Mount St Josephs College Of The Blessed Virgin

Mount St Joseph’s College of the Blessed Virgin is a large Wesleyan training college, later adapted as a Roman Catholic college and Leeds Diocesan RE centre, constructed between 1867 and 1868 and with later 19th-century extensions. Designed by Wilson and Wilcox of Bath, it is situated on Headingley Lane, Headingley, Leeds.

The building is constructed of rock-faced, coursed Potternewton stone with ashlar dressings from the Meanwood quarries, and has slate roofs. It presents as a long, low structure of two storeys and seven bays, arranged around a courtyard. The architectural style is Gothic Revival. A central gabled porch has re-cased stone steps leading to double doors with a plate tracery overlight, set within a moulded Gothic arch. Above the porch is a three-stage clock tower with a three-light traceried window, an arcaded clock stage, a conical stone dome resting on short columns, and a bud finial. Flanking the porch are three bays with three-light traceried windows on the ground floor. First-floor windows are gabled through eaves dormers, with quatrefoil lights in the tympana; the central window is surmounted by a double flue chimney. Pierced parapets and end stacks are also present. Projecting bays to either side, also of three windows, echo the main design, with twin pyramid roofs and small gabled dormer windows featuring elaborate wrought-iron finials. A possibly later gabled bay is located to the far left, with plain window surrounds. To the far right is a single-storey, four-window bay with traceried two-light windows and pilasters between.

The rear of the building features coursed squared ashlar walling and slate roofs. A central chapel is notable, with a three-light east window and two-light cross windows on the side walls. Two-storey ranges flank the chapel, with shouldered arches to the ground-floor windows.

The interior, which has not been inspected, originally comprised an entrance hall below the tower, a library to the right, and a board room to the left. A main corridor ran along the rear, with eight students' day-rooms leading off. The left wing contained four lecture rooms, one with an open timber roof, and a chemistry laboratory with a lecture room. The right wing included a dining hall with an open timbered roof, a kitchen at a right angle, and apartments for the governor and housekeeper. First-floor accommodation included sick and convalescent wards and students’ rooms.

The building’s original plan is documented in the 1872 Leeds Directory. An 1889 Ordnance Survey map indicates rear wings, and a subsequent east wing created a small courtyard. Further extensions to the rear wings, along with the construction of the chapel and flanking ranges, formed an enclosed rear courtyard in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. From 1924 to 1930, the building was leased by Leeds University as a hall of residence and renamed Devonshire Hall. That name was later transferred to the existing hall of residence on Cumberland Road.