Hotel Metropole

The Hotel Metropole is a large hotel constructed between 1897 and 1899 by Chorley, Connon and Chorley. It is built of pink/red brick and terracotta, manufactured by JC Edwards of Ruabon, with a stone cupola and slate roof. Described as being in a ‘French Loire taste’ by Pevsner, it is an asymmetrical building of five and six storeys, with attics, approximately nine bays wide. The two bays to the left project slightly, featuring large Dutch gables and first and second-floor oriels with ornate moulded terracotta soffits supported on tall ornamented brackets. Similar oriels are present in the projecting bays to the right. The semicircular entrance, at the centre of the building, is framed by Ionic columns with moulded shafts and a moulded frieze within the entablature, supporting a semicircular bay above with rusticated Tuscan pilasters; a Dutch gable sits above this. Cornices are present at the floor levels, and the ground and first floors have moulded architraves with rusticated keyblocks, some topped with small pediments. A stone cupola, featuring round-arched openings with iron grilles, angle columns, a wide cornice, and a leaded pointed dome with circular openings on each side, tops the left-hand side of the façade.

The left return of the building presents a seven-bay facade, with a central three-window staircase bay and ornate windows in the three bays to the right. An ornate entrance is situated far to the left, featuring banded rustication, a keyed round arch with an impost band, an entablature, and a cornice surmounted by a pedimented plaque displaying the coat of arms of Leeds, flanked by scrolls.

The interior features terracotta and glazed tiles within the inner porch, which has two tiers of squat columns flanking glazed doors, and a green and yellow overlight. A moulded ceiling incorporates a thistle motif. The reception hall contains an arched ceiling with a moulded cornice and a glazed screen with double doors, as well as an Art Deco-style inner arch and clock. The screen wall doors lead into a large inner hall characterized by giant moulded columns supporting an entablature and cornice, and a panelled coved ceiling. A small room with an elaborate panelled ceiling, now part of the restaurant, is situated to the right of the central hall. To the left of the reception hall, a wide cantilevered staircase extends through all six floors. The staircase features an elaborate bronze balustrade with scrolls and pierced plaques, simplified on the upper floors, alongside a moulded wood handrail. Surviving fireplaces include a cast-iron grate with an eared architrave in a fourth-floor service room and a cast-iron moulded surround, brackets, cornice and basket grate in the sixth-floor former staff accommodation. The hotel’s cupola was originally part of the fourth White Cloth Hall, built in King Street in 1869 after the demolition of the earlier Cloth Hall in Crown Street. The building materials were supplied by J Edwards, the Rhos Glazed Brick and Trefynant Fireclay Works, Pen-y-bont, and were also used in several other buildings designed by Connon and Chorley.