page_title: Leeds Town Hall
section_title: Later changes
hierarchical_section_title: Leeds Town Hall / History / Construction / Later changes
caption_attribution_description: English: The Queen Victoria Statue being uprooted from Victoria Square in the city centre where it had stood for over 30 years. It was transported by lorry to a new site on Woodhouse Moor.
context_page_description: Leeds Town Hall is a 19th century municipal building on The Headrow, Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. Planned to include law courts, a council chamber, offices, a public hall, and a suite of ceremonial rooms, it was built between 1853 and 1858 to a design by the architect Cuthbert Brodrick. With the building of the Civic Hall in 1933, some of these functions were relocated, and after the construction of the Leeds Crown Court in 1993, the Town Hall now serves mainly as a concert, conference and wedding venue, its offices still used by some council departments. It was designated a Grade I listed building in 1951.
  Imagined as a municipal palace to demonstrate the power and success of Victorian Leeds, and opened by Queen Victoria in a lavish ceremony in 1858, it is one of the largest town halls in the United Kingdom. With a height of 225 feet it was the tallest building in Leeds for 108 years from 1858 until 1966, when it lost the title to the Park Plaza Hotel, which stands 26 feet taller at 253 feet.
context_section_description: Further modifications to the Town Hall continued to be made after its opening, beginning with the entrance steps being changed in part to semi-circular in the 1860s, Brodrick suggesting in 1867 that a larger skylight be put in each of the courts, and then, later in the same year, the placing of the four sculpted lions along the south front. Brodrick's final touches to the Town Hall, the lions are the work of William Day Keyworth Jr of Hull, and each is made from two pieces of Portland stone with zig-zag joints. Evidence of Brodrick's early interest in lion sculptures is documented in travel sketches from his European tour, at San Lorenzo Cathedral and the Palazzo dell'Università in Genoa, and the monument to Clement XIII in St Peter's, Rome.
  Inside the Victoria Hall, a gallery was added in 1874 and then replaced in 1890 by the current design by W. H. Thorp; there was also an 1894 redecoration of the Victoria Hall by John Dibblee Crace in a buff and white colour scheme, replacing his father J G Crace's 1857 green colours. In 1905, a memorial to Queen Victoria by George Frampton was unveiled in Victoria Square to the south front, replacing a fountain, while the number of windows on the Calverley Street and Victoria Square corner was increased from three to five. In 1907, a new grand stair was built down to the basement. During the 1930s, original fittings, including a gallery designed by Brodrick, were lost in an enlargement of the classical Council Chamber. Victoria Square was altered again in 1937 with the removal of three statues, of Victoria, Robert Peel, and the Duke of Wellington, to Woodhouse Moor one mile from the city centre. At the same time the curved entrance steps were changed back to a straight set.
caption: The Queen Victoria Statue being uprooted from Victoria Square where it had stood for over 30 years
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