albion place help

[jim]

Out of idle curiosity I have compared several large scale maps of the site. Many just miss the time period before 1937, but the old-maps sheets for 1921 and 1933 clearly show the protruding entrance centred in the Albion Place frontage, whilst all later maps show the entrance one bay east, and the outline of the railed area where the entrance used to be is to be seen. This I believe confirms my theory that the structure was moved in the 1930s and was reinstated in its original position in more recent years. The building is listed, and the entrance structure is one of the named features.

[String o' beads]

Good finds everyone.So it seems to be that the building may have been built in the true baroque style, entrance was shifted sideways in around 1934, and then when sold around 1984 and the [old] Conservatory Bar was fitted out, they must have found out about the listing and had to put it back.    

[pablo leeds]

where are these large maps?so are we saying it was moved twice??certainly looks better in middle so not sure why they would move it at all unless it began like that    

[BarFly]

Could it be that the original building had two identical entrances which looked like the one shown on the YMCA in the first photo, but one was removed or, alternatively, the entrance was made to look more grand at some point in the building's history?The reason I say this is because the arches of the bulding suggests that any entrance in the middle would have had to have gone down from street level into the bulding. Or was Albion Place one of the streets whose level has been raised, meaning that the central entrance is at original street level?

[jim]

Hi pablo leeds. old-maps is a website you can access through google or some such. Enter "Leeds" in the appropriate box, select the West Yorkshire option, and manipulate the map references until you centre on Albion Place (west end) and then use the dated map thumbnails and the zoom facility. It takes a bit of getting the hang of, but perseverance will be worthwhile. Perhaps the original move was connected with maximising income by subletting the ground floor to shops and/or bank/building society branches.

[jim]

BarFly wrote: Could it be that the original building had two identical entrances which looked like the one shown on the YMCA in the first photo, but one was removed or, alternatively, the entrance was made to look more grand at some point in the building's history?The reason I say this is because the arches of the bulding suggests that any entrance in the middle would have had to have gone down from street level into the bulding. Or was Albion Place one of the streets whose level has been raised, meaning that the central entrance is at original street level? Hi Barfly. Two original entrances would have spoilt the balance of the frontage that Si elegantly describes as a function of the building style. The central entrance would create no problem - the floor level is OK, and the staircase would have started further inside the building, and sloped upward towards the front wall, with a landing level with the top of the entrance. The present steps leading down are to access the cellar, now a restaurant I believe, and have been created cleverly to re-use the imposing original entrance arch. There is no need to access the ground floor from this arch, as that has for many years been entered from a rear entrance, which acts as the way in for the whole building, other than the retail units.

[BarFly]

I'm struggling to see how an enterance in the position it is now in could ever have granted access to the ground floor though. The top of arch in the building behind the present entrance is show by the older photo to be about three feet above the ground level outside the building so appears to be access to a lower ground floor than is present today.

[pablo leeds]

great website that jim. Thanks

[jim]

BarFly wrote: I'm struggling to see how an enterance in the position it is now in could ever have granted access to the ground floor though. The top of arch in the building behind the present entrance is show by the older photo to be about three feet above the ground level outside the building so appears to be access to a lower ground floor than is present today. I understand what you are getting at Barfly. I am presuming that the arch feature you refer to and the window above it were installed as part of the earlier (probable) modification of around 1934/5 to make the effect of moving the entrance less obtrusive visually. Note that all the other four sections of the Albion Place frontage have bottom floor levels matching the street level, and that, as I have pointed out previously in this thread, the centre section upper levels are only explainable by intermediate landings on a staircase arrangement. This staircase would almost certainly start at ground floor towards the rear of the building (ie not being at one of the intermediate landing levels, which are at the front). I'm afraid this is a somewhat less than clear explanation, but hope I have managed to get my meaning across. Hopefully someone will be able to provide a photo of the building as it was originally constructed for the YMCA in 1907/9 (sources differ). I have spent a few hours checking Leodis and my books of old Leeds photos without success.    

[Si]

I think we need to have a look inside to determine what's going on with that entrance.