Former warehouse of the Scotch Foundry

Summary

The former warehouse of the Scotch Foundry, Armley, of 1897 by Walter A Hobson of Leeds, with later additions

Reasons for Designation

The former warehouse is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:

* for the ornate red-brick façades of the main north, east and west ranges, which feature highly decorative cast-iron cresting extending along the length of the north and west parapets and tall, complex cast-iron finials;
* as a good example of a C19 former iron foundry warehouse that compares well with other listed buildings of its type.

Group value:

* for its strong functional, visual and historical relationship with the adjacent former office block of the Scotch Foundry, demonstrating the extent and nature of the operations across the site.

History

The Scotch Foundry was founded in Armley by the firm of Mathieson, Wilson and Company in 1888. The foundry was a joint venture between the gas apparatus manufacturer Charles Wilson and Sons (‘Wilsons’), and the owners of the Springfield Foundry in Falkirk, where Wilsons’ castings had previously been made. The first casting at the foundry was made on 14 May 1888, and the anniversary was celebrated with a party in the pattern shop, above the enamelling shop. By 1893 the firm was also making iron-framed buildings, and gates and railings.

Charles Wilson began in business as an ironmonger in 1857 and specialised in heated baths and cooking stoves, as well as gas lighting and fires. His sons became partners in 1872. The Wilsons’ business continued to operate from its Carlton Works on Exeter Place off Woodhouse Lane in Leeds city centre until 1898, when a new Carlton Works was built on Canal Road, Armley, south of the railway line running behind the Scotch Foundry. In 1889, Charles Wilson and Sons merged with Mathieson, Wilson and Company to form a public limited company called Wilsons and Mathiesons.

The warehouse at the Scotch Foundry was built in 1897. The approved building control drawings for the warehouse show an L-shaped plan comprising the north and east ranges, and the west range is therefore probably an extension, although of very similar appearance to the north façade, and probably built very soon afterwards. Its roof is hipped at the front, with a narrow modern corridor connecting the two loft spaces, also suggesting it is an extension. The cast-iron cresting and finials of the warehouse are likely to have been produced in-house, effectively forming an advertisement for the firm’s wares, aided by the building’s elevated situation. A covered yard to the rear of the east range, and of about the same width, was also part of the original plans. However, by 1906 when the Ordnance Survey (OS) 1:2,500 map of 1908 was surveyed, the whole of the area to the rear of the front range was infilled. Aerial photographs of 1926 show that this included the multi-gabled rear addition (which necessitated removing all the original rear windows, and presumably re-siting them in the new rear wall), as well as single-storey covered yards which are almost certainly those still extant – although a chimney shown to the rear of the west range has been removed.

The historic maps and aerial photographs also show that the foundry itself once covered a large site to the south of Forge Lane, which extended to nearly three hectares, although comparison with the extant buildings show that nearly all the process buildings have now been removed or dramatically altered. In 1925, Mathieson, Wilson and Company became a subsidiary of Radiation Ltd, a domestic gas stove and fire manufacturer, and in 1932 they built a new office block to the west of the warehouse, which was opened by HRH Prince George, the Duke of Kent. The warehouse was subsequently used as a paper mill, and the firm continued to operate until about 1980. The warehouse and office block are currently (2024) used by a contract cleaning and training company.

Walter A Hobson of Leeds (1856-1916) trained as a pupil with the noted Leeds architect Thomas Ambler, and served as vice-president of the Leeds and Yorkshire Architectural Society from 1886 to 1901. He is also believed to have designed the offices of the firm’s Carlton Works.

Details

The former warehouse of the Scotch Foundry, Armley, 1897 by Walter A Hobson of Leeds, with later additions.

MATERIALS: red brick with buff sandstone dressings and cast-iron decoration, with iron columns and timber floors internally. Slate and corrugated sheet roofs.

PLAN: standing on a sandstone outcrop overlooking the Leeds and Liverpool Canal. The warehouse has a C-plan with a range along Forge Lane facing north and rear wings to the east and west, all with slate roofs.

The southern extension to the north range with a corrugated sheet roof, and the series of covered yards with corrugated sheet and flat sheet roofs, together with the lightweight roof structure that spans the gap between the warehouse and the adjacent building to the east, are not of special interest and are excluded from the listing.

EXTERIOR: the warehouse is of three storeys, described on the original plans of 1897 as basement, ground and first floors, although for much of the length of the façade the ‘basement’ is at ground level, while to the right, where the land falls away, the plinth becomes a full storey high and accommodates a cellar. The façade is divided into five wide bays by three pedimented gables, with a plinth, sill bands, first-floor lintel band and cornice, and decorative cast-iron cresting along the parapet. The outer bays are symmetrical overall, framed by pilasters (with Tudor-flower bands) rising as pillars above the cornice, with a central gable rising through the cornice, with outer (stone) ball finials and an arched pediment with tall cast-iron finial. These bays have narrow, flat-headed windows with chamfered lintels (mostly in the gabled central section on the ground and first floor, but across the whole bay at basement level), with an arch in the gable forming a Venetian window to the first floor. The framing pilasters have segmental-pedimented stone caps, with tall, complex cast-iron finials.

The central bay is framed by slender pilasters and is two windows wide, with arched first-floor windows rising through the cornice, and a gable with shaped kneelers, ball finials, triangular pediment, a datestone of 1888 (which refers to the foundation date of the foundry on this site) and a cast-iron weathervane finial. It has two windows to the ground floor and basement, with segmental arch heads and exaggerated keystones that rise to the sill band of the floor above. The intermediate bay to its right has the same window openings to these floors. The intermediate bay to the left has three narrow windows to the ground floor, and two windows and a panelled door to the basement. All the first-floor windows are original, including two square first-floor windows in each of the intermediate bays flanking the central bay. These are metal-framed and small-paned, with hopper openers. Most other windows are replacements.

The east façade is also on ground that rises to the left, and is of eight bays with ground-floor windows only in the right-hand four bays (mostly altered), and more modest in style. Bay 1 (from the left) has an arched doorway in the ground floor with moulded brick surround, and moulded stone dressings. The openings to bays 2 and 3 are altered. The first floor is largely obscured by a lightweight roof structure* with iron trusses and corrugated metal sheeting, which spans the gap between this and the adjacent building to the east (the roof structure is not of special interest).

The west façade is partly obscured by the adjacent office building (which abuts the building at the north-west corner), but the side wall of the front range is framed by pilasters and has a similar arch-pedimented gable to those of the front’s outer bays, and the rest of the façade has a moulded stone cornice, above which rise pillars like those crowning the front facade’s pilasters, with the same stone caps and cast-iron finials. The window openings to the ground floor have segmental arch heads with exaggerated keystones (some of which are blocked or partially blocked), and those to the first floor are square, with a sill band. These are fitted with metal-framed windows.

To the rear the upper floor of the east and west ranges mostly retain their original windows. The rest of the rear elevations are almost entirely obscured by later additions* that are not of special interest, including a southern extension* and a series of yards with corrugated sheet and flat roofs*.

INTERIOR: the warehouse interior is largely open-plan (with some later partitions), with paired columns supporting twin spine beams in the basement and ground floor, delineating a central passage. The wooden floors are mostly covered with modern screeds, and the columns and beams also mostly concealed by later fireproofing renders, with plastered walls. On the first floor the original construction remains visible, with painted brick walls and unboarded ceilings, but also with a floor screed. Here the passage columns (of cast-iron) are staggered and support the tie-beams of the timber roof structure. The original rear wall is extant, with empty window openings. The east and west ranges have a single, central line of columns. The lofts are boarded, fully in the east and west ranges, but in the front range only between the outer struts of the roof trusses, to allow the first floor to borrow light from eaves skylights. Various partitions remain, along with a goods lift. A cast-iron staircase with decorative risers leads from the first floor up to the loft. Much of the ground-floor inner walls of the east and west ranges have been removed, with columns inserted, opening their ground floors up into the covered yards.

The former warehouse interconnects with the former office block of the Scotch Foundry at basement level and ground-floor level at the north end of the west elevation.

*Pursuant to s1 (5A) of the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 (“the Act”) it is declared that the southern extension to the north range with a corrugated sheet roof, and the series of covered yards with corrugated sheet and flat sheet roofs, together with the lightweight roof structure that spans the gap between the warehouse and the adjacent building to the east, are not of special architectural or historic interest, however, any works which have the potential to affect the character of the listed building as a building of special architectural or historic interest may still require Listed Building Consent and this is a matter for the Local Planning Authority to determine.

Sources

Books and journals
Wrathmell, S, Minnis, J, Pevsner Architectural Guides: Leeds, (2005), 207
P Leach & N Pevsner, , The Buildings of England. Yorkshire West Riding: Leeds, Bradford and the North, (2009), 568
White, William, Directory of the West Riding of Yorkshire, (1870), 242, 318-321
Kelly, ER, Directory of the West Riding of Yorkshire Pt 2 (Places L-Y), (1881), 834
Official Souvenir Handbook of the Leeds Industrial Exhibition held in the Town Hall, Victoria Square, (1926), 10-13
London Printing and Engraving Company, , The Century's Progress, (1893), 156-157
Webster, C, Building a Great Victorian City: Leeds Architects and Architecture 1790-1914, (2011), 163, 357

Websites
Information on Charles Wilson and Sons, Mathieson Wilson and Co, and Wilsons and Mathiesons, accessed 14/05/24 from https://www.gracesguide.co.uk
Historic aerial photographs EPW017307, EPW020772, EAW035539 and EAW035544, accessed 14/05/24 from htpps://www.britainfromabove.org.uk

Other
Description of Prince George opening the office building, in the Yorkshire Post and Leeds Intelligencer, 28/09/1932
Plans of New Storage Rooms etc. Scotch Foundry, Armley, Leeds, Approved 1897

End of official list entry

All text content is available under the Open Government Licence v3.0 , except where otherwise stated. Any supplied maps are © Crown Copyright [and database rights] 2026 OS AC0000815036 and may not be reproduced without permission.

Print the official list entry