Highbury Works

LEEDS

SE23NE GREEN ROAD, Meanwood 714-1/6/1307 (South West side) 07/09/94 Highbury Works

GV II

Formerly known as: Meanwood Tannery GREEN ROAD. Tannery, fellmonger's works (closed 1994), now vacant. 1857, with later alterations. Built for Samuel Smith. Dressed stone with ashlar dressings. Corrugated sheet roofs with roof-lights and a single ashlar stack. Quoins, plinth, paired wooden eaves brackets and second-floor sill band. 21 x 27 bays, L-plan with 6 single-storey tanning sheds to east. Main, north-west front has large round-headed cart entrance with flanking segment-headed doorways, each with a 4-panel door and blocked overlight. To the left 9 blocked windows, and to the right 5 casement windows, an inserted door, 2 windows and a further inserted door. Above a central plaque inscribed S.1857.S. Flanked by 10 blocked windows to the left and 9 casement windows and a loading door to the right. Above again 21 openings, originally with louvred shutters, now with the lower portions blocked and 4-light casements inserted. South-west front has a segmental-arched cart entrance with sliding door to left, then 6 irregularly spaced, blocked windows and a door with 8 blocked windows beyond to right. Beneath the windows to left the top of the segmental arch over the mill race is visible. Above an off-centre loading door with 11 boarded casements and a door now obscured by bridge to the left, and 14 boarded casements to the right. Above again 27 openings, originally louvred shutters, now with lower portions blocked and 4-light casements inserted. At the south-west corner a tall circular stack rising from a square base, with a moulded cap, painted brick with iron banding. North-east front has to left a 3-storey, 4-bay block with 4 blocked windows on the ground floor, 4 blocked and boarded windows above and 4 openings on the top floor partly blocked with 3-light upper casements. To the right 6 gables each with 4 windows and above 2 shuttered openings, the windows are mostly obscured by later lean-to additions. The mill race runs under the fourth gable through an ashlar segmental arch. INTERIOR: retains wooden floors and staircases. At S corner the sunken wheel pit survives. Tanning sheds have iron columns supporting wooden roofs, and 2 rows of 10 deep tanning pits with stone sides, the remainder survive though mostly filled. This tannery was built on the site of a medieval corn mill belonging to Kirkstall Abbey. In the late C18 it became a

paper mill, until it was burnt in 1852. The present building was built as a tannery for Samuel Smith, and it became a fellmongers in 1914; closed 1994. This is the best preserved large scale mid C19 tannery in Leeds, one of the leading tanning towns in England at the time.

Listing NGR: SE2838637063