Former Leeds Public Dispensary with Forecourt Railings and Gates

Former Leeds Public Dispensary

This is a Grade II listed building dating to 1865–1867, designed by William Hill in the Italianate style. It occupies a prominent corner site at the junction of Vicar Lane and North Street in Leeds.

The building is constructed of red brick with stone dressings and a hipped slate roof. It is rectangular on plan and rises to two storeys, with rounded corners to the east and square angle buttresses to the west.

The north and west elevations, which face the main roads, are the most elaborately decorated. Both feature an ashlar and moulded stone plinth, a first-floor moulded and heavily dentilled plat band, and brick pilasters rising to a heavy stone modillion cornice and balustraded parapet. Round-headed windows with decoratively moulded arches and string bands running through the window imposts and first-floor sills are found throughout. The parapet is broken by brick piers with large arched and pedimented capstones ornamented with moulded square banded and half-fluted ball finials and urns. Each pier face is decorated with blind moulded arch niches or pilasters. The arched windows contain two-over-two sash windows with glazed arches. Large brick stacks with moulded caps are positioned to the north (west of centre, below the roof ridge) and to the west (two stacks).

The main north elevation is now asymmetrical and comprises six bays. The three western bays contain three ground and first-floor windows. The three eastern bays form a slightly projecting entrance bay, which was formerly central in the original nine-bay frontage. The ground floor has two windows either side of an entrance portico with two pairs of Corinthian columns supporting a heavy entablature and a balustrade forming a balcony to a first-floor window above. The first floor has three windows, the central one featuring a recessed and decorated round arch. A three-bay single-storey outbuilding is attached to the west side, with three sunk blind panels decorated with brick lintels. The central panel contains a 20th-century door. The left return (east), rebuilt in the 1900s, comprises five bays arranged with 1:3:1 windows and reset mid-19th-century decorative stone masonry. The central three bays project slightly forward with square stone columns to the ground-floor window mullions and simple brick mullions to the first floor. Its parapet has a pedimented ashlar pier topped by an urn.

The south and west elevations are considerably plainer. The south elevation, facing Merrion Place, comprises six bays with segmental arched windows to the ground and first floors and squat square-headed windows to the third floor, all with stone sills. A moulded stone lintelled arched door in the third bay from the east has a large segmental arch top light above. The west elevation has an asymmetrical arrangement of four central windows north of a first-floor emergency door and metal staircase, with an external offset chimney stack to the south.

The interior has not been inspected.

A railed forecourt extends across the north elevation from the single-storey west outbuilding around the corner to the right pilaster on the left (east) return, approximately 1.5 metres in height. It comprises a low stone wall with moulded coping, which steps down following the eastward declining slope of the ground, and thick wrought-iron rails with alternate ball and spearhead finials. Octagonal standards with cornice and ball finials are supported by scrolled brackets on the inner side. The entrance portico is accessed by a two-leaf gate similar in style to the railings, with massive square-section piers approximately 1.5 metres high, decorated with a dentilled cornice and shallow pyramidal and arched pier cap.