Nineteenth Century
It was in the 19th century that Leeds began to grow into one of Britain's largest cities. This led to widespread building across the city. Leeds' wool and cloth trades resulted in the building of many industrial buildings during this era. The resulting workforce which migrated to the city from rural areas brought about the building of many houses. Leeds has perhaps the most surviving examples of back-to-back terrace housing in the UK, particularly in Holbeck and Harehills.
"Headingley Castle", originally known as The Elms, was built between 1843 and 1846 by the local architect John Child for the corm merchant Thomas England. While the exterior is Victorian Gothic in style, the architect employed modern building techniques and materials including cast iron in its construction.
Leeds city centre has many examples from this era, such as Leeds Town Hall, the Leeds Kirkgate Market, the Hotel Metropole, the Leeds City Varieties, the Central Post Office, Calls Landings and the Corn Exchange to name a few.
Leeds Town Hall (pictured top) was designed by Cuthbert Brodrick and was opened by Queen Victoria in 1858. The Hotel Metropole was built in the 1890s and was inspired by French architecture of the time. The Leeds Corn Exchange was also designed by Cuthbert Brodrick and was built between 1861 and 1864. The building lay derelict for many years until 1985 when it was converted into a shopping centre. Harehills, Burley, Holbeck, Chapeltown, Woodhouse and East End Park contain many houses from this era, while Cross Gates has a 120-foot (37 m) column guided gasholder from this era.
The 19th century saw the construction of most of Leeds' railway infrastructure, including architecturally notable viaducts in Holbeck and Leeds city centre. None of the major railway stations from this era have survived, in fact most of Leeds railway station was rebuilt as recently as 2002.
As well as industrial architecture Hunslet has a history for some notable churches. The main steeple on Church Lane was once part of a large church. All but the steeple were demolished in the 1970s and a smaller church building attached. Meadow Lane in Hunslet was also home to Christ Church, an architecturally notable Gothic church, which has since been demolished.
Leeds Parish Church was constructed in 1841 and at 115 feet (35 m) tall it held the record as Leeds' tallest building until the building of the town hall in 1858.
Read more about this topic: Architecture Of Leeds
Famous quotes related to nineteenth century:
“Posterity—the forlorn child of nineteenth century optimism—grows ever harder to conceive.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)
“In the nineteenth century ... explanations of who and what women were focused primarily on reproductive events—marriage, children, the empty nest, menopause. You could explain what was happening in a woman’s life, it was believed, if you knew where she was in this reproductive cycle.”
—Grace Baruch (20th century)
“The nineteenth century planted the words which the twentieth ripened into the atrocities of Stalin and Hitler. There is hardly an atrocity committed in the twentieth century that was not foreshadowed or even advocated by some noble man of words in the nineteenth.”
—Eric Hoffer (1902–1983)
“The taste for freedom, the fashion and cult of happiness of the majority, that the nineteenth century is infatuated with was only a heresy in his eyes that would pass like others.”
—Stendhal [Marie Henri Beyle] (1783–1842)
“Of the creative spirits that flourished in Concord, Massachusetts, during the middle of the nineteenth century, it might be said that Hawthorne loved men but felt estranged from them, Emerson loved ideas even more than men, and Thoreau loved himself.”
—Leon Edel (b. 1907)