White Cloth Hall, Crown Street, Leeds - geograph

Blue Plaque, White Cloth Hall, Crown Street, Leeds - geograph

The 3rd White Cloth Hall is an important historic building in

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 populati ...

city centre in England. Between its construction in 1775–6 and partial destruction in 1865, the hall was one of the most important market places in Northern England for the sale of undyed cloth.

History

After construction of the two prior white cloth halls in 1711 and 1756, there was a meeting in 1774 to plan the building of yet another cloth hall in Leeds. Most of the money for the scheme came from the wealthy Leeds merchants, and a site was found on a piece of land called the Tenter Ground in the Calls. The hall was built around a large central courtyard. At the northern end of the courtyard, the hall was two storeys high, with assembly rooms on the upper storey. The Hall was built at a cost of £4,300, and opened in 1775. It held 1,210 merchant stalls. During the Victorian period, the White Cloth Hall Yard played host to various events, including the circus, as evidenced by an 1858 poster for

Pablo Fanque Pablo Fanque (born William Darby; 30 March 1810 – 4 May 1871) was a British equestrian performer and circus proprietor, becoming the first recorded Black circus owner in Britain. His circus was popular in Victorian Britain for 30 years, a pe ...

's Grand Allied Circus. The

Cupola In architecture, a cupola () is a relatively small, most often dome-like, tall structure on top of a building. Often used to provide a lookout or to admit light and air, it usually crowns a larger roof or dome. The word derives, via Italian, from ...

from the demolished 2nd White Cloth Hall was installed on the roof in 1786. When the North Eastern Railway system was extended through the town centre in 1865, the building was literally sliced in half by the new North Eastern Viaduct. This necessitated the construction of the

4th White Cloth Hall The 4th White Cloth Hall was a market for the sale of undyed cloth on King Street in Leeds city centre in England. A blue plaque for the building can be found on the nearby Quebec Street. The 4th White Cloth hall was built in 1868 by the North ...

, built at the expense of the North Eastern Railway company.

Present

Only parts of the original cloth hall building remain. The facade is still present on Crown Street, just off Kirkgate and next to

the Corn Exchange A corn exchange is a building where merchants trade grains. The word "corn" in British English denotes all cereal grains, such as wheat and barley; in the United States these buildings were called grain exchange. Such trade was common in towns ...

. The single storey wing directly behind the facade was restored in 1991–2 by John Lyall Architects and is now occupied by shops and a restaurant. Assembly Street separates the front of the hall from the original two-storey-tall northern wing. This northern wing was refurbished in 1990 by David Readman.

References

External links

* *
Buildings and structures in Leeds Leeds Blue Plaques {{WestYorkshire-geo-stub

History

Present

See also

References

External links