Former Office of the West Yorkshire Archives Service

A former library, then record office, built in 1938 and designed by architect F. L. Charlton.

The building is constructed of red-brown brick in English bond with a Portland stone plinth and a grey slate roof. It occupies a prominent corner position between two parallel roads that converge into Roundhay Road, forming a wide road junction. The rectangular plan features a distinctive broad canted corner facing the junction between the west and south elevations. The structure comprises two storeys with a small single storey section to the rear where it adjoins another building.

The hipped roof sits behind a plain parapet. A Portland stone plinth, varying in height between one and three courses according to ground slope, runs around the unattached sides and main entrance, and also forms the cills of the ground floor windows. All windows are original with steel frames and margin lights, set between raised brick pilasters. Bands of vertical bricks appear above the plinth, above the ground floor windows, and at the top of the first floor windows.

The west elevation onto Chapeltown Road displays six windows on each floor, with an additional window in the single storey section to the left. The ground floor windows are taller, and the right-hand bay steps back to form part of the canted corner. The east elevation to Roscoe Street has five windows on each floor plus two in the single storey section, with an arched iron-gated opening at the right hand end leading to a small rear yard. The south elevation contains four windows, the left hand bay set back as part of the canted corner. The parapet is slightly raised at the canted corner. A single tall stair window above the entrance has a raised brick architrave and contains stained glass portraying the Coat of Arms of Leeds City. The entrance features a Portland stone surround with the original panelled wooden double door set within inner stone jambs displaying Art Deco style detailing at the top.

Interior

An inner lobby with half-glazed flat timber double doors opens to the entrance hall, lined throughout with original Travertine marble panelling above door height in brown with a green marble strip at the base and top. A stairway rises to each side of the entrance door with steel balusters and brass handrails; the two flights join at a half landing to form a single cantilevered flight to the first floor. Opposite stands the original reception office projecting from the back wall with two timber-framed windows. On either side are half-glazed double doors with original fittings, each with a timber-framed window beyond. A brass plaque below the ticket office windows names the library and records its date and opening ceremony.

Two rooms lead from the entrance hall, each retaining some surviving open-fronted wooden shelving in Austrian oak and zig-zag cornicing on the coffered ceilings. The left hand room contains the original built-in desk fronting the reception office with drawers and ink wells. The former lending areas now contain metal racking from the building's subsequent use as an archive. To the rear are offices, a staff room with an original fireplace, and a kitchen with some original cupboards.

The staircase leads to the upper floor, where a former reading room occupies the right side and the Joseph Porton Room the left. The stair window contains stained glass showing the Leeds Coat of Arms. The reading room, now used for archive storage, has lost its original shelving and reading desks. The Joseph Porton Room, created to house a collection of Jewish books, spans the west side of the upper floor and contains a full suite of fitted glazed bookcases in Indian Silver Greywood with Australian cross-banding, featuring curved corners between windows and doors. A later partition towards the rear of the room is executed entirely in style, indistinguishable from the original. Polished wood plaques on the walls commemorate Joseph Porton, who funded the furnishings of the room, and Rabbi Moses Abrahams, whose library was donated to the city by the United Hebrew Congregation of Leeds and housed in the room.