Banney Royd

Banney Royd is a Grade I listed house built in 1900–1 on the north side of Halifax Road. It was designed by architect Edgar Wood for W H Armitage and stands as one of the outstanding private houses of its decade, receiving extensive international recognition including coverage in Hermann Muthesius' "Das Englische Haus" (1904).

The building is constructed of hammer-dressed stone with an ashlar porch, beneath a pitched stone slate roof. It is two storeys tall with an irregular plan. The external design features coped gables, some with art nouveau detailing, and flat-topped canted bays. Windows are mullioned and transomed throughout, with mullions of either square or chamfered section. Tall plain stacks, some positioned diagonally, rise from the roofline. A single ornamented lintel and one tapering buttress feature among the elevations. Numerous rainwater-heads and downpipes are decorated with moulded art nouveau ornament and "WHA" monograms.

The most striking external features are the porch and the shallow canted projecting chimney breast. The porch is gabled with a carved art nouveau finial, flanked by tapering diagonally-placed buttresses with moulded cornices. The first-floor window features a moulded art nouveau hoodmould. The round-arched door displays carved foliage corbels to the arch and an exaggerated keystone with art nouveau foliage either side, topped with a very deep art nouveau hoodmould. The door itself is simple, fitted with two narrow glazed panels incorporating some stained glass, and large brass art nouveau fingerplates. Inside, the porch contains a complex groin vault with similar round-arched doors and matching brass fingerplates.

The projecting chimney breast is shallow and canted with a coped pitched gable. Deeply overhanging eaves project on either side, and two sides feature ranges of two-light stone mullioned windows.

Internally, the walls are wainscotted with simple oak panels and a cornice positioned approximately five feet up, with tapering pilasters. The staircase has tall plain tapering newels with bands of art nouveau carved briar ornament near the tops. Several upstairs rooms contain plaster barrel vaults, including the stairs, with bands or panels of art nouveau foliage ornament. A barrel-vaulted downstairs corridor features foliage tendrils crossing to form ribs. One upstairs room has a canted bay accessed through an arch, with two tapering wooden mullions with single applied ornament duplicating the external design.

Doors throughout are framed by tapering pilasters of concave section and fitted with tall narrow panels, some containing small glazed panels, and art nouveau hinges, latches and fingerplates.

The principal interior features are the projecting ashlar chimney breasts, which taper upwards and are flanked by tapering pilasters or buttresses with moulded cornices, often displaying a wavy art nouveau pattern. Lintels and buttress heads are carved with figures and art nouveau foliage. The hall fireplace lintel features an undulating pattern. Several fireplaces display exaggeratedly tall keystones. One room contains an exaggeratedly deeply moulded "cornice", while another displays a relief figure inscribed "THE ANGEL OF THE RAINS". The hall chimney piece bears no keystone but features a relief figure bearing the legend "EACH MANS CHIMNEY IS HIS GOLDEN MILESTONE". One fireplace is set back behind a broad round arch, while another is positioned behind a Venetian arch made on tapering wooden columns with bands of art nouveau flora and fauna carved round the top and a very deeply moulded cornice. Steps and balustrades on the garden side feature unmoulded balusters, plain rails and ball finials.