1st White Cloth Hall
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The 1st White Cloth Hall is a Grade II*
listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...
on Kirkgate, in the city centre of
Leeds Leeds () is a city and the administrative centre of the City of Leeds district in West Yorkshire, England. It is built around the River Aire and is in the eastern foothills of the Pennines. It is also the third-largest settlement (by popula ...
in
West Yorkshire West Yorkshire is a metropolitan and ceremonial county in the Yorkshire and Humber Region of England. It is an inland and upland county having eastward-draining valleys while taking in the moors of the Pennines. West Yorkshire came into exi ...
,
England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
.


History

Originally named The White Cloth Hall, it was opened in 1711 as a response to the building of a covered cloth hall by the merchants of
Wakefield Wakefield is a cathedral city in West Yorkshire, England located on the River Calder. The city had a population of 99,251 in the 2011 census.https://www.nomisweb.co.uk/census/2011/ks101ew Census 2011 table KS101EW Usual resident population, ...
in 1710, built in order to entice traders away from Leeds. So the cloth hall for the sale of white (undyed) cloth was built on Kirkgate on a site provided by Lord Irvine of
Temple Newsam Temple Newsam (historically Temple Newsham), () is a Tudor- Jacobean house in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England, with grounds landscaped by Capability Brown. The estate lends its name to the Temple Newsam ward of Leeds City Council, in which i ...
with £1,000 given by merchants and tradesmen. It was 'built upon Pillars and Arches in the form of an Exchange, with a Quadrangular Court within'.


Present

Despite its importance to the industrial heritage of Leeds and to the
industrial revolution The Industrial Revolution was the transition to new manufacturing processes in Great Britain, continental Europe, and the United States, that occurred during the period from around 1760 to about 1820–1840. This transition included going f ...
in general, the first White Cloth Hall in Kirkgate has stood growing increasingly derelict for many years surrounded by scaffolding and safety hoardings. The Amusement Arcade in its eastern wing still operates but the rest of the building is getting close to state of collapse and is a
health and safety Occupational safety and health (OSH), also commonly referred to as occupational health and safety (OHS), occupational health, or occupational safety, is a multidisciplinary field concerned with the safety, health, and welfare of people at wo ...
hazard. A series of meetings with the
City Council A municipal council is the legislative body of a municipality or local government area. Depending on the location and classification of the municipality it may be known as a city council, town council, town board, community council, rural counc ...
Planning Officers, the building owner Emco, and
English Heritage English Heritage (officially the English Heritage Trust) is a charity that manages over 400 historic monuments, buildings and places. These include prehistoric sites, medieval castles, Roman forts and country houses. The charity states that i ...
, concluded that the western and southern sections of the building must be demolished. In March 2018, Leeds City Council granted Rushbond Group permission to restore the building. Rushbond Group are local property developers who bought the building over a year earlier. Work started in March 2019. In 2019
Historic England Historic England (officially the Historic Buildings and Monuments Commission for England) is an executive non-departmental public body of the British Government sponsored by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. It is tasked w ...
commissioned
dendrochronological Dendrochronology (or tree-ring dating) is the scientific method of dating tree rings (also called growth rings) to the exact year they were formed. As well as dating them, this can give data for dendroclimatology, the study of climate and atmos ...
(tree-ring) analysis on
ex situ Svalbard GLOBAL SEED BANK, an ''ex situ'' conservation. ''Ex situ'' conservation literally means, "off-site conservation". It is the process of protecting an endangered species, variety or breed, of plant or animal outside its natural habitat; ...
samples from 19 oak and one conifer timbers from the former west range of First White Cloth Hall. This analysis dated the timber as growing during the years AD 1366–1476, with the trees felled in the summer of AD 1476, with a likelihood that the timbers were part of a specific programme of felling and construction from a single woodland source relatively local to West Yorkshire. This date is earlier than had been expected based on the opening of First White Cloth Hall in the early eighteenth century.


See also

* 2nd White Cloth Hall * 3rd White Cloth Hall * 4th White Cloth Hall


References


External links

* {{Listed buildings in Leeds Listed buildings in Leeds Grade II* listed buildings in West Yorkshire Buildings and structures in Leeds Commercial buildings completed in 1711 1711 establishments in England