Numbers 79, 81, 83 And 83A And Attached Outbuildings

A row of houses, now offices, including a shop, with outbuildings attached to the north. The main houses date to the early 19th century with late 19th-century alterations and refurbishment and alterations around 1993. The outbuildings are probably 18th century.

The houses are constructed of coursed gritstone rubble with a grey slate roof, eaves band, moulded gutter brackets, and gable copings. There are four stone ridge stacks, the one at the right end reduced in height. The outbuildings are of squared and coursed rubble with stone slate roofs and a gable coping to the right; a brick stack stands at the corner of the single-storey section at the rear.

The houses are two storeys with a basement and a first-floor band. Eight first-floor windows are sashes with glazing bars; alternate windows are tripartite sashes. The far right window has been altered to paired plate-glass sashes in a plain stone surround. On the ground floor, the original design of two mirrored pairs of houses is evident to the centre and left, each with a tripartite sash and a 6-panel door with overlight in a plain stone surround with tie-stone jambs. The two centre doors are blocked, and the entrance at the far left (No. 79) has two stone steps. To the right of centre (No. 81), the original doorway is blocked with a new entrance and stone steps inserted immediately to the left, featuring a plain jambs, door and overlight matching No. 79. To the right is a late 20th-century shop entrance and window. Lintels of basement windows are visible at street level to the centre and left. At the rear, an original small-pane window appears on the first floor, left of centre; other windows have been enlarged.

The outbuilding range at the road frontage includes a small 19th and early 20th-century shop door and window at the far left, and a single-storey and taller block to the right with an inserted shop facade. The coursing runs through with breaks on the roof-truss line to the right of centre on the single-storey block and to the left of centre on the taller block.

At the rear, the outbuilding range suggests four different building uses, from left to right: (i) a 2-storey, 3-bay barn built of large squared blocks with herringbone tooling, with a blocked cart entrance to the left, other altered later openings, and a small square loading door in the left gable return; the right bay breaks forward slightly. (ii) A 2-storey, 2-bay stable or cottage with ground-floor openings altered and a square opening above. (iii) A single-storey, 4-bay stable or byre, possibly a smithy, with a brick stack to the eaves left and a small-paned window. (iv) A taller single-storey outbuilding.

The interior was not inspected.

The land was owned by the Earls of Cardigan in the 18th century. The outbuildings were possibly built as a smallholding encroachment on the road edge; several enclosures are shown on the west side of the Otley Road in 1834 in an area otherwise sparsely populated. The row of houses was possibly a building speculation by the Earl of Cardigan, the style being similar to estate housing of the period, with the earlier buildings retained as outbuildings. The alterations from four small houses to three probably took place soon after construction. By 1846, according to the Tithe Award, the land was described as three houses, garden and outbuildings, part owned by Henry Mitchell (architect or designer), Windsor Charlesworth and the Earl of Cardigan. In the same year the land was sold to the Headingley Turnpike Trust. Shops were inserted by the end of the 19th century, including W Abbey and Sons, seedsmen, who cultivated the gardens behind with employees living in the houses.