Bardon Hill

Bardon Hill is a large house built in 1873-75, with alterations made around 1902. The original designs were by John Simpson for Thomas Simpson, a wealthy Leeds solicitor. The alterations around 1902 were carried out by Thomas Winn for Joseph Pickersgill. The house is constructed of coursed rock-faced gritstone with grey plain and fish-scale slate roofs, and is built in the Gothic Revival style with quoins.

The house has two storeys with central three-storey entrance towers on both the four-bay south front (with a recessed bay on the left) and the three-bay east front. It also has attics and cellars.

The south front features a slightly projecting tower with five steps leading up to central paired panelled doors and an overlight with a wrought-iron panel set within a moulded pointed arch flanked by attached pink granite columns. The first and second floors have two- and three-light windows with plate-glass sashes throughout. The tower has deep bracketed eaves and is topped by a square timber bellcote with three cusped openings on each side and a tall pyramidal spire.

Flanking the tower are projecting bays: on the left, a six-light square bay window serves both ground and first floors; on the right, a four-light canted bay. All these windows have chamfered stone mullions and carved lintels with cusped recesses containing round pink granite plaques. The left gable contains three quatrefoil recesses and a single-light attic window, while the right side has a small gable in a hipped roof. All gables feature elaborate pierced barge-boards and finials. Tall multi-flue stacks stand to the left and right of the centre tower.

The right return shows similar detailing, with the entrance tower set back and featuring a shallow pointed arch and pavilion roof. It has a canted bay on the left and a five-light square bay on the right. At the far right is a single-storey bay with a large canted bay window of six lights, transom and mullion windows, and a parapet with circular piercings. Above this is a small round-arched window with a coped gable and finial.

Interior

The main rooms are arranged around the south and east sides of a large galleried hall, with former service rooms to the northwest and in a single-storey range. The house retains fine plaster and woodwork from both the late 19th century and the early 20th century.

The outer porch has a black and white marble floor. A glazed screen with carved columns opens into a short corridor with panelled walls and a ceiling with moulded plasterwork. From the ceiling hangs a pendant light fitting of bronze with ornate glass petal shades.

A segmental arch opens into the central lounge-hall, which is galleried on three sides and lined in dark panelling. The ceiling is square framed with moulded plasterwork including beams and deep pendants, with a central copper light fitting in Art Nouveau style. The large 'baronial' fireplace on the left has a carved wooden surround with columns and a panelled hood, a green marble fireplace and apron, and peacock-pattern green and blue tiles. The bronzed fire basket survives. Opposite the entrance doors is a carved sideboard in similar style, incorporating a heating radiator, with a large six-light transom and mullion window above it.

On the right is the wooden staircase of two straight flights, supported on bulbous columns with ornate column-on-vase balusters and a terminal with a heraldic lion. The half-landing is lit by paired sash windows in a roll-moulded architrave. Next to the stairs, the paired double doors to the garden have elaborate scrolled wrought-iron panels over the glazing. Fine silvered bronze pendant wall lights line the hall walls. The doors are five-panel with linen-fold carving.

The galleried landing on three sides of the hall has a balustrade matching the stairs, with a deep carved frieze below the rail and gadrooned vase finials to the corners.

Ground-floor rooms include a large room to the left of the entrance, lit by the square bay window in a Classical architrave with fluted columns. It has an end fireplace of veined pink and cream marble with a bronze bead-and-reel moulding in a wooden surround carved with fruit, masks and figures. The walls have moulded plaster panels and a deep frieze with cherubs and egg-and-dart moulding. The ceiling is of plaster or moulded paper with panels of scrolls and flowers in relief. The wooden dado has fielded panels, and there is a two-panel door in a casing with carved fruit and scrolls, with a plaster panel above featuring swags.

A door to the left of the hall fireplace opens into a smaller room, now the Headmaster's office, with a green and white veined marble fireplace, a moulded surround with deep shelf and 20th-century cast-iron grate, and five tiles on each side in Art Nouveau style in blue, pink and green. The ceiling has a deep scrolled frieze in similar style.

To the right of the entrance, the corner room lit by the two canted bay windows has a green veined marble fireplace with green tiles and an elaborate bronze fire basket with lion feet. The ceiling has a deep frieze with scrolls, acanthus leaves and egg-and-dart moulded cornice.

Facing the garden is the former dining room with doors to the hall and service corridor. These are six-panel doors in architraves with console brackets supporting the cornice, linked by a flat-arched recess with plaster garlands, ribbons and plaques. The room has a panelled plaster dado with Classical mouldings and a coved ceiling with fine plasterwork. The green veined marble fireplace has fine metallic red and white patterned tiles, a wooden surround with deep console brackets, a carved panel with plaque and scrolls, and a deep shelf over a dentilled cornice.

The panelled service corridor on the north side of the hall is top-lit. From it the single-storey former billiard room, now the school hall, is reached. This room has panelled walls and arches to a raised dais at each end, lit by the bay window to the east and having a fireplace and window at the apsidal west end. The fireplace has a wooden surround with a glazed cupboard centre, frieze and cornice. The ceiling over the apse is plaster, ribbed and with shell motifs, while over the centre it is coved and ribbed with a central raised glazed canopy with richly-coloured painted glass and the brass frame for gas lighting.

The toilet and washroom set behind the curved wall of the billiard room apse is tiled throughout in grey-green with bands of moulded tiles with a marigold motif. It has a mosaic floor with scroll border and former gas light brackets.

The service end of the house has been altered but retains stairs with knopped and turned newels, six-panel doors, stone flag floors, and a former servants' hall (now cloakroom) with a blocked fireplace.

On the first floor, the two front rooms have pink and grey marble fireplaces with surrounds featuring columns supporting brackets and a cornice which continues around the room above fine fitted furniture including corner cupboards, glazed shelves, and chests of drawers, all with Regency-style brass fittings. The walls between are panelled and the ornate plasterwork includes a scrolled ceiling cornice.

The main stairs continue to the second floor, originally a large open room over the hall with a ribbed coved ceiling featuring a rope-like twisted motif to the ribs and a fireplace with tiles and plain surround with small rooms opening off. The large room was divided around 1900 and a cast-iron corner fireplace with moulded surround was inserted; one partition wall has since been removed. A corner fireplace (cast-iron) in the front tower room has Art Nouveau-style tulips below the shelf.

Historical Context

Thomas Simpson, a solicitor with a house at Grove Villas, Monkbridge Road and offices at number 47 Albion Street, bought Englefield Estate land at Bardon Hill around 1858. His cousin, John Simpson, worked with Cuthbert Brodrick and designed several houses in the Headingley and Weetwood area including this one, built around 1873-74 and originally called Bardon Hill.

Thomas Simpson died in 1898 and his widow in 1901. By 1910 the property was occupied by Joseph Pickersgill, a self-made Leeds man who made a fortune as a race-horse owner and turf-commission agent. He kept a book for King Edward when Prince of Wales (as noted in his obituary notice) and was involved in property speculation. He died in 1920. The house became the property of the Roman Catholic diocese in 1936 and was the Bishop's residence. Around 1955 it became a school.