City Varieties

City Varieties, Leeds

Music hall theatre and inn. Built in 1865 by architect George Smith for Charles Thornton. The building incorporates the remains of a late 18th-century inn to the east. Constructed of rendered brick with a slate roof.

The theatre block on Swan Street comprises three storeys arranged in seven bays. The former entrance at the east end of the north side, accessed from The Headrow, is now obscured by a canopy and has a rectangular window above it. The rear facade to Swan Street features an entrance to the ground floor and basement bar positioned right of centre, with two tiers of round-arched recesses and bracketed eaves above.

The remains of the inn form a four-storey, two-bay block fronting Swan Street, projecting forward of the theatre. The main theatre entrance is positioned to the left, with a segmental arch and moulded plaster semicircular arch above. Later twentieth-century openings appear to the right. The first floor contains paired sash windows and two blocked windows. The second floor has two small segmental-arch casements to the left. The third floor has four flat-arched windows.

Interior

The former Headrow entrance contains a stairway of four straight flights with a ramped wooden handrail on a cast-iron balustrade decorated with circular and scroll motifs. These stairs rise to the rear of the auditorium above the ground-floor bar and connect to the higher galleries and boxes. The Swan Street entrance features glazed double doors opening into a more elaborate staircase hall with ticket office. Stone stairs to left and right, each of two flights, unite at the third flight and rise to a landing supported on ornate cast-iron columns. The balustrade to the stairs and landing comprises cast-iron scrolled panels supporting a ramped wooden handrail. The auditorium entrance lies to the left, with a bar and former dining room to the right. The dining room has an inserted ceiling; the room above retains traces of the original roll-moulded ceiling cornice relating to the earlier level and is lit by the two blocked windows visible on the facade's first floor.

The theatre auditorium features a dress circle supported by cast-iron columns with Corinthian-type capitals and a modillion cornice. The balustrade is crinoline or bow-fronted and solid, decorated with plaster enrichments, swags, medallions and female busts. The boxes have Corinthian columns with lotus-leaf bases; the gallery is similar but less ornate. A flat plaster ceiling with decorative elements rises to a three-centred proscenium arch with royal arms above.

Historical Context

Charles Thornton was the landlord of the Swan Inn on Swan Street, built in 1762. The Swan Inn is identifiable on the 1850 Ordnance Survey map as the projecting block to the right of the theatre. Thornton rebuilt the singing room as "Thornton's New Music Hall and Fashionable Lounge", which opened on 7 June 1865. Building evidence indicates that Thornton modified the inn by altering the Swan Street entrance to provide the main access to the theatre and to the bar and dining room. Floor levels within the inn were altered to accommodate the new staircase and openings from the landing. He leased the building to John Stansfield in 1876. The Insurance Plan shows the "Theatre of Varieties" with bar and dining room extending across the old inn, with a brew house and stable beneath the stage. In 1894 it became the City Varieties. The 1899 Ordnance Survey map shows the White Swan Inn beneath the auditorium, probably the original arrangement. Charles Thornton was also responsible for the construction of Thornton's Buildings and Thornton's Arcade.