Yeadon Town Hall

AIREBOROUGH HIGH STREET SE 24 SW LS 19 (south side) Yeadon 5/6 Yeadon Town Hall - - II

Town Hall. 1879-80, by William Hill of Leeds. Coursed dressed sandstone, slate roofs. Large rectangular plan with entrance block at north end. Two high storeys. Entrance block in C15 French Gothic style, symmetrical, with central 2-stage clock tower breaking through steeply-pitched 2-span roof; large 2-centred arched doorway moulded in 4 orders with shafts which have foliated capitals, panelled double doors, hoodmould with figured stops, and over this a pitched crocketed moulding rising into the 1st stage of the tower. Tower, rectangular in plan, with narrow side to front, has in the centre of the 1st stage a moulded corbel for a statue (missing) and corresponding to this an elongated moulded and carved canopy above, flanked by lancets with round-headed lights and circular plate-traceried heads, linked by a sill-band; a dripmould to the 2nd stage which has in each side a recessed 2-centred-arched and shafted window with plate tracery making 3 small lights below an integral circular clock face, a hoodmould with carved stops, and impost hands run out to pseudo-corbels at the corners; corbel table to moulded cornice; steeply-pitched and swept saddle-back roof with louvred lucarnes. Each side of the doorway, the ground-floor has three 2-centred arched windows with shafts, impost bands, and linked hoodmoulds with carved stops; and the 1st floor has one tall shafted and plate-traceried 2-light window rising into a dormer which breaks the eaves and has a brattished cornice to a steeply-pitched hipped and swept roof with apex finial; in addition the 1st floor has 4 roundels containing busts representing arts and sciences; and hollow-moulded cornice with gargoyle rainwater heads. Hipped roof. Return walls of this block in similar style, the 1st bay having similar dormers, which are visible from the front and form part of the composition of the facade; and, to the rear of this, a very tall canted bay with tall stairwindows, the roof ridge of this part, which is higher, having one chimney each side of the tower. The main range, to the rear of the entrance block, with offices at ground floor and assembly hall at 1st floor, is 3 bays, and has tall transomed 3-light windows rising into dormers.

Interior: generally of less interest, but assembly hall has stage at south end and a shallow gallery round the other 3 sides.

Listing NGR: SE2084541100