City Markets

City Markets, Leeds

Market hall, 1904, restored in the late twentieth century. Designed by architects Leeming and Leeming, with J Bagshaw and Sons of Batley as engineers. Secondary rear ranges date from around 1875. The building is shown on Ordnance Survey maps as Kirkgate Market and includes numbers 1-21 New Market Buildings.

The structure is built in ashlar and carved stone with granite to the ground-floor pilasters. The roof is grey slate with lead casing to domes (some replaced by asphalt), elaborate ridge cresting and finials. The internal structure combines cast-iron with steel framework concealed within the masonry.

The building presents a massive eleven-bay structure of four storeys and an attic storey. The street frontage and left (George Street) and right (Kirkgate) returns are designed in Flemish style, whilst the rear facade is plain and largely obscured by the earlier secondary market structures.

The ground floor features a central two-storey entrance with original shop divisions surviving; number 13 retains the original glazed door with scrolled pediment and window with slender glazing bars. The shops are divided by pilasters and draped putti supporting an entablature, frieze and cornice. The first floor has rounded arches to five bays, including one to the market entrance and others to windows, with paired casements. Ornament includes elaborate scrolls and figures to spandrels and a sculptured frieze with cornice above. The second floor displays shallow arched heads to paired windows divided by attached Ionic columns, with cartouches to keystones. The third floor has three- and four-light windows with attached Doric columns and cornice above. The attic storey features walling rising above a modillion cornice at bays one, four, six, eight and eleven, with elaborate sculpted gables containing scrolls and swags framing three round-headed lights at the centre; the outer gables have small rectangular windows. Three-light dormers pierce the steeply-pitched roof. Elaborate chimneys, two French mansard roofs with balustrades and finials, and a central Renaissance tiered steeple crown the composition. Tower features at each end of the front, surmounted by domed cupolas, complete the design.

The left and right returns feature recessed angles on the splay with canted 1:3:1 windows. Two-storey round-arch market entrances have balustrade-topped shops to either side, with Flemish gables at the top and large octagonal domed temples with cupolas on the roofs, the facades matching the main front. The rear displays a plaque commemorating the building of the previous 1875 market on the site, reset at first-floor level on the north end.

The interior comprises a long hall with clerestory, aisles and central octagon. Shops along the west and south-west sides (main facade) have offices and former public rooms on upper floors, retaining original details including doors, cast-iron fireplaces, skirting boards, cornices and plaster ceilings. Wooden booths or offices on the gallery facing into the hall are reached via spiral stone staircases rising from each side of the corner entrances. These entrances feature a giant inner arch of moulded Burmantofts faience, and the inner walls are lined with glazed bricks. Twenty-four clustered Corinthian columns, all with brackets decorated with civic arms and some with the engineer's plaque, support the glazed clerestory and upper part of the central octagon. Horizontal ties and beams are incorporated into decoratively modelled panels and spandrels, which include tripartite blank windows framed with scrolls and pediments. Cast-iron brackets in the form of dragons support the mezzanine balcony with ornate rail.

Most original stalls retain their design of slim columns with spiral moulding and Corinthian capitals supporting an entablature with dentilled cornice and acroteria at the corners. A tall cast-iron tower with a clock by Potts of Leeds, originally standing in the centre of the hall, was removed to Oakwood, the south boundary of Roundhay Park.

The earlier secondary structures to the rear comprise brick rows, including Butcher's Row and Game Row, with arcaded decoration to the upper storey opening from the main market hall.

The 1904 market replaced the 1875 building where the firm of Marks and Spencers was established. The new market represented a spectacular addition to the shopping centre of the city, which was transformed during 1875-1909 as old properties were replaced by arcades and planned streets. The firm of Leeming and Leeming was also responsible for the Borough Market in Halifax and Oldham Market Hall.