88-91, BRIGGATE

Nos. 88-91 on Briggate in Leeds are shops and houses built in the early 19th century, with a refacing around 1925 and later 20th-century shop windows on the ground floor. The building is constructed of rendered brick and topped with a slate roof. It occupies a corner site and stands three stories high with attics and cellars. The facade features four two-window bays facing Briggate and four windows on The Headrow, with a curved corner. The tall, narrow windows include plate-glass sashes on the first floor and 9-pane sashes on the second floor, with some 20th-century replacements. A lunette window with a 6-pane fixed-light frame is present on the gable facing The Headrow. The render is incised to imitate banded ashlar, and the bay divisions are marked by pilasters adorned with plaques and swags. There are four rendered stacks for flues positioned forward of the ridge.

Inside, the chimneys are built against the cross-walls, dividing the building into four units facing Briggate. A spine wall at the rear of the ridge line rises through the first and second floors, although the ground floor has been gutted. Early 19th-century features include stone-lined cellars, cast-iron columns supporting the ground floor, and staircases with fine column-on-vase balustrades and ramped handrails that survive on the third and attic storeys. An attic fireplace features a carved stone moulded surround with a flower motif and a cast-iron basket grate. Six-panel doors with fielded and moulded panels are also present. Later alterations include a wide staircase that served the two central units, added around 1925. The building is depicted in an early 19th-century engraving of the Corn Exchange, and its date and proportions are similar to those of the Leeds Library at No. 18 Commercial Street.