The Grange

THE GRANGE, BECKETT PARK

Country house, now offices and lecture rooms, built in 1752 by the architect James Paine for Walter Wade. The building was altered around 1834 and again circa 1858 by Sir John and William Beckett, members of the prominent Leeds banking family who acquired the property when they moved to Kirkstall Grange in the 1830s.

The main structure is constructed of ashlar gritstone with blue slate roofs and a lead-covered dome. It comprises a principal three-storey block with a basement, measuring three bays wide and five bays deep, with a lower two-storey range of two bays projecting to the left.

The front elevation of the main block features a central glazed porch with Ionic columns supporting an entablature with balustraded parapet. This is flanked by canted bay windows with round arches containing four-pane sashes. The principal first-floor fenestration consists of a central Venetian window set in a moulded architrave with pediment, with shouldered architraves and pediments to the flanking windows, all with sashes retaining glazing bars. The second floor has six-pane sashes with a cornice spanning the centre section. A modillion cornice runs along the roofline, with three corniced stacks and the glazed dome rising from the ridge; two additional stacks sit to the left.

The left wing displays two canted bay windows; the left retains glazing bars while the right has four-pane sashes. Paired six-pane sashes occupy the upper section, with a moulded cornice and pediment above. The right return elevation shows two large canted bay windows with tall four-pane sashes to the ground floor, surmounted by a balustraded parapet. The first floor has sashes with glazing bars, the central section enriched with consoles and cornice. The second floor features six-pane square sash windows, with a matching modillion cornice as on the front.

The interior is organised around a central staircase hall and circulating plan of interconnecting rooms, with a former service wing to the north-west. The entrance hall displays fine relief plasterwork panels and medallions with a Doric frieze and cornice. A pilastered segmental archway leads to an octagonal stairwell housing a cantilevered staircase with curved plain iron balusters, niches, and plasterwork; a lantern crowns the stairwell above. Ionic columned doorways open from the staircase hall.

The main reception rooms contain exceptional plasterwork and fitted elements. The front left room is a long chamber lit by two bay windows, with ceiling plasterwork featuring scrolls and swags in high relief, dentilled cornice, dado rail, and a wooden fire surround ornamented with egg-and-dart mouldings, a central mask, and palm fronds. Flanking six-panel doors in architraves with pulvinated friezes complete the scheme. The front right room features oval plasterwork ceiling patterns with laurel wreaths, scrolls and swags in high relief, carved skirting, dado rail, and a fireplace in an eared architrave with oval panel and pulvinated frieze bearing an oakleaf pattern; a corniced shelf and six-panel doors with console brackets and deep cornice are present.

Opening from this room through an original mock double door is a particularly fine music room with a scrolled plaster ceiling decorated with panels depicting musical instruments. Four full-height niches with carved panels and moulded brackets line the walls, accompanied by carved skirting and panelled dado and rail. The wooden fire surround features an eared architrave with scroll and leaf motifs.

A corridor leading left from the staircase hall provides access to a second top-lit staircase with curved square-section newels and ramped handrail. The service stair rises from the first floor with cast-iron scrolled balusters, a fluted newel topped with a bud finial, and a ramped handrail. The first floor retains rooms believed to contain original plasterwork, though some have been subdivided by modern partitions. The attic rooms were not examined in detail.