Chadwick Lodge And Attached Walls And Railings

Chadwick Lodge and Attached Walls and Railings

This is a substantial house with basement, late 18th century in date (possibly 1779, though traditionally dated around 1790), built for John Chadwick, a wealthy textile businessman who owned a dye house nearby. The building was altered significantly in the mid to late 20th century but retains considerable architectural interest and integrity.

The house is constructed of millstone grit ashlar with a slate roof of low pitch and hipped form. It features a moulded cornice and blocking course, with paired end stacks (one rebuilt in brick). The building is almost square in plan, comprising two storeys with attic and basement, and is five bays wide. The central three bays are rusticated and break forward slightly, surmounted by a moulded pediment with a four-pane elliptical light in the tympanum.

The principal south front faces the garden and features a flight of seven steps (altered) leading to a central door of six fielded panels. The door has a semicircular overlight with intersecting glazing bars and is framed by moulded imposts and architrave with Tuscan three-quarter columns supporting an entablature, cornice and triangular pediment. The fenestration throughout comprises four-pane sashes. The central first-floor window has fluted pilasters and a panel above; the remaining windows have voussoirs and continuous sill-bands.

The rear elevation contains a central fielded-panel door with plain lintel and stone steps descending to the basement at the right, protected by a retaining wall with plain coping. Iron railings with alternate plain and wavy rails feature knobbed finials to standards; a lamp post (head missing) stands at the left end. The first-floor centre has a round-headed stair window with voussoirs and interlaced glazing bars, flanked by sixteen-pane sashes with margin lights and plain lintels to both floors. A bracketed cornice and pediment with elliptical light crown the rear.

The left and right returns are symmetrical, each featuring a service entrance with worn steps and railings as to the rear (some missing). The left return has a slender column-on-vase standard at the foot of steps and a four-panel door. Both returns have paired first-floor sashes, one with glazing bars, plain sills and lintels, and flanking down-pipes with fine moulded heads decorated with fleurs-de-lis and lead work.

Interior: The house is divided by a cross wall separating south principal rooms from north service rooms and the staircase. An arched opening between the entrance hall and stair hall was blocked around 1960 when the house was converted into two units; though now returned to single occupancy, inserted partitions and blocked openings remain. The south entrance features a fluted doorcase and moulded cornice. The entrance hall has an inserted partition and moulded plaster ceiling with central rose and circular fan (heavily overpainted).

The south-west main room retains original shutters, panels below windows, dado rail, and plaster-moulded frames to wall panels. A round-arched recess in the north wall is lined with reeded pilasters and features Classical motifs including acanthus leaves, beading, swags, bows, scrolls and paterae. The ceiling bears fine moulded cornice and the fireplace retains its Classical wooden surround.

The south-east former dining room (now a kitchen) contains a blocked arched recess obscured by a repositioned service stair with slim column balusters, itself relocated from the north-west original kitchen. The original kitchen retains the stone cornice and mantel shelf above a wide blocked fireplace, window shutters, and marks of the former service stair position.

The central stair hall contains a cantilevered stone stair of two flights with a wrought-iron balustrade of alternate straight and wavy stick balusters, a ramped handrail wreathed at the stair foot with a column-on-vase end baluster. The stair window is set in a stone surround with fluted pilasters. The ceiling above the landing features decorative plasterwork in three panels with a circle enclosing husks and bows, a central rose (heavily overpainted).

First-floor original features include remains of Classical fireplace surrounds (one with cast-iron basket grate), ceiling cornices and window shutters. Later alterations include a bathroom inserted at the original service stair head and attic stairs removed.

The attics contain double queen-post roof trusses with pegged purlins, the gable purlins supported by finely carved wooden columns carrying large beam-ends. Plaster partitions and catch-light openings are present.

The basement is accessed via a steep flight of stone steps to the left of the rear entrance, under the stairs. It is stone-vaulted and partitioned, with the original entrance reduced to a coal shute. Original features include stone shelves and bottle bins, meat hooks, and a cold store with iron-hinged and padlock-latched stone slab door. A stone basin and shelf are present.

Historical Context: John Chadwick owned a dye house on the south bank of the Aire immediately north of the house. By 1815, the approach to the rear was lined with rows of workers' houses, with an eastward extension to Bowman Lane known as Chadwick's Yard. The other sides of the house faced open fields, with outbuildings on the west side and access across the fields to Hunslet Mill. The 1847 Ordnance Survey map shows the original Imperial-type divided flight of steps to the front door. The relationship of the owner, workers' housing, dye house and wharves was altered around 1840 with the construction of Crown Point Bridge and the establishment of Crown Point Road. The west garden boundary retains the original property line. This is an important example of the house of a wealthy textile businessman built close to both his place of business and the homes of his workers, illustrating the intimate connection between residence, manufacture and labour in late 18th-century Leeds.