Priory Street Sports And Community Centre

The building is a late 1850s Priory Street Wesleyan School, now operating as a sports and community centre. It was designed by James Simpson of Leeds. Constructed primarily of pink-cream mottled brick in English garden-wall bond, with an ashlar plinth and dressings, the building features a slate roof and brick stacks. A later extension, built of similar brick with orange brick banding and a slate roof, is set back to the right.

The main front consists of three projecting, pedimented blocks connected by two-bay ranges. The central block, slightly set forward, has a four-bay design, while the projecting end blocks are four bays each. The original central entrance in the centre block has been altered to a tall, three-light window with six-pane sashes within a plain ashlar surround and a moulded cornice hood. Flanking windows and those in the linking ranges are segment-headed sashes with 18 panes, set within keyed eared and shouldered architraves and sitting on sill blocks. The end blocks feature round-headed radial-glazed sashes beneath keyed moulded archivolts, continuous moulded imposts, and acanthus label-stops. A moulded cornice runs along the eaves and beneath the pediments; the centre block’s pediment encloses a blind circular panel within a shaped surround and moulded semicircular archivolt. A later extension to the right is linked to the main block via an entrance bay with panelled double doors and a divided overlight, and contains a gabled classroom block with a three-light, segment-arched window featuring moulded mullions, transoms, and sashes.

The rear of the main building repeats the window types found on the front in the end blocks, but without architraves, with plain brick arches instead. A four-course raised brick eaves band with dentils across the centre range continues on the returns of the end blocks. The left return exhibits seven round-headed, radial-glazed sash windows with painted stone sills and gauged brick arches. The eaves band is consistent with the rear.

Internally, the rooms feature coffered ceilings with stop-chamfered spine beams carried on shaped brackets and inverted bell-shaped bosses at the intersections. Surviving decorative elements include dado panelling, picture rails, and rails in most rooms. An entrance hall contains a copper wall monument commemorating students who died in the 1914-1918 War.