Castle Grove Masonic Hall

Castle Grove Masonic Hall is a large house, now used as a Masonic Hall, initially built in 1839, with substantial additions around 1890 and again in 1934. It was originally commissioned for Samuel Holmes and later extensively altered and re-ordered by T Butler Wilson around 1890. The building is constructed of coursed squared ashlar-finished gritstone, with a slate roof and a lead-covered dome.

The facade presents three distinct phases. The central two-storey section, dating to 1839, comprises three bays with a single-storey Tuscan porch. Later additions include canted bay windows to the ground floor, and a pair of matching lateral extensions, two storeys tall with two bays each, characterised by round-headed windows on the ground floor and a balustrade. A further two-bay extension to the left mirrors the others and incorporates a domed stairwell, all dating to around 1890. The rear of the building features extensive additions from 1934, including a Masonic temple above a banqueting room. On the right return, the left bay is semicircular, featuring paired windows and flanked by a chimney stack.

The interior demonstrates the successive phases of development. The 1890s alterations included a major refurbishment of the ground floor rooms. A narrow entrance lobby with a plaster cornice and ceiling leads to an elaborate, full-height circulation hall. This hall features dark green marble or composite Ionic pillars and pilasters supporting a heavy timber entablature. Round-headed openings, blind on two sides, are separated by terms which support a deep modillion cornice, and the ceiling is segmentally coffered with deep ribs and square panels filled with large moulded flower heads. A large marble fireplace with a bolection-moulded architrave sits at the right end of the hall, while a heavy timber staircase with a moulded ramped handrail and thick balusters is at the left end. Further ground-floor rooms include a long room with panelled doors in eared architraves with deep cornices and swags and flowers in relief; a ceiling with a sunburst design incorporating female masks; and a fireplace with marble and wooden surrounds including female masks. One extension room has an apsidal end with a raised floor, a heavy Baroque-style plaster ceiling with Chinese masks and grotesques, a carved wooden screen in a vaguely Jacobean style, panelled walls, and a large stone fireplace with an overmantel. The original dining room, to the left of the entrance, features carved architraves to doors, a fireplace with twisted columns and a deep cornice, a floor of patterned inlaid wood blocks, and a heavy Baroque-style plaster ceiling with Tudor roses, Chinese, and Classical motifs. On the first floor, several rooms, now used as lodge 'temples,' retain traces of the original 1839 decoration, including a coved ceiling with egg-and-dart moulding, a fine inlaid wood fireplace, and panelled window reveals in what was formerly the library, alongside a room with an apsidal end featuring a plaster Rococo-style fireplace and a corner entrance with curved double doors carved with swags and Classical motifs and original fittings. Samuel Holmes was a Leeds linen merchant of Park Square.