Details
This list entry was subject to a Minor Amendment on 16 August 2021 to update the name and address and to reformat the text to current standards
SE2933NE
714-1/75/185
LEEDS
GREAT GEORGE STREET (North side)
Nos.24 and 26
(Formerly listed as Felon and Firkin Public House, previously listed as: GREAT GEORGE STREET (North side) Nos.24 AND 26 Leeds Juvenile Court and Leeds West Riding Court)
22/03/74
GV
II
Masonic hall and photographic studio and offices, later courtrooms and offices, now public house. 1865, altered C20. The premises comprise two originally separate buildings. No.24, former masonic hall. By Perkin and Sons. Ashlar, slate roof. No.26, former photographic studio, offices and court premises. By George Corson for Edmund and Joseph Wormald. Brick with stone dressings, slate roof. Both in Gothic Revival style.
No.24: two storeys, four unequal bays. Ground floor: 1995 windows/doors within original bays, right bay projects slightly and has a pointed-arched doorway with flanking columns and gable with circular panel which breaks through the moulded string over ground floor. A round-arched window above the entrance has a hoodmould and the bay is flanked by attached slim columns with foliate caps. Bays one-three, first floor: 1:3:1 windows with cusped pointed arches, dripmoulds and pilaster shafts with carved capitals; the central light is blind, with trefoil panel in the tympanum; two carved quatrefoil panels with Masonic emblems above lightly-carved frieze at impost level. Heavy bracketed cornice and parapet with trefoil piercings; bay three stepped gable with flanking crocketed finials and circular panel with Masonic emblem of six-pointed star; small stepped gable above parapet bay four.
No.26, four storeys with attic, one bay. Ground floor: modern glass-block window, heavy stone cornice over. First floor: central oriel with round-arched windows, carved spandrels, attached columns with carved capitals, corbelled cornice; similar flanking windows with carved spandrels; carved stone frieze above. Second floor: shouldered head windows with stone lintels and continuous drip-mould, date plaque between. Three similar but smaller windows to third floor, continuous carved stone sill band and ornate deep corbelled and panelled brick eaves cornice. Truncated pyramid roof has central gabled dormer with fleur-de-lis finials.
INTERIOR: No.24 has former masonic hall at first floor with Gothic vaulted ceiling. No.26 has first floor with cast-iron cooking range and oven within white glazed brick surround. Range by Teal & Somers.
HISTORICAL NOTE: the earliest clear Directory entry for the building is 1872 when it housed refreshment rooms, a boot manufacturer, the premises of the Globe Advertiser and E Wormald, photographer. By 1881 eight different businesses had premises in the building, including a sewing machine agent, the Servants' Registry Office and the photographer. In 1888 it was the premises of the Leeds Organ School and Academy of Music, (William Spark, principal), the Leeds Chess Club, George Danby, architect, the photographer and a carver and gilder.
(Directories of Leeds, 1872, 1881, 1888; Victorian Society Walk No 4: Douglas, J and Powell, K: Leeds: 3 Architectural Walks, 3rd Edition: 1988-: 17).
Listing NGR: SE2977633950
