Oxley Hall Leeds University, And Attached Terrace Walls

Oxley Hall, now a hall of residence for Leeds University, is a large house accompanied by terrace walls and steps. It was originally built around 1861 and significantly altered in the late 1880s and around 1930, by the architects John Simpson and WH Thorp. The building was commissioned for Henry Oxley, a banker. The construction incorporates coursed gritstone and ashlar, with a grey slate roof featuring decorative bands and fish-scale slates. It is two storeys with attics, presenting irregular facades with six and four first-floor windows, designed in a Jacobethan style.

The front entrance features a round-arched doorway with moulded and keyed details, pilasters, and a cornice, along with mullion and transom windows and a first-floor string course. Elaborate stone pierced parapets and Dutch gables are present, with a ridge stack that has been reduced in height. The left side of the building, facing the gardens, displays a central projecting bay with a large, pedimented six-light ground-floor window. Above this is an oriel window, and a single light to the upper stage of a square tower featuring bracketed eaves. The tower’s roof is splayed with ornate cast-iron cresting and a wind vane. Vase and ball finials adorn the Dutch gable on the left, while a stack to the right has also been reduced.

A rear link range incorporates double doors within a keyed surround, alongside a carved plaque and flanking three-light mullion and transom windows. Inside, the fine staircase hall boasts a polychrome tile floor and a cantilevered stone staircase with ornate iron balustrade. A hall of residence extension, constructed around 1930, connects to the main house via a five-bay orangery-style arcade of round arches. This extension is an L-plan, three-storey block with a shaped gable echoing the main house, a central Tudor-arched entrance, a cornice, a two-storey stair window with carved parapet, and mullioned windows of two and three lights.

The ancillary features include a low, ramped rear wall with a plain railing, piers with short obelisk finials, and double gates enclosing a small courtyard. The terrace walls to the garden front provide a pierced stone parapet and incorporate two flights of stone steps with balustrades and vases.

The property has a historical context rooted in the purchase of the Englefield Estate in 1858 by John Naylor, who then sold a portion to Henry Oxley. By 1864, Henry Oxley resided at Weetwood Villa, also known as 'The Elms’, with later residents including Arthur J Tannett Walker. Around 1920, JW Oxley gifted the house and grounds to the University, which adapted it as a hall for women students, formally opened in October 1921, followed by an extension to accommodate 70 students, around 1930.