Newly revealed architectural plans for Leeds Town Hall’s clock tower are offering a rare look behind one of the city’s most familiar landmarks, just as the building’s modern-day refurbishment reaches a fresh milestone.
The drawings date to 1857, a year before Queen Victoria formally opened the town hall, and now form part of the West Yorkshire Archives Service collection. They lay out the tower’s classical stonework and its distinctive owl carvings in fine detail, and were originally drawn up as part of the “articles agreement” between the council and contractors Addy and Nicholls, who carried out the construction work.
The tower itself was central to Cuthbert Brodrick’s ambitious vision for the building — he’d won the job through a design competition, standard practice for major 19th-century commissions of this kind. It wasn’t finished until two years after the town hall’s 1858 opening, but the 225ft tower still gave the Grade I listed building over a century of bragging rights — it stood as Leeds’ tallest structure for 108 years afterwards.
An iconic building
Alex Pearson, archives assistant at West Yorkshire Archive Service, said: “Leeds Town Hall is still one of Leeds and Yorkshire’s most recognisable and iconic buildings more than 160 years after it was built and the clock tower is as impressive today as it must have been all those years ago.
“When the designers were commissioned, they were given the task of creating a ‘municipal palace’ that would rival some of the best town halls in Europe and demonstrating to the world the success of Victorian Leeds at a time when the city was undergoing rapid growth and industrialisation. To get even a glimpse into the incredibly detailed and painstaking process behind the construction of such a grand and historic building is fascinating and shows just why these beautiful heritage buildings stand the test of time.”
Members of the public can arrange to view the original designs by appointment. Their release comes as the town hall’s wider refurbishment moves into a new phase: work crews have laid modern flooring in the space earmarked for the Leeds Ticket Hub office, with fresh bar facilities for visitors and concert audiences expected to open within a matter of weeks.
Described by the council as a once-in-a-lifetime undertaking, the scheme is designed to safeguard the building’s heritage character while dragging its facilities into the present day, ultimately supporting a bigger, more ambitious calendar of accessible events and performances — and, in turn, generating extra revenue for the council and the surrounding local economy.
The work covers a new ticket office, an accessible entrance and lift, a ground-level bar and toilet, and repairs to the building’s stone masonry, plasterwork and doors. A separate strand of the project will see the town hall’s historic organ refurbished for better sound and continued use by future audiences. The whole scheme is currently expected to finish in spring or summer 2027.
Preserving the best
Councillor Salma Arif, Leeds City Council’s executive member for economy, said: “Leeds Town Hall is one of the city’s most beloved and impressive heritage building and it’s fascinating to see how the original vision for this cherished part of our urban landscape came into being all those years ago.
“The current project will protect and preserve the very best of those spectacular original features while revitalising the building as a concert and performance venue, generating important income and ensuring it can continue to be a focal point for the city for many more generations to come.”
Details on how to book an appointment to view the archive designs are available through West Yorkshire Archive Service, and further updates on the town hall project, including how to support it through donations and fundraising, can be found at leedstownhall.co.uk/support-us.
