18-26 King Edward Street and 49-51 Vicar Lane, Leeds

Block of shops, offices and a former restaurant, built between 1898 and 1904, and altered during the 20th century. Designed by Frank Matcham for the Leeds Estates Company as part of the County Arcade development. The building is in the Free Baroque style.

The structure is constructed of pressed brick with decorative work in Burmantofts buff terracotta. Shopfronts are mahogany with black Siena marble dressings. The roofs are covered with slate, asphalt and corrugated steel.

The building comprises a long linear development block positioned on the south side of King Edward Street, with an eastern return onto Vicar Lane and a western return onto Fish Street, a narrow alley that divides this block from its separately listed western counterpart. The block is three storeys tall plus basement and attic storeys.

The exterior is notable for extensive decorative work in Burmantofts terracotta, including shaped window surrounds, shaped and Dutch or Flemish gables, and relief strapwork with scrolls, foliage, carved heads and plaque decoration. A domed turret stands at the north-east corner where the building meets Vicar Lane, with a smaller turret featuring a polygonal roof at the north-west corner at Fish Street.

The ground floor contains mahogany shopfronts with slender mullions between numbers 20 and 24 King Edward Street. The ground-floor bays are separated by black polished-granite pilasters. An entrance to the upper floors is located at 26 King Edward Street with a square-panelled door and screen above, whilst 51 Vicar Lane has a corner entrance. The first-floor windows are large casements with round and basket-arched heads, prominent keystones and carved Ionic mullions in the style of gaines. The second-floor windows are simpler with plate-glass sashes; those on the easternmost section have carved aprons below. An oriel window towards the eastern end of the King Edward Street elevation forms part of 51 Vicar Lane. At the top of the elevation is a dentilled cornice and balustraded parapet surmounted by shaped, pedimented and Dutch gables and ornamented corner towers. The Vicar Lane and Fish Street returns are similarly styled to the King Edward Street elevation, including a further oriel window at 49 Vicar Lane. The rear elevations are largely obscured by adjoining and neighbouring buildings.

Number 18 King Edward Street, known as King Edward House, is styled differently from the rest of the block with greater use of Burmantofts terracotta on its principal north elevation and a distinctive ground-floor treatment reflecting its original use as the King Edward Restaurant. The terracotta ground floor features four large arched glazed openings facing north onto King Edward Street, each with fluted decoration, carved spandrels and a keyed intrados. Original terracotta plinths at the bottom of these windows have been removed to enlarge the openings, and all have been fitted with replaced late-20th-century plain glazing. The window to the third bay originally formed the building's main entrance but has since been replaced by a late-20th-century entrance created on the north-west corner. At the centre of the first floor is a shallow segmental balustraded balcony. The second floor contains an elaborate window with an open pediment. At the top of the building is a large shaped gable containing a keyed oculus, with a band of lettering reading 'KING EDWARD HOUSE'. The north-west corner turret at Fish Street mirrors the design of a turret on the opposite side of the alley and incorporates three elliptical roundels containing coloured and gilded mosaics depicting the Roman god Bacchus flanked by a fish and a rabbit, representing the King Edward restaurant. The rear elevation is considerably plainer and may have been rebuilt.

The block has a mixture of pitched and hipped roofs. King Edward House incorporates sections of flat roof flanking a central pitched section running the length of the building from north to south.

The shop interiors are largely plain, though features may survive behind later stud walls and suspended ceilings. King Edward House is now in banking use and has been substantially modernised with suspended ceilings inserted, though decorative moulded plasterwork survives in the form of wall friezes and ceiling work in at least part of the ground floor. The upper floors were not inspected.