The Chandlers

The Chandlers are mills, built in 1876 and converted into flats around 1985, for William Turton. The building is constructed of red brick with stone dressings and a slate roof. It is four storeys high with a basement, situated on a corner plot with ten first-floor windows facing Crown Point Road and six facing The Calls. There is a sill band to the first and second floors, round-arched windows to the top storey, and altered small square openings to the ground floor on Crown Point Road. Cambered lintels are present on the architraves of The Calls facade.

A corner pedestrian entrance has panelled double doors within a stone round-arched surround featuring raised lettering reading 'WILLIAM TURTON', carved impost blocks, and a keystone. Above the first-floor window is 'ESTD. WT 1844', and above the first floor, 'REBUILT 1876'. An arched entrance to the yard from The Calls features rusticated voussoirs, and a horse’s head is carved on the keystone, with panelled double doors.

The courtyard includes a tower, reputedly containing a spiral stair, with an ornate iron railing to a viewing platform, which may have been a former chimney flue alongside the Crown Point block.

Historically, the building served as a store for horse feed, reflecting the importance of horses for transporting goods to and from railway termini. William Turton also held interests in horse transport, including roles with the Bradford Tramway and Omnibus Co., Leeds Tramway Co., and as a coal merchant. The site at Crown Point Bridge, built in 1840, was an important wharf. Goods arriving by boat were unloaded into the rear yard and then distributed through the entrance on The Calls. The viewing platform provided a view of traffic on the river and the Leeds and Liverpool Canal. The building is said to contain stabling on the ground floor and in the basement.