Description
Leeds, created a city 13 Feb., 1893, is an ancient parish and market-town, and a still more ancient district, in W. R. Yorkshire, standing in latitude 53£ 45' N, longitude 1£ 35' W, on both banks of the river Aire, 24 miles SW of York, 42 1/2 NE of Manchester, and 185 1/2 N by W of London; it has a population of 367, 505 (1891), an area of 21, 572 acres, is 7 1/2 miles in width from E to W, and about 7 from N to S, having a circumference exceeding 30 miles. Its communications by rail and by water are unrivalled in the north of England. The river Aire, made navigable in 1697 by the energy and agency of William Pickering, a Leeds merchant, and the canals of the Aire and Calder Navigation and of the Leeds and Liverpool Canal Company, give the readiest access to the eastern and western seas, and general communication with most of the canals and navigable rivers in the kingdom. Vessels of 160 tons burden ascend the river and discharge their freights at Leeds direct from London and even more distant ports. As a railway centre, served by the G.N.R., L. & N.W.K., L. & Y.R., M.R. and G.E.R., it enjoys the best railway facilities that can be provided. Since the beginning of the 18th century, when Leeds outstripped its rival Wakefield, it has been the chief seat of the woollen manufacture. It has, however, gathered within its area a multitude of other industries, and this variety of trade admits the remark that Leeds is never idle or depressed. Slackness in one trade is counterbalanced by the steady progress of the others. The borough is divided into the following wards:- Mill Hill, West, North-West, Brunswick, Central, North, North-East, East, South, East Hunslet, West Hunslet, Hoi-beck, New Wortley, Armley and Wortley, Bramley, and Head-ingley. This re-arrangement of the old wards was adopted in 1881. The manor of Leeds is divided into nine parts, eight of which belong to Miss Mary Beckett of Somerby Hall, Gainsborough, and one to the Hon. Mrs Meynell Ingrain of Temple Newsam. The lords of the manor hold a court leet every year at the town-hall, at which constables are sworn in.
History.-The origin of both the place and its name is better determined than happens in the generality of cases. The earliest town was a Celtic foundation in the midst of woods, of which fragments remained in the loth century, in what is now the inner heart of the city. Bede, about 650, wrote of the district as the regio quce vocatur Loidis-the Saxon word Loidis, " of the people," eventually coming down to us as Leddis, Ledes, Leedes, to the Leeds of to-day; the district being that of the aboriginal people or Celts. The same root-word occurs in the adjoining names of Ledsham, Ledstone, and apparently in the Roman station Legeolium- the modern Castleford. A claim has been set up that Leeds was the ancient Caer Loidis coit, " the fort of the aboriginal people in the wood,"' but it cannot be maintained-at best it is but a remote probability. The traces of the Romans in the town are abundant. Four miles N of Briggate lies the site of the Roman station Adel, one hundred yards E of the bridge at Leeds the Roman ford was discovered in 1819, and between the camp and the ford traces of the old Roman via are in one or other form discernible. The earliest Romaa coins found are those of Nero and Galba, A.D. 54-69; but they are sufficient to prove the earliest occupation. In the town itself the name of its streets, The Calls-Latin Callis -reaches down exactly to the Roman ford and ends the old via from the camp at Adel. A few years ago Roman altars were found, one in the grounds adjoining Chapel Allerton church, another at the front of Elmete Hall, at which latter place were traces of a strong line of earthworks. After the departure of the Romans it is doubtful whether the Angle power was ever fairly established in Leeds. The nomenclature of the town is Norse, of many of its surrounding physical features Celtic. There is evidence that the Celts maintained their nationality until the coming of the Norsemen, and that even then the rule of the place was dual-perhaps a sort of compromise. Ecclesiastical Leeds was entirely Norse, commercial Leeds as certainly Celtic. It is a singular circumstance that, in Leeds, the parish church and the marketplace are in two separate manors, and nearly half a mile apart. The manor in which the parish church stands is Norse and called the manor of Leeds Kirkgate-cum-Holbeck (it was governed by the prior and convent of Holy Trinity, York, to whom the advowson was given); that in which the market-place existed up to a generation ago was in the Mainriding, and Celtic, for the word main-fiding means the wood-clearing about a Celtic maen or pillar-stone, such indeed as market-crosses started from generally. From the later market-cross into which the maen was changed the district was called Cross Parish, as it is yet known by old men. The ends of the boundary between Leeds and Headingley, one of its subordinate townships, and an Angle clan-station where yet stand the remains of the ancient Scyra-ac, the alarm-post from which the wapentake has its name, were marked by two maens within living memory-one was at Pikeman Ridge, the other below Men-stone Bank. The adjacent and subordinate village of Mean-wood has its name from the same source, the stones yet protruding which gave the wood its name; beside them there runs a very ancient footpath leading to the Roman camp at Adel. Of the rule of the Norseman there are clearer evidences than of his predecessors. The ancient cross discovered during the rebuilding of the parish church, and now erected therein, is said to mark the burial or memory of the Danish King Onlaf, who entered the Humber in 937-king of North-umbria, he met with his death at Lindisfarne. The Villa Regia, or royal residence at Osmundthorpe, is said to have been occupied by him. the history of Leeds at the Conquest era is but ill defined. With its priest, church, and mill, according to Domesday, and with seven thanes in residence holding the place for seven manors, the town was clearly of worth and dignity, though its population probably only ranged from 200 to 250. The land is returned in that survey as terra regis; so it was of old "folk land''-an additional evidence that the Celtic tenure had not been superseded. We have some insight of the trade of that time. There were mills in the town, as is proved by William Paynel's charter to Drax, about 1109. Cloth-making appears to have been one branch of industry. About the year 1200 Simon the dyer is a witness to one of the Kirkstall charters, and in 1275 Alexander Fuller of Leeds is a reported culprit-" he makes cloth not of the right breadth," and therein errs against the statute. The story of the Flemings and their introduction of cloth-making is pure nonsense, not only as regards Leeds itself but the whole West Riding. Two water mills, a fulling mill, and a coal mine are mentioned in Leeds in the time of Thomas, Earl of Lancaster, executed in 1322. Coal-mining was pursued, and the manufacture of iron seems to have been an industry exercised probably since the days of the Romans. This fact was revealed by the discovery of a series of " bell pits " which had been worked on each side of the Roman callis leading down to the ford. In the Middle Ages the inclosure wherein those pits lay was called the Snachar-croft-" inclosure of the gropers." The first permanent bridge across the Aire, on the site of the present bridge, was Norman. When the stone bridge was removed for the present structure it was found to be of three parts, the earliest or Norman part being in the middle of the fabric, the two outer sections having been added to it at different times. It is very clear that Old Leeds, as a town, lay upon the plateau between Lands Lane and Vicar Lane, east and west, and the Head Eow and Boar Lane, north and south. The map shows, in the systematic division of property, that there lay the burgages created by Maurice de Gaunt, the Norman baron of Leeds, who in 1207 took the great step towards rendering the town a corporation by granting his burgesses a charter in which he allowed each burgess to have his burgage and half an acre of land - roughly the present measurement of the Briggate burgages. The site of his residence, called a manerium, and surrounded by a fosse in 1342, was at the foot of the slope of the modern Bishopgate Street, evidently the residence of one of the seven thanes, with a Norse finer or byr at the end of the park, from which the modern Boar Lane takes its name. In the precincts of this manerium the survey of 1342 includes a pasture of 2 1/2 acres in extent, called "Monkpytte," it was known by that name until it was covered over by the N.E. station. Thoresby the historian of Leeds started the story of a castle in Leeds, which he said occupied the site of the above baer or manerinm. The castle he erroneously alluded to was that of Leeds in Kent. There never was a castle at the Yorkshire Leeds, though the manerium or manor house was a place of much dignity, and as its fosse indicates, provided for defence in war. The northern limit of the town did not extend beyond the Headraw; in 1424 there is surveyed " a wood called Tounecliffe; it contains 2 acres, of which the herbage is common, because of the domaine of the natives, and the underwood is worth 6d. yearly." The site of that wood is marked by St John's Church and the Grand Theatre. Maurice Gaunt, one of the men who exacted Magna Charta, forfeited Leeds to Ranulf, Earl of Chester, into whose hands he fell as a prisoner at the battle of Lincoln in 1217. From the Earl the manor reverted to the Lacis. In 1258 Alice, widow of Edmund de Laci, held Leeds as a part of her dowry. The rule of the town, with the Lacis as chief lords, was in the hands of a local provost called a " bailly," in the Elizabethan era. Henry de Laci, the great Earl of Lincoln, ruled the town with a strong hand. He would not allow the king's bailiffs to exercise any judgment therein, but governed it entirely by his own officers. In the meantime the town was rapidly increasing in commercial rank and in internal order. The first development which can be traced had its initiative in 1327, when the bridge was enlarged, and the chantry of Our Lady erected at the corner of the bridge and the Calls. In 1337 the king grants a charter of " Pavagium for the town of Ledes," which means paving the streets and reducing them to order. A survey of the year 1342 gives a clear insight into the then state of affairs. The tolls of the fair for one day on the feast of the Apostles Peter and Paul, and for another day on the feast of St Simon and Jude (28 Oct.), with the toll of the market on the Monday, and the hiring of the stallage in the market with the perquisites of the burgh court, is worth yearly £9, Gs. 8d. At that time the burgesses living in Briggate paid for their burgages with half an acre of land the yearly rent of 16d. The fulling mill then belonged to the lord and was let to Nigel Walker at a yearly rent of 20a., the lord having to do the repairs of the mill dam. By this time the Moot Hall had been erected in Briggate, and in prolongation of it the shambles were being enlarged. This unsightly row, which as the " Middle Row " stood in the centre of the present street, remained until 1825, when it was swept away at a cost of £15, 097, and Briggate " was rendered one of the finest provincial streets in the kingdom." The poll tax of 1379 gives very accurate statistics as to the three seats of Yorkshire wealth and commerce. The town having the highest tax in the Riding was Pontefract, £14, 8s. IQd.; Snayth and Ripon were then before Leeds, which only paid £3, Os. 4: d.; Halifax paid 12s. 8d. Pontefract was the most populous, with 305 families of married persons, besides single persons; Selby, 200; Sheffield, 171; Leeds, 50; Bradford, 26. In Pomfret there were 15 merchants of "high degree," in Selby 6; Sheffield and Leeds had 1 each. Doncaster had 5 hostelries, Sheffield 9, Selby 1, and Leeds 2; but they were small men taxed at one-half the amount paid in Selby. In the " Ulnagers' accounts" - government fiscal returns- "Pountfret" had 14 names of manufacturers, Wakefield 7, and a production of 173 1/2 cloths; Leeds 4, and 120 cloths; Selby 5, Ripon 9, and Skipton, 6. The total number of cloths on which subsidy was paid in the West Riding this year was 17153-, the subsidy and ulnage being £13, 9s. 8d. Such was the trade of those days. It is clear from the " Calendar of Pleadings" in the court of the Duchy of Lancaster, that from the reign of Henry VIII to the end of that of Elizabeth, Leeds cloth was sold and conveyed throughout all England, and from the tenacious manner in which Leeds men urged lawsuits against the payment of tolls, that the trade was very considerable or it would not have warranted such law costs; yet the stocks of the greatest merchants for a century later than this did not exceed six or eight marks- barely £5. Leeds commenced its potential start in 1617, when it became a staple town. It had long protested against York retaining that privilege exclusively. In 1626 it was incorporated as a borough, with a corporation of aldermen, burgesses, and assistants. In 1630 " cloth to the yearly value of £200, 000 is made within the limits of the corporation, chiefly for export; the customs levied upon the cloth exported amount to £10, 000, besides the customs on foreign commodities imported for this manufacture." Leeds was then the only incorporate borough in the north where cloth was made; it was struggling earnestly to increase its fortunes, yet in 1659 Israel Wayd and other Leeds clothiers were indicted at York assizes " for using an hotte presse "- such was the short-sighted ignorance! After much importunity, which was neglected by Charles, it obtained a member of Parliament under Cromwell. In 1642 Leeds, Halifax, and Bradford are characterised by Lord Clarendon as " three very populous and rich towns depending wholly upon clothiers '' -a statement not to be credited in toto. When the great rebellion broke out opinion in Leeds was much divided. An attempt was made to neutralise it and the district, which was not successful. In its Puritanism Leeds was very obstinate, in its episcopacy very aggressive, very malignant, and not honest, for, as Thoresby tells us, the men who most loudly supported episcopacy were those who " plundered the toll-dishes" and robbed the town of its charity lands. The storming of Leeds (23 Jan., 1643) by Fairfax, was the great local feat. The plague of war had not passed before a more devastating plague of disease assailed the town. The epidemic broke out in March 1645, and raged during the remainder of the year-1335 persons, or about one-fifth of the population, being carried off by it. The second charter was granted in 1661, as the result of an intrigue by the Royalists to exclude their opponents from power; "it was a concession to falsity, a license to wrangling; " but it was the instrument upon which the town was governed until 1835. Charles I. was detained a prisoner in the Red Hall, a mansion then lately built by one of the merchants. In the rebellion of 1745 a body of Marshal Wade's troops camped in the N end of the town, at a place still called Camp Road, the site of the camp being long since built upon. In June, 1753, a riot ensued in Leeds in consequence of the arrest of a carter who refused to pay toll demanded for passing over the new roads: the old ones had been all but impassable, and " a disgrace to the whole country." From this period Leeds has had a run of unbroken prosperity. Horace Walpole visited it in 1756, and called it " a dingy, large town," situated in a country the whole of which is " a colliery or a quarry;" yet Leeds was then the old Norse town, built upon its " gates," with only one "street"-and that most insignificant-within its bounds. In 1790 the total number of traders in the town worthy of being catalogued in a directory was but 393; there were only six lawyers then in the town, which, it would seem, must have been unusually tranquil. The great building era commenced about 1770. Boar Lane was rustic in 1715 and until about 1740; Park Row was not commenced until 1774-75. "Wellington Street, where the stations stand, was opened from meadow land, formerly the park of the manor house, in and later than 1818. According to the births of the three years 1589-92, the population of the town, including Woodhouse and Buslingthorpe, then suburban villages, would by calculation be 2730 at the beginning of 1592; the increase of buildings in 1786 was nearly 400 houses-twice the extent of the " town " a century before. Leeds was first lit with gas in 1818; previous to that, since 1755, the streets had been partially lit with oil by private enterprise. An organised police was first started in 1790, increased in 1815 to a force of fifty men. Georgian Leeds did not contain one single warehouse, using the word in its present sense and as to its present dimensions. In the first decade of the 19th centuryfish were caught in the river at the bridge, the mill dam was a favourite and famous pool, and Lady Beck, as it ran through the Leylands, a famous resort of snipe. The reconstruction of Boar Lane about 1870 cost the borough £60, 589. In 1721 the growth of the population demanded a new church, for which the " Kid Stack Carth" was purchased for £175; Trinity Church occupies the site, which would probably sell for £30, 000. That instance not unfairly represents the general improvement of Leeds, which in its enormous volume belongs mainly to the last seventy years. Within that period Leeds has spent for street improvements, bridges, highways, and drainage, town-hall, &c., recreation grounds, hospitals, and other public institutions, £2, 348, 994. Its public debt is a little over £5, 000, 000, or an average per head of the population of £6, 13s. Od.; it is thus the least of all the big towns, that of Manchester being £8, 2s. 5d.; of Bradford, £9, 6s. Id.; of London, £9, 3s. 8d. 5 of Birmingham, £10, Is. 8d.
Eminent Men.-Leeds and its neighbourhood have produced their share of eminent men, natives or residents. Dr Hartley, author of " Observations on Man," was born at Armley. Dr Priestley, the experimental philosopher, born at Fieldhead, was for many years minister of the Unitarian chapel in Leeds. John Smeaton, the celebrated engineer, was a native, as were the two Milners-Joseph, the ecclesiastical historian, and his brother Isaac, dean of Carlisle and originally a weaver. Baron, the political writer; Berkenhout, physician and author; Cappe, the Socinian writer; Adams and Clapham, theologians; Fawkes, the poet; Lodge, the engraver; Saxton, the geographer; Bishop Lake and Dean Hook were in then- time vicars of the parish. Dr Scott, known as "Anti-Sejanns," was a native; of the Baineses, the senior, Edward, " the Franklin of Leeds," is wholly identified with Leeds though not a native; while his son, Sir Edward, more distinguished even than his father, was a native. Sir John Hawkshaw, C.E.; Richard Oastler, the philanthropist; Captain Robert Nelson, the stanch comrade of Stanley the explorer; Austin, the poet; James Eitson, the engineer; and Oolonel J. T. North, the " Nitrate King," were also natives. In the annals of surgery, Leeds men have taken the highest rank, of whom William Hey and T. P. Teale had more than national renown.
Streets and Environs.-The general aspect of Leeds, if approached from the S and by railway, is that of a busy hive of somewhat dirty industry; if from the N it is through a series of panoramic views worthy either of the lake district or of Scotland. All the heavy work of Leeds is done in its southern districts, for which the flat land is most suitable. Hunslet and Holbeck are the workshops of Leeds, it may almost be said the sources of its wealth, but in no sense representative of its elegance, either domestic or commercial. From the northern bank of the river Aire an ascent of the hills is commenced, terminating at Chapeltown and Headingley, at an altitude 400 feet above the sea, in ranges of wooded hills and valleys that are much more than picturesque. From either of these two points, accessible by tramway with the greatest facility, mountain scenery of great variety, and stretching westward for some 20 miles, is a grand fringe. " For bold landscape the district is Scotch, for umbrageous scenery English, in combination of the two it belongs to Yorkshire alone." There are landscapes in the Meanwood Valley that are perhaps unequalled in the kingdom. At the beginning of the 19th century Leeds had scarcely burst from its feudal area, the aggregation of population being about its two old " gates," Briggate and Kirkgate only. The town proper rises from the N bank of the river, the main street, Briggate, running N for more than half a mile, and being still touched here and there with some of the picturesque buildings of the past ages. The great arteries of the town and the oldest of its streets, Boar Lane on the W and Kirkgate on the E, with Upperhead and Lowerhead Rows-the Headrawe, 1572, that is ffeidr-rd, the boundary of the Heath, on what was the northern skirt of the Norse town-give the ramifications westward, eastward, and northward, which have comprehended what is now the fifth seat of population in the kingdom. The Leeds of today is well built, well lighted, well paved, and by sanitary status entirely equal to its urban magnificence. Its streets have not the long-reaching dimensions of those of towns built upon the estate of some great landowner, for Leeds was always a place of small freeholds, a fact to which it now mainly owes its prosperity. There is no town in England equal to Leeds in the proportion of its freeholds. Since 1860 the corporation has wonderfully improved the heart of the old town as to its highways, while in the outskirts and the suburbs private enterprise has opened new roads and planted new districts that are at once solid, spacious. and ornamental. The old "gates," Kirkgate, Swinegate, &c., are no longer to be recognized except by their names. The general building material is brick, of a deep red colour, of a shape capable of high ornamental display, and of a texture-equal to that of the best stone, much superior in point of durability to ordinary stone. For the manufacture of a handsome brick, Leeds has become celebrated, not less than for the use of it. There are brick structures in Leeds-notably the Old Bank in Park Row, the Infirmary, and many others- which, for freedom of treatment, elegance, and elasticity of design, have no existing superior. The W, N, and NE portions of the town are mainly residential, containing all types of residences, from splendid villas to the snug and garden-enclosed terraces inhabited by small tradesmen and well-paid artizans. In the heart of the town the corporation improvements have almost destroyed old Leeds. So late as 1870 it was possible to realize the mediaeval town, of which not a few of the buildings remained-quaint, huddled, and mostly ugly structures; but they no longer exist, and in the places where they were we either have public buildings, or new edifices, or vastly-improved streets. The chief sites of those alterations are New Briggate and Upperhead Row, Duncan Street, Boar Lane, Swinegate, Kirkgate, and the Calls. The demolition of Park Bow as a residential quarter, and the substitution of very handsome buildings, banks and offices, is due entirely to private enterprise. The most significant alteration was the demolition of the Coloured Cloth Hall, erected on a portion of the park in 1758. So great has been the change in conducting the staple industry of the town that all the cloth halls have become entirely obsolete. The Coloured Cloth Hall, which was the vastest and most ugly structure in Leeds, was acquired by the corporation at a cost of £66, 000, and demolished in 1889. The arena within its walls was historic, for there the great battles of reform and every succeeding political movement were fought out. The site is now occupied by the new post office and City Square. The White Cloth Hall, which stood in the Calls, built 1775, abandoned in 1866, was substituted by the hall then erected in the old infirmary grounds, now King Street. A rather handsome structure built bv the North-Eastern Railway Company to compensate for the old hall taken by them for their extensions, at a cost of £20, 000 exclusive of land, was in 1894 changed into business premises. The first White Cloth Hall was in Kirkgate, opened in 1711.
Municipal and Public Buildings. - The Town-hall (1868-58) in Victoria Square, Park Lane, a classic structure from the design of Brodrick, cost £133, 000; it was opened by the Queen, 7 Sept., 1858. The structure is a parallelogram, 260 feet by 200, standing on an elevated platform surrounded by Corinthian columns and pilasters, supporting an entablature and attic, altogether about 66 feet in height. The principal facade (south) has a deeply recessed portico of ten columns forming the chief entrance, approached by a flight of steps 135 feet in length, with a pedestal at each comer upon which four lions were placed in 1867. The tower-a domed, square structure-rises 225 feet from the ground. The great hall (Victoria), 162 feet by 72, by 75 feet in height, is one of the largest in the kingdom, exceeding in size that of Birmingham, and Exeter and St James' Hall, London, and will accommodate 8000 persons. The ceiling is semicircular, divided into five compartments by massive ribs, Springing from coupled Corinthian columns and pilasters. The north end of the hall is occupied by the great organ, one of the finest in England, 50 feet high and of about the same width, supplied with wind by hydraulic engines. Since first built, several additions have been made, including a carillon given by the late Alderman Marsden. The two law courts, used during the assizes, are at the north end of the building; the borough court and council chamber are at the south end. The assizes for the West Riding were removed from York to Leeds in 1864. A white marble statue of the Queen, on a polished granite pedestal, is on one side of the vestibule, and one of the Prince Consort on the other. Statues of the late Robert Hall, M.P., and Edward Baines, M.P., occupy recesses in the Victoria Hall. A bronze statue of the Duke of Wellington, by Marochetti, on a polished granite pedestal, and a fountain much greater in dimensions than beauty, occupy the space in front of the hall, Victoria Square. On the east side of Calverley Street are the Municipal Offices and Free Library (1878-83), and the offices of the School Board, after designs by Corson, which cost £150, 000. The Fine Art Gallery was added later, opened 3 Oct., 1888. The Free Library occupies the whole of the southern side, except the basement. There is on the ground floor a noble reading-room, a sculpture gallery, the several picture galleries, and an inner hall rising to the entire height of the building, with a glass roof and open arcades. The Central and branch libraries, of which there are twenty-two, contain 183, 007 volumes, the collection being housed in apartments which are more beautiful than convenient. The selection of books is good, and the library is the best managed department under the control of the corporation. The Fine Art Gallery contains some excellent pictures and other articles of art and virtu. The public markets in Kirkgate are an ornamental and most useful work. They occupy the site of " the Vicar's Croft" and the mediaeval vicarage. The western portion, adjoining Vicar Lane-the Covered Market (1857), a glass and iron structure of some elegance-was first erected; then followed, after the demolition of some of the worst slums in the town, the Fish and Vegetable Markets. The amount expended on these markets was £266, 888. The cattle fairs and markets were permanently removed from Kirkgate to the Smithfield Market in 1854, which market has in turn been abandoned and the site converted into a public recreation ground (1890). The Corn Exchange (1853) is the successor of the exchange at the top of Briggate -a massive structure of stone; cost, land and fabric, £25, 000. The Central Market, close by, erected as a private venture in 1827 at a cost of £35, 000, was sold in 1868 to the corporation for £25, 000, and destroyed by fire in 1893. Of other public buildings, not belonging to the corporation, there are some handsome structures, the principal of which are in the neighbourhood of Park Row. The Royal Exchange, opened in 1875 at the SE corner of Park Row, is a bold spacious edifice on the site of the old Commercial Buildings; cost, land and building, about £60, 000. The old Court House, converted into the old Post Office, was completed in 1813, purchased by the Government in 1861, and is now superseded by the Post Office erected in 1894-95. The bronze statue of Sir Robert Peel, adjacent hereto, was erected in 1852. The Philosophical Hall and Museum (1819), at the comer of Bond Street, is a private venture; the museum is equal to that of any provincial institution in the kingdom. The bank of Beckett & Co. (1867), in the Italian Gothic style by Sir G. G. Scott, is a splendid structure; the branch bank of England and the insurance offices are also stately fabrics. The Mechanics' Institute (1868), by Brodrick, a massive stone building of the Italian style (cost £20, 000), is a very important educational establishment. The Coliseum, Cookridge Street, is the largest and most convenient public hall in the town. The Oriental Baths (1866), a spacious and complete pile, cost £13, 000, and are the property of a company. The railway stations, Wellington Street, are superior structures from the utilitarian point of view, but not things of beauty, and quite unworthy of their importance. The establishments of the Co-operative Society, in Albion Street (1883-94), are stupendous marks of popular combination. The edifices are handsome and solid, the amount of business transacted almost incredible. The number of members is more than 30, 000, the sales exceeding the value of £861, 958. The kindred institution, the Penny Bank, of which the handsome headquarters in Infirmary Street were opened in 1894, is, except the Bowery Savings Bank in New-York, the largest institution of its kind in the world; it has 950 smaller branches and over 300, 000 depositors. The cost of the new bank premises exceeded £50, 000. The theatres are in Briggate and its neighbourhood. The Grand Theatre (1878) is one of the finest and handsomest out of London, cost, including land, about £60, 000, and accommodates 3150 persons. The Theatre Royal and the Princess Palace, in King Charles Croft, are subordinate establishments. The Dispensary, New Briggate (1867), a pleasing structure in the Italian style that cost £4500, is an immense boon, supported almost entirely by voluntary contributions. The great medical charity of the town, the Infirmary, Great George's Street (1864-68), one of the masterpieces of Sir G. G. Scott, and opened by the Prince of Wales, was enlarged in 1892 by the addition of an eastern wing. Before the enlargement the institution provided 326 beds. The new building provided 112 additi
Photographs
Photographs of Leeds Castle, Kent, taken in 2004.
