The Northern School Of Contemporary Dance

The Northern School of Contemporary Dance is a former synagogue located on Chapeltown Road in Leeds, built between 1929 and 1932 by architect J Stanley Wright. The building features red and brown brick in stretcher bond, with a Portland stone entrance facade, concrete block foundation courses, and side door surrounds. It has distinctive copper domes on the roof and wrought-iron grilles. The structure has a rectangular plan with the main entrance on the west side and narrower entrances on the north and south. It is a massive domed building with a lower dome and chimney at the east end, and smaller domes above the west entrance. Tall triple round-arched windows are set in massive buttresses that rise above the eaves of the central dome.

The front of the building has nine steps leading to a portico adorned with stone vases and paired columns featuring tulip capitals. The rear has low flat-roofed offices with an extension added. The left return has paired panelled doors, with the upper panel glazed and covered by an iron grille, and an overlight with a scrolled iron grille, flanked by foundation stones. The right return is similar. Although the windows are boarded, most still retain their original stained glass featuring the Star of David motif.

Inside, the entrance area has a black and white stone floor and stairs that rise through a double-arched stone screen on both sides. The main auditorium retains much of its original seating, along with a marble surround for the recesses of the Ark of the Covenant, a central Star of David with a pendant light, and stone piers supporting the gallery, which also features original seating. The architect, who had a military background, possibly served in Palestine, and his practice later moved from Leeds to Boston Spa. The synagogue was constructed in the main area of Jewish settlement in Leeds until the 1960s, closing in 1985, with some fittings removed to the new synagogue in Shadwell Lane, Leeds 17.