, floral decorations to the keystones and the ornamental panels and eaves bands, lifting it above the typical surviving terraced house of this date in this area of the country.

Group value:

* with 18 Crown Point Road, and 37, 39 and 41 Hunslet Road, which form the rest of this distinctive terrace, sharing similar architectural features and also illustrating the development of house plan forms in the mid to late C19.

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