40 AND 41, AIRE STREET (See details for further address information)

40 and 41 Aire Street is a clothing factory and warehouse, now used as shops and offices. It was built between 1877 and 1900 for RB Brown and Sons, wholesale clothiers, and was converted in the 20th century. The building features a steel frame with brick cladding and ashlar dressings, topped with a glazed roof.

It stands six storeys tall with a three-bay facade that has a deep plan facing Aire Street. On the right side, there is a Doric columned portico with a panelled double door beneath a scrolled transom that has a dated cartouche and a plain fanlight. This is complemented by a moulded brick arch with raised ashlar voussoirs under an open segmental pediment. To the left, there are later glazed doors, while the rest of the ground floor is boarded up.

On the first floor, there are transomed casements arranged in a rhythm of 4:6:4, separated by panelled wooden pilasters. Above the second floor, the facade is fully glazed with casements in the same rhythm, set between brick piers with raised strips. The central windows are topped with an elliptical arch featuring a keystone, while the outer bays have twin windows above an impost band of the central arch. The cornice projects forward over the centre and each pier, and the parapet has an oeil-de-boeuf and ball finials, with a solid section over the centre that rises as a shaped open pediment containing a ball finial with a band.

At the rear, facing Aire Street, there is full-height glazing in bays one and two, while bay three features transomed five-light lavatory windows. A dentilled brick cornice runs beneath the attic, which has thirteen narrow windows in bays two and three.

Inside, there is an internal light-well that is roofed over at the third floor. This building is noted as an impressive and early example of steel-framed construction. In 1906, during the 'Great Fire of Leeds', the premises of Brown and Sons were reported to have escaped damage due to its relatively new construction, which followed the 'American system' with open floors, fireproof walls, and a small water tank in the roof that fed a sprinkler system.