The Parochial Room/Hall near to Leeds Minster.

[uncle mick]

http://tinyurl.com/nnv23ln

The Parochial Room is also known as St Peter's Hall. The above link should lead to some planning documents giving some more information - nothing on the feature though.

Some more info here http://plandocs.leeds.gov.uk/WAM/doc/Ba ... geCount=34

[Cardiarms]

Great stuff as ever. Perhaps the feature is something related to Sunday school. At first I thought it might be a cupboard but it doesn't look that deep and looks more like a small altar.

[Leodian]

Thanks all for your help, which is appreciated .

Barnie's "I thought it looked like a very posh cupboard!" made me .

[Leodian]

I went to look at the Parochial Room (St Peter's Hall) site today (June 23 2015) and these are 3 photos that I took. While there I got talking with a man who gave me some very interesting information about the feature. I don't know who he was but I have no reason to doubt what he told me so I would like to thank him for his help. He told me what the feature is called but having only heard it I thought I would be able to easily guess how it is spelt, but I have not been successful. Phonetically it sounded like Cure..ree..oss (or similar) so perhaps someone can state what the word will be. The nearest I know of is a reredos, which is a screen behind an altar. He told me that the feature dates from the 1300s (which is staggering if true) and has been in at least 4 churches before being put where it is now. It has been painted over at some stage. He said its future is not yet decided as it may be left as a feature in the apartments or put into Leeds Minster.

I could not go inside the building but I managed to take the photos from a doorway at a side of the building coming off The Calls. I had no time to compose the frames and had to quickly take the photos. The first shows the feature, the second a view in the opposite direction and the third shows the beams in the roof.

While I was there a workman was chipping mortar off some bricks and clearly making them fit to reuse as there was neat pile of worked bricks and many more ready to be worked on. I assume the bricks are to be reused as it would be pointless to work on them if they were not. I don't know but I think they will likely be original bricks from when the building was built, so very old.

[liits]

A bit of a guess as to the Cure... ree... oss.
Curia pertains to the governing body of the church and more usually relates to the RC's but the C of E has similar. From what I can gather, many older C of E churches had a Curia Room available to be used as the Bishop's Court or Consistory Court. And this is where it gets tricky........it would more commonly known as a Vestry Room [so as to distance themselves from the left-footers and their Roman Practices but Curia Room would have been used if it was a "High Church"] and would have been used more often by the rector, churchwardens and vestrymen, until the 1830’s, when responsibility for the poor, maintaining the highways, drainage, and public order were gradually transferred to various statutory agencies.
The Vestry House at St Giles in the Fields had the most fabulous wood panelling covered with the names of former rectors, vicars, etc, etc. Pic below

[Leodian]

Thanks for your help liits .

PS. I've had a look at some of your Flickr photos and see that like me you like to take photos of bench marks.

[Bruno]

This is a long shot, Leo:

The Greek word kurios has a number of different meanings. It can mean sir, master, owner, or even refer to an idol. However on a number of occasions it is the Greek equivalent to the Hebrew word Yahweh or Jehovah. This is the divine name for God.

https://www.blueletterbible.org/faq/don ... t_1307.cfm

I wonder if the feature is named after a statue such as a crucifix which was placed on it?

[Bruno]

It also reminds me of this secret church inside a house which I visited years ago in Amsterdam:

http://www.ssmeder.com/1/category/a%20s ... dam/1.html

[Leodian]

Cheers Bruno .

It's very frustrating now that I don't know the actual word for the feature that sounded like Cure...ree...oss (as in hoss). The man who said it used it more than once and that was what it sounded like. I've even tried a spoken search but that just comes up with curious (perhaps my Leeds accent confuses it ).

PS. Your secret church report is very interesting Bruno.

[uncle mick]

Cheers Bruno .

It's very frustrating now that I don't know the actual word for the feature that sounded like Cure...ree...oss (as in hoss). The man who said it used it more than once and that was what it sounded like. I've even tried a spoken search but that just comes up with curious (perhaps my Leeds accent confuses it ).

PS. Your secret church report is very interesting Bruno.

Leo, Is Reredos the word you are looking for ??

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reredos