Details
LEEDS
SE33SE AUSTHORPE LANE, Austhorpe
714-1/12/508 (East side)
26/09/63 Austhorpe Hall
GV II*
Country house. 1694, altered mid C19. Red brick, stone
dressings, hipped stone slate roof with heavy wooden modillion
cornice.
2 storeys with cellars and attics, 7 bays. Quoins. Pedimented
centre bay breaks forward slightly and contains 1 window in
upper storey and entrance on ground floor. Panelled door with
overlight in eared architrave; pulvinated frieze, plaque with
interlaced lettering: J MORE/ 1694, broken pediment. 7 windows
in eared architraves, each vertical pair in projecting panel
with stone quoins. Wooden mullion and transom windows, leaded
panes, some probably original glass. End ridge stacks.
INTERIOR: cross-corridor, direct-entry plan with fine
detailing to doors (original latches, L- and butterfly
hinges), few later alterations; central hall has fireplace
with cast-iron grate in plain stone surround, timber and
moulded plaster ceiling, fireplace other end blocked. A round
archway with double doors opens into staircase, probably mid
C19, square balusters, turned newels, ramped handrail, the
original staircase removed to The Grange, Seacroft.
Front room, right: panelled walls, ceiling cornice, plaster
ceiling decoration with leaf mouldings, the windows on the
right return are blocked and one is a cupboard. Front room,
left: 2 windows to front and left return, shutters,
fielded-panelling, bolection-moulded black stone fireplace;
opening off through double doors, the rear left 'smoking
room', lit by 1 window, shutters, panelling, corner fireplace.
From the 'smoking room' a doorway opens into the stone-flagged
corridor which is lit by a semicircular west window with
glazing bars, stone steps down at east end.
First floor, left: full-height panelling, ceiling cornice,
bolection-moulded fireplace, small panelled room off is lit by
2 rear windows, the room partition meeting the central mullion
of one. The main room, centre front, has panelled walls,
bolection-moulded fireplace with shelf over. Front right: lit
by 2 windows, 2 in side wall blocked, one of them a cupboard;
panelled walls, fireplace, moulded ceiling cornice; rear
right: a corner fireplace, lit by 1 window on right return.
A secondary staircase rises from the rear corridor to the
attics: turned balusters, square newels, console brackets.
Cellars below rear rooms contain base of a stone newel stair,
brick-arched rooms lit by 2-light straight-chamfered mullioned
windows, one door made from C17 framed panelling.
John Cossins' 1725 map of Leeds shows the merchants' houses
built at a time when Leeds was developing as the main centre
for cloth production and export; this rural version (2 rather
than 3 storeys) is a rare survival.
Listing NGR: SE3698634131
