Alf Cooke Ltd Packaging (Cookes Printers)

Alf Cooke Ltd Packaging, also known as Cooke's Printers, is a printing works built in 1881 and rebuilt after a fire in 1894. Designed by architect Thomas Ambler for Alf Cooke Ltd, the building features red brick with terracotta and stone dressings, topped by a slate roof with a shallow hipped form and modillion brackets along the deep eaves. It stands three storeys tall and measures 30 by 8 bays, with a splayed corner bay that rises to a clock tower.

The ornate corner entrance is highlighted by pilasters and a round arch topped with a high segmental broken pediment, which is decorated with scrolls and an oval plaque displaying the owner's initials in the tympanum. The facade facing Hunslet Road includes moulded string courses, with the ground floor featuring alternate segmental-headed windows and projecting bays that have pedimented gabled canopies over small semicircular-headed windows. The first floor is arcaded with elliptical arches made of alternating stone and brick on pilasters with dentilled imposts, while the second floor has 2-light round-headed windows separated by slender columns.

The right return of the building follows a similar pattern of openings but lacks ornamentation, particularly on the ground floor. The clock tower at the corner is square in plan, with corner pilasters, a dentilled cornice, and a dome topped with a large finial. Although the interior was not inspected, it is reputed to contain cast-iron columns that support mezzanine floors with offices on the first and second floors, leaving the central area open. Access to the upper levels is provided by two spiral staircases and one conventional corner stair.

Alf Cooke established his printing business in 1872, focusing on producing inexpensive prints of artworks for the mass market. The original works were destroyed by fire in 1880, and the replacement building was partially damaged in 1894. Thomas Ambler also designed many buildings on Boar Lane and St Paul's House in Park Square.