Blemann House And Attached Railings Kings House

LEEDS

SE2933SE WELLINGTON STREET 714-1/77/431 (North side) Nos.52 AND 54 Blemann House and attached railings

GV II

Includes: Nos.1 AND 3 King's House KING STREET. Warehouse, now offices with basement railings. 1861 and 1870, converted C20. By George Corson for William Ledgard. Ashlar basement, rusticated to 1st floor, red brick with polychrome brick and stone details, slate roof. Venetian style. Corner site with King Street, 4 storeys over basement, 14 x 8 first-floor windows, the 3 to right and King Street left 2 windows in slightly projecting full-height corner block. Entrance left (No.54) has flanking columns with foliate capitals supporting rusticated round arch with roll moulding and deep cornice which is carried round the building as a continuous string. Arched windows, possibly inserted doorway centre, corner entrance far right with column and pilasters, cornice over, rebuilt. Upper floors have flat, segmental and round arched windows with 4-pane sashes, paired 3rd-storey windows have baluster shafts and circular opening in arcade of polychrome brickwork. Decorative band of zigzag brick work and plain ashlar between 1st and 2nd floors. Deep modillion eaves cornice. Right return: central arched entrance as main front, fenestration and decoration similar but sash windows to 3rd floor; on left a square 1-stage tower with 3 narrow round headed lights, bracketed eaves cornice, pyramid roof and banded chimney; a stepped stack with bracketed cornice straddles ridge, centre. INTERIOR: not inspected. SUBSIDIARY FEATURES: basement railings: stone wall, geometric openwork panels between standards with pointed finials. One of the many warehouses built in the Wellington Street area, close to the railway stations built on the S side 1846-56. George Corson took over his brother's architectural practice in 1860 and the corner building, No.52 Wellington Street and Nos 1-3 King Street, is one of the first he designed, in a career which culminated in the Grand Theatre, Municipal Buildings and the School Board Offices (qv) in the late 1870s. No.54 was added in 1870. (Linstrum, D: West Yorkshire Architects and Architecture: London: 1978-; Fraser, D (Ed): A History of Modern Leeds: Manchester: 1980-: 134).

Listing NGR: SE2967333442