Waterloo House North East Range Of White Cloth Hall With Assembly Rooms Over

Waterloo House, north-east range of White Cloth Hall with Assembly Rooms over

This north-east range of a cloth hall with assembly rooms above, now converted to a shopping arcade, was opened in 1777 and altered around 1865 and 1920. The building is constructed of rendered red brick with stone details and a slate roof, rising to 2 storeys with parts at 3 storeys where a third floor has been inserted.

The Assembly Street elevation, which originally faced the Cloth Hall courtyard, contains 15 bays, although a further 2 bays on the right were demolished to make way for the viaduct of the North East Railway. The composition was probably originally symmetrical, arranged as 1:7:1:7:1 bays, with a projecting central bay and outer bays forming the west and east wings of the Cloth Hall. The wider central bay is topped by a pediment and contains first-floor Venetian windows with three-quarter Tuscan columns, a cornice and an archivolt broken by voussoirs. A first-floor plat band runs across, with an arcade featuring lunette windows, sills and impost bands beneath. The ground floor comprises a round-arched glazed arcade with small-pane windows and glazing bars. The building is finished with a modillion eaves cornice and parapet. Various insertions have been made: a window was added to the left following demolition of the west wing, and doorways were inserted at bays 10, 14 and 15.

The rear elevation shows a round-arched blind arcade with imposts at ground-floor level, and an irregular line of windows at first floor, some possibly original, with lunettes above and a dentil eaves band. The left return features the original entrance to the Assembly Rooms, which was remodelled around 1920, when single-storey entrance bays were added.

Despite demolition of the east end around 1865 and remodelling of the west end around 1920, extensive 18th-century details survive in the interior. The ground floor formerly housed Cloth Hall rooms and was not inspected. The upper floor Assembly Rooms retain significant original features. The ante-room at the west end has a moulded cornice with a swag frieze. The main hall contains richly decorated capitals with urn and paterae motifs supporting vaulting over lunette windows, indicating the position of missing full-height columns. The soffits of the lunette reveals are decorated with linked circles of husks, and parts of panel mouldings survive. A dentilled cornice runs around the room, and the ceiling is divided into sections with scrolled and circular motifs, floral-decorated roundels and corner fans. All plasterwork is of a high standard, appropriate to a high-status public building. A small separate room to the south-east contains a 20th-century reproduction of an 18th-century fireplace and dumb waiter. Floors are supported by cross-strutted joists.

The Assembly Rooms were a popular gathering place for the merchant class of Leeds during the 18th and 19th centuries, containing a ballroom, gaming and refreshment rooms. They replaced the Old Assembly Rooms in the Cloth Hall at Nos. 99-101 Kirkgate. The opening ceremony was performed by Sir George Saville and Lady Effingham in the presence of over 200 of Leeds' most important citizens. The courtyard-facing side of the range is thought to have originally been an open colonnade supporting the Assembly Rooms, with the wall line of the narrower ground-floor Cloth Hall range matching the width of the west range. This arrangement of an open colonnade at ground floor is similar to that of the earlier Hall. A photograph of the Assembly Rooms shows a missing attached balustrade at first-floor level, with a design very similar to work by John Carr, particularly Castlegate House, York, dated 1762–63.