Trail:

The Grand Arcade

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Leeds, Vicar Lane, Grand Arcade

The GRAND ARCADEGlossary Term in Vicar Lane, by Smith & Tweedale 1897, is in an ornate RenaissanceGlossary Term style with plenty of balusters and finials, using Burmantofts faienceGlossary Term and blue and yellow tiles at the entrances. It has two parallel arcades between Vicar Lane and New Briggate and a North cross-link opening onto Merrion Street where the plain brick facade has a roundGlossary Term arc in the gabled facade and three paired shop fronts with odd inverted consoles as mullions to upper floor windows.

Inside, one sectionGlossary Term was occupied by the Tower Cinema in the 1920s and is now a shop. The remaining arcadeGlossary Term interior has had little attention in the later C20 and now lacks the charm of the restored Briggate arcades. The glazed roof is supported by timber arches and the rows of shops retain some original IonicGlossary Term pilasters and pedimented doors. There is no galleryGlossary Term above, only small bayGlossary Term windows and some of those odd console-shapedGlossary Term mullions. Like Thornton's arcadeGlossary Term it has an animated clock by Potts of Leeds with armoured knights, castle doors and exotic costumed figures.

Glossary

Arcade

Series of arches supported by piers or columns (compare colonnade). Blind arcade or arcading: the same applied to the wall surface. Wall arcade: in medieval churches, a blind arcade forming a dado below windows. Also a covered shopping street.

Bay

Division of an elevation or interior space as defined by regular vertical features such as arches, columns, windows etc.

Console

Bracket of curved outline.

Faience

(French): Moulded and fired glazed terracotta (clay ornament or cladding), when coloured or left white.

Gallery

A long room or passage; an upper storey above the aisles of a church, looking through arches to the nave; a balcony or mezzanine overlooking the main interior space of a building; or an external walkway.

Ionic

One of the orders of classical architecture, distinguished in particular by downward- and inward-curling spirals (called volutes) on the capital of the column.

Renaissance

The revival of classical architecture that began in 15th-century Italy and spread through Western Europe and the Americas in the following two centuries, finding distinctive forms and interpretations in different states and regions. From c. 1830 the Italian version was revived in Britain as a style in its own right (sometimes called Neo-Renaissance or Italianate), i.e. as distinguished from the native Georgian classical tradition.

Round

(Scots): A rounded bartizan or turret, usually roofless. An angle round is set at a corner.

Section

Two-dimensional representation of a building, moulding etc., revealed by cutting across it.

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