3, The Bourse

Bank, shop and restaurant on the corner of Boar Lane and Alfred Street in Leeds, comprising two distinct buildings.

The earlier building (formerly No.22 Boar Lane, 1869-72) was constructed for the shareholders of the Leeds Mercantile Bank (John Holmes and Co), probably designed by Thomas Ambler. It is built in ashlar with polished granite dressings and slate roofs. The four-storey building with attic occupies a corner site in the Italianate style, presenting three windows to Boar Lane and five to Alfred Street at first-floor level.

The ground floor features deeply recessed panelled double doors set within richly decorated round arches with paired flanking attached columns and foliate capitals. The Boar Lane entrance is fitted with low two-leaf cast-iron gates with interlaced foliage and a lock rail ornamented with curved bars and knobbed finials. Pilasters carved with swags and animals, including the owl badge of Leeds, alternate with granite columns. These carry deeply-carved capitals supporting an arcade with Classical detailing across both facades.

The first and second floors repeat the richly decorated round arches, pilasters and column shafts seen at ground level, with less elaborate architraves at each storey. Deep cornices mark each floor; a heavy modillion cornice runs to the eaves, above which rises a high pierced parapet featuring a two-light attic window and large segmental pediment surmounted by a scrolled finial. Two similar attic windows appear on the Alfred Street facade.

The later building (formerly No.23 Boar Lane, c.1873) adjoins to the north and is designed in the Gothic Revival style. This four-storey corner building presents a narrow one-window facade to Boar Lane and a four-window elevation to New Station Street. On Boar Lane, each floor has three-light stone mullion and transom windows with vertically divided panels between floors; the third floor features cusped ogee-headed lights. A panelled stone gable and moulded strings complete the Boar Lane frontage. On New Station Street, the fenestration follows a two-light version of the Boar Lane pattern, with brick panels between windows carried up above the eaves line as small gables. A twentieth-century shop front has been inserted.

Interior

The Boar Lane entrance to the bank features an original richly detailed mahogany panelled lobby with inner double doors in a glazed partition, the doors framed by carved attached columns and panels with swags and scrolls in relief.

The ground floor comprises a single large room with a cross wall partitioning off the stairwell, which is entered from Alfred Street. The banking hall has an elaborate framed plaster ceiling with cross beams decorated with Classical motifs. A position of a blocked doorway to the stair hall is indicated by ceiling moulding against the east end of the partition wall. A six-panel door at the west end of the same wall contains a hoist to the basement strongroom.

The basement has white-tiled walls. The strongroom below the west side of the banking hall is accessed by the hoist, whose doors open onto a narrow passage opposite a Chubb-made door with inner grille. The strongroom comprises an outer and inner room divided by a second grille. The outer room contains what is probably an original cupboard with deed drawers; the inner room houses one possibly original free-standing safe bearing the maker's name "Milners, London/Liverpool".

The first floor contains inserted partitions with two fireplaces against the west wall and one against the east wall, all now blocked. A deep moulded ceiling cornice appears continuous, suggesting the room was not originally partitioned. Four moulded brackets with scrolls and female heads suggest the line of beams above a twentieth-century false ceiling.

The second floor retains a door from the stairwell, probably original, with its top panels replaced by glazing. Two original fireplaces survive: one at the north end of the west wall and one against the east wall. Both have stone shelves and surrounds carved in deep relief with foliage and profile busts representing Dante and Beatrice and Prince Albert and Princess Victoria. The fireplaces feature round-arched openings with carved keystones and cast-iron grates. A third fireplace is blocked.

The third floor has three fireplaces as described below, that at the north end of the west wall having plain jambs with brackets.

The fourth floor retains two fireplaces against the west wall with plain stone surrounds and cast-iron grates.

The staircase well features a cantilevered stone stair rising through two straight flights with a curved wall to a half-landing on each floor. A plain outer handrail is attached to the wall; a very fine continuous moulded wooden rail on a cast-iron balustrade runs through the building, with balusters of open work featuring scrolls and vine leaves. The lowest flight was removed when a twentieth-century security door was inserted, but the balustrade remains continuous to the top storey. A short length of balustrade also survives in the basement.

Historical context

Former No.22 was sold in two lots to Mr Bramham when the south side of Boar Lane was redeveloped in 1869. In 1872 the new "Bank Buildings" became the premises of Leeds Mercantile Bank and Rooke and Midgley, Solicitors. This remains the only building on Boar Lane to retain its original ground-floor frontage and has been described as one of the finest commercial buildings of its date in Leeds.

New Station Street was planned in 1873; the first occupant of the Gothic Revival building was Henry D Harrison, a confectioner and restaurant proprietor.