No. 24 and 26 Great George Street

Nos. 24 and 26 Great George Street, Leeds

Masonic hall and photographic studio with offices, later converted to courtrooms and offices, now operating as a public house. Built in 1865 with 20th-century alterations. The building comprises two originally separate structures.

No. 24 is a former masonic hall designed by Perkin and Sons. It is constructed in ashlar with a slate roof and rendered in the Gothic Revival style. The building has two storeys across four unequal bays. The ground floor features 1995 windows and doors within the original bays. The right bay projects slightly and contains a pointed-arched doorway with flanking columns and a gable featuring a circular panel that breaks through the moulded string above the ground floor. A round-arched window sits above the entrance with a hoodmould, and the bay is flanked by attached slim columns with foliate capitals. On the first floor, bays one through three contain 1:3:1 windows with cusped pointed arches, dripmoulds, and pilaster shafts with carved capitals. The central light is blind, with a trefoil panel in the tympanum. Two carved quatrefoil panels bearing Masonic emblems sit above a lightly-carved frieze at impost level. A heavy bracketed cornice and parapet with trefoil piercings crown the structure. Bay three features a stepped gable with flanking crocketed finials and a circular panel displaying a Masonic emblem of a six-pointed star. A small stepped gable rises above the parapet at bay four. The interior retains the former masonic hall at first floor level, featuring a Gothic vaulted ceiling.

No. 26 is a former photographic studio, offices and court premises designed by George Corson for Edmund and Joseph Wormald. Built in brick with stone dressings and a slate roof, it is also in the Gothic Revival style. The building has four storeys with an attic and occupies a single bay. The ground floor contains a modern glass-block window beneath a heavy stone cornice. The first floor features a central oriel with round-arched windows, carved spandrels, attached columns with carved capitals, and a corbelled cornice, flanked by similar windows with carved spandrels and a carved stone frieze above. The second floor contains shouldered head windows with stone lintels and continuous dripmouls, with a date plaque positioned between them. Three similar but smaller windows light the third floor, with a continuous carved stone sill band and an ornate deep corbelled and panelled brick eaves cornice. The roof is a truncated pyramid with a central gabled dormer topped by fleur-de-lis finials. The first floor interior contains a cast-iron cooking range and oven by Teal & Somers, set within a white glazed brick surround.

According to trade directories, the building's earliest clear entry dates to 1872, when it housed refreshment rooms, a boot manufacturer, the premises of the Globe Advertiser, and E. Wormald, photographer. By 1881, eight different businesses occupied the building, including a sewing machine agent, the Servants' Registry Office, and the photographer. In 1888 the premises housed the Leeds Organ School and Academy of Music under principal William Spark, the Leeds Chess Club, architect George Danby, the photographer, and a carver and gilder.