Oxford Place Methodist Chapel and Oxford Chambers, Oxford Place, facing the Town Hall, Leeds. The original chapel was built in 1835 by James Simpson (1791-1864), an untrained architect who became a prolific designer, mainly of Methodist chapels. This central city chapel was "the biggest and most prominent" (Sergeant 138), but it was remodelled and refronted in 1896-1903 by the firm of G. F. Danby and W. H. Thorp (Thorp was the architect who designed the Art Gallery, adjoining the Central Library). At this stage the building was turned to face the town hall. "Baroque taste with gusto," comment Leach and Pevsner, noting the local "red pressed brick with stripy Morley Moor sandstone dressings" (409).]
Related Material
- Religion in the Yorkshire Dales (see the section on Nonconformity)
Photograph and text by Jacqueline Banerjee. [You may use this image without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the photographer and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.]
Sources
Leach, Peter, and Nikolaus Pevsner. Buildings of England: Yorkshire, West Riding: Leeds, Bradford and the North.. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009. Print.
Sergeant, Ian."James Simpson (1791-1864)." Building a Great Victorian City: Leeds Architects and Architecture. Ed. Christopher Webster. Huddersfield.: Northern Heritage Publications in Association with the Victorian Society, 2011. 135-58. Print.
Last modified 10 March 2012