Former Machine And Fitting Shops For Fenton Murray And Wood Engineers

LEEDS

SE2932NE FOUNDRY STREET, Holbeck 714-1/80/837 (East side) 25/08/87 Former machine and fitting shops for Fenton, Murray and Wood, engineers (Formerly Listed as: FOUNDRY STREET (East side) Former foundry and attached workshops)

GV II*

Fitting up shop, now motor radiator repair workshop. 1795-1802 with extension by 1841 and later alterations. For Matthew Murray. Red/brown brick in irregular 1:5 English bond, rendered and lined to Foundry Street frontage and on east side of south end; slate roof; stepped brick gutter brackets and skylights. 3 storeys, 9 first-floor windows with inserted vehicular access cutting through the ground floor, right. A lower 3-storey, 3-window rendered block at the south end. East, yard side: the rendered 3 bays on left have loading doors right. The taller range has slightly cambered arches to windows, some of which retain 16-pane frames; a full-height straight joint between 6th and 7th windows, the window arches of headers to left and stretchers to right of the joint. Glazed loading doors, left, above vehicular access. Ground floor retains traces of a blocked, round-arched opening to right of the C20 access and traces of another, taller opening to its left. Floor levels marked by double row of rectangular sandstone blocks; 4 long tie plates at 2nd-floor level. INTERIOR: the southern 3 bays are iron-framed: columns support beams on ground and first floors; there is an iron-framed strong room built into the ground floor, south of the inserted passage. The northern bays retain some jack arches. HISTORICAL NOTE: this important range is part of Matthew Murray's Round Foundry complex - the first and best surviving fully integrated engineering works to be built and a major Industrial Revolution site. In 1816 a boiler and steam engine was installed at the north end of this range (later rebuilt) and powered machinery for turning small lathes, grinding and drilling the centre of wheels, tapping screws etc. The range to south of the straight join is probably that shown on a map of 1815; at that time there was a route between the fitting-up shop and the foundry to the north, filled in by 1841. For historical information: see No.101 Water Lane (qv).

(Netlam and Frances Giles: Plan of the Town of Leeds and its Environs: 1815-; Grady, K: Temple Mill, Marshall Street, Leeds. Civic Trust leaflet: 1989-; Kilburn Scott, E: Matthew Murray, Pioneer Engineer: Leeds: 1928-: 35).

Listing NGR: SE2961232872