SecretLeeds - History, culture and architecture in Leeds

Can anyone locate and post the photos from this article ?


Briefly there are 2 photos headed waste land behind Royal Mail House.

In one photo of about 20 doors,each has a gold arch.
Each pair of doors has also has a gold arch.
A shorter wall at right angles has 10 doors each with a gold arch(no pairing)
The doors at not at ground level some demolition having already been done.

RMH was completed around 1975 and closed around 1998.

From the angle of RMH in the photo the site is probably in Whitehall Road.

The building looks to have been a quality build in its day but what was it ?

I have done a bit of internet trawling to no avail,I had hoped eagle eyed Leodian might have picked
this one up due to the lack of decent description and the build quality so I'll have a go.

dogduke wrote:Can anyone locate and post the photos from this article ?


Briefly there are 2 photos headed waste land behind Royal Mail House.

In one photo of about 20 doors,each has a gold arch.
Each pair of doors has also has a gold arch.
A shorter wall at right angles has 10 doors each with a gold arch(no pairing)
The doors at not at ground level some demolition having already been done.

RMH was completed around 1975 and closed around 1998.

From the angle of RMH in the photo the site is probably in Whitehall Road.

The building looks to have been a quality build in its day but what was it ?

I have done a bit of internet trawling to no avail,I had hoped eagle eyed Leodian might have picked
this one up due to the lack of decent description and the build quality so I'll have a go.

Hiya dogduke .

These are the photos you refer to (I hope they come out OK).

Joseph Watson's Whitehall Soap Works ("Soapy Joe's") might well fit the bill

Thanks Leo and Jim.
I had it in my mind about Soapy Joes but it seemed to me maybe bit a posh for that.
Is this an outside or interior wall and why so many doors ?,where did they all lead to ?
Don't suppose there will be many if any that worked there left.

Is this whitehall power station,i seem to remember a building that had something like "Leeds electric lighting" in stone lettering on the front of the building.

It is the Electricity Station on Whitehall Road as seen in this picture from Leodis

http://www.leodis.org/display.aspx?reso ... SPLAY=FULL

As you can see the wall features are the same as the retro picture

The old map does not state Power Station, but it was opposite Central Station, between Whitehall Road and the river.

http://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/sidebysi ... ht=BingHyb

I was wondering if the building with the arches might have been the Great Northern Railway Station platform and track bed (which if I have understood correctly was a different station to Central Station) and the other building the associated warehouse?

I can't find a picture of GNR station so I may be completely wrong, but the comparison between the YEP photo and this picture of York railway station (also GNR I believe) is quite striking.



Grace's guide has a picture of the warehouse which has some similarity to the other YEP photo. I can't reproduce it, but there's a link to it here;

http://www.gracesguide.co.uk/File:Im1899EnV88-p513.jpg

The map c 1950 shows the power station. The photo, from the 1970s, shows the power station in the background

Your link shows the GNR goods shed at Hunslet East Yard (next to the South Accommodation Road bridge) Bruno. York station was NER, not GNR. All the railway facilities in the vicinity of the building that is the subject of this thread (other than those across the river) were cleared in the late 60s/early 70s with the exception of the listed wagon hoist tower.