Leeds University Great Hall, Clothworkers Court, Baines Wing

Leeds University Great Hall, Clothworkers' Court, Baines Wing

This is a group of college buildings erected between 1877 and 1912, designed by the architects Alfred Waterhouse and his son Paul Waterhouse. They were the first buildings of the Yorkshire College of Science, which became the University of Leeds.

The buildings are constructed in red brick laid in decorative courses and patterns, with stone details from Spinkwell Quarry and slate roofs. They are designed in the Free Gothic Revival style.

The complex forms an asymmetrical group centred on a low stone wall with railings and a Gothic arch. This arch bears an inscription recording that the Clothworkers' departments were built and equipped by the Worshipful Company of Clothworkers of the City of London at a cost of seventy thousand pounds, with an endowment of four thousand pounds a year for their maintenance.

The architectural composition includes several distinct ranges. To the left is a 6-bay college range where the gabled right bay features blind arcading, a coat of arms, and a 4-light window flanked by plaques carved with teazles. An inscription below records the building's erection by the Worshipful Company of Clothworkers in 1879 for the Textile Industries Department of the Yorkshire College. A moulded archway opens to a long wall with arcaded windows and small 2-light windows above, fronting a north-light weaving shed block.

To the west are 8-bay extensions: a gabled bay opened in 1900, followed by Paul Waterhouse's long addition featuring a round archway and gabled upper storey. At the left end stands a tall pyramid-roofed tower built 1909–12. A plaque at the tower's base records the Spinning Department Extension, erected through a supplemental grant of £5,000 from the Worshipful Company of Clothworkers in July 1910 when Sir Owen Roberts was Master. The inscription notes this brought the Company's total grants for building and equipment to £75,000.

To the right of the archway stands the gable end of the Great Hall, which was opened in 1894 by the Duke and Duchess of York. It features a gabled porch to the right, paired square windows, and a buttress between on the ground floor. Characteristic bands of stone run across the facade. A large Perpendicular traceried window is flanked by towers with tall pyramidal roofs, louvred stages, and bartizans at the corners.

The Great Hall and the first college building form two sides of the Clothworkers' Court. The north side includes part of the Edward Baines buildings of 1885, which display 3 gables and mullioned windows. This range continues to the east of the Great Hall with the 3-storey 7-bay Edward Baines Memorial Wing, dated 1883. This wing features a central tower with a steeply-pitched slate roof and corner turrets, transom and mullion windows, gabled dormers, and tall ridge ventilators. A further extension to the west, built 1900–1910, comprises 3 storeys over a basement with 3 gabled bays and large mullion and transom windows.

Interior

The western range retains original features including cantilevered stone stairs with a cast-iron rail featuring Yorkshire rose motifs and columns with Art Nouveau capitals. A first-floor corridor added after 1880 to the original building has patterned glass in leaded windows. There is a cast-iron spiral stair. A former museum, now a meeting room, contains stained-glass roundels repeating the teazle motif of the gable end. A fine staircase of two flights has a moulded ramped handrail and a scrolled cast-iron balustrade with tendrils.

The Great Hall features a staircase lined with Burmantofts tiles in shades of brown, including the balustrade, columns, floors, and walls. The basement originally housed kitchens and a dining room. The ground floor contained a library, lecture room, and professors' common room, along with a room for college societies. The large upper-floor hall was used for meetings, examinations, and public lectures. It has a gallery at the south end, octagonal columns with floral capitals, a panelled plaster ceiling, and a cornice bearing the 'YC' monogram.

The Prince of Wales opened the Yorkshire College buildings in 1885. Following the establishment of Leeds University by royal charter in 1904, Edward VII opened the final phase of brick buildings in 1908.