4, 5 AND 6, MILL HILL

Details

LEEDS

SE3033SW MILL HILL 714-1/78/254 (East side) Nos.4, 5 AND 6

GV II

Shops, manufactory and warehouse, now shops, offices and club premises. Probably mid/late C18 using C17 materials, refronted c1870, altered C20. Red brick, stone details and cement tile roof to frontage, rendered brick and slate roofs to rear ranges. 3-storey, 9-window frontage with central archway through to rear yard enclosed by parallel wings at right angles to front and a range closing the yard at the eastern end. Frontage: archway flanked by pilasters; cambered arch with keyblock; original pilasters divide C20 shop facades. Paired round-headed windows to first floor, segmental heads to first-floor windows; stone keyblocks, sill and impost bands; ground-floor pilasters rise to modillion eaves cornice. Inner yard facades have C19 and C20 doors and windows, though small windows under eaves suggest possibly original openings; details obscured by rendering. INTERIOR: not inspected but reputed to contain (1984) and more recent photographic record confirms existence of king-post roof trusses of 3 types: i) recut king post, feet of principal rafters set inside wall line and curved to meet king post below ridge; splayed braces from cross beam to principals; longitudinal bracing from king post to ridge; one set of purlins; cut carpenters' marks; ii) king post has braces rising from close to base and splayed to support underside of principal rafters; cut and stamped carpenters' marks; iii) shaped king post thickened at base and head for jointing with splayed braces and principal rafters. The 1984 report, confirmed by a view of the roofs from an adjacent property, suggests that the north and south wings, at right angles to the front range, were of 3 bays originally, extended in the later C18 by 3 and 4 bays respectively and closed off by the 2-bay range. The C19 frontage probably replaced a merchant's house, the rear yard housing workshops and warehouses; the site being within the oldest part of Leeds and close to the Coloured Cloth Hall, built 1756, and the King's Mill (corn). HISTORICAL NOTE: in 1826 Nos 4, 5 & 6 were occupied by JS Darby, butcher, Benjamin Blackburn and Sons, woollen cloth merchants and manufacturers (Holbeck Moor Mills) and Mary Walker, grocer and flour dealer. In 1847 the yard was called

Bower's Court; the property was owned by Joshua Bower when the Boar Lane Improvements map was compiled, the refronting being done when the south side of Boar Lane was rebuilt in 1869-73. In 1875 the occupants were: (No.4) a hairdresser, (No.5) butcher, (No.5A) a cotton yarn agent, (No.6) a glass bottle manufacturer and a woollen manufacturer; John Brown corn dealer was in Bower's Court. A rare surviving example of the city centre buildings of the C18, similar groups also Blayd's Yard and Queen's Court, Briggate, (qqv). (Directories of Leeds for 1826, 1834, 1875: 1826-1875; W Yorks Metropolitan County Council Archaeology Unit: Michelmore, D: Report on Nos 4-6 Mill Hill).



Listing NGR: SE3004733328

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:

466071

Legacy System:

LBS

Sources

Other
Michelmore, D, Report on Numbers 4-6 Mill Hill,

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