SecretLeeds - History, culture and architecture in Leeds

Does anyone know the history of this building? It's north of the railway between Wellington Street & the Aireside Centre, probably close to the site of one of the older stations.

Yeah sure do wsmith. It was one of two goods hoists that brought wagons down from the high level viaduct to the low level goods yard next to Central station that was built where the Royal mail building now stands. The station & yards closed in 1967. Apart from the half viaduct & goods hoist the only other reminder of it's railway past is a G.N.R stone on the Wellesley building frontage. I have some pics around there here http://flickr.com/photos/phill_dvsn/276 ... 397421428/

The Wellesley was formally known as the Great Northern Hotel, it is now City Central. All the staircases are marked with GN all the way through. Except my floor !The top two floors were destroyed in a fire in 1906, often referred to as the Great Fire of Leeds.

It was the only part of leeds central station to be listed prior to it being demolished as the powers that be wanted some of it to live on into history. There is talk of converting the the old hoist building into a bar/restaurant so one day you will be able to get inside it but will probably have to by a pint as well.

It looks odd stood there today.. but not when you look at how it was!!!

I was told an interesting story on the wagon lift. Originally there were two lifts, and one was listed and earmarked for retention when the site was cleared. Unfortunately the listed tower was demolished in error - so the remaining one was quickly listed and kept instead.

Hi. I was very interested to read about the lifting tower, and the fact that it could be put to good use as a cafe or bar.I believe that there was a third tower near to Whitehall Road, according to the book, Railway Memories (Leeds)by Peter Rose, published by Bellcode Books. There is a good map of the Wellington Street railway yards.I used to work under the viaduct to the upper goods line in the 1970's at a drinks wholesalers. I used to wander around the areas around the viaducts (during my lunch break) looking for railway history.

There is a couple of old aerial pictures (dated around 1980 I believe) with the two lifting towers and associated viaducts intact here:http://www.pbase.com/danielrobot/image/ ... nalThey're very big pictures so be patient! These aren't my pictures, I think a friend rescued them from the bin at work a few years ago and scanned them in. I should ask him to start a thread with some of the other pictures in as they're a fascinating historical record, and he should take the glory for finding them.I wonder if the factory buildings on Whitehall Road would have been retained if they'd lasted another decade, and perhaps turned into nice converted flats like a lot of the old buildings on the west side of Manchester.There's a few other things in the pictures which have since disappeared (including the wagon on the newspaper train ) - see what you can spot.

Wow. Stonking picture there JF. I'm going to be giving that Central viaduct pic a good survey. I hadn't realised the old viaduct passed the river was still standing so late! Nice work...

Wow, that's a staggering picture! I need a bigger computer!