The Parochial Room/Hall near to Leeds Minster.

[barnie]

http://tinyurl.com/qj7fqyx

In light of uncle micks Reredos suggestion I have found the link above. It is indeed a Reredos and happily it looks like it will be preserved!

[uncle mick]

http://tinyurl.com/qj7fqyx

In light of uncle micks Reredos suggestion I have found the link above. It is indeed a Reredos and happily it looks like it will be preserved!

Taken from the above link

[Leodian]

Many thanks uncle mick and barnie for finding out what the feature is. Interestingly in an earlier post of mine I mentioned that the nearest word I knew of that was close to what sounded like cure...ree...oss was reredos (I knew the meaning of reredos as that word comes up often in crosswords ). I suspect that I may have misheard the man who gave me some information about the feature and that the 1300's he gave did sound to be rather old. Even if he did however give me what is wrong information I have no reason to doubt what he said was not what he believed, so I thank him for it.

Another piece in the information brought up through barnie's link states "The classical 18th century reredos, which forms the southern end of the stage of St Peter’s Hall should be carefully removed prior to demolition and development works and preserved – either by being re-used within the adjacent church or potentially offered to a museum". Hopefully the current work does not damage the reredos, as it does look to be in a very unsafe position.

[Leodian]

When I started this thread I mentioned a very helpful young man who was working at the site. In addition to him mentioning the feature (now known to be a reredos) and some artefacts that had been found he also told me that there had been some very large stone blocks removed. I took this photo today (July 15 2015) of what I assume will be some of those blocks. They do look impressively massive! The slabs in the foreground are some of the old gravestones in the grounds of Leeds Minster (Leeds Parish Church).

[Leodian]

These are two photos that I took on July 28 2015 of the work going on at the Parochial Room (St Peter's Hall) frontage on 'The Calls' or 'Calls' depending on which street name sign is seen. I had a nice chat with a workman and he told me that there is to be a connection built joining the building on the left (see the first photo) to the building and its cellars on the right (that building is the part that has the reredos). It is also planned to reuse the very old but still good condition bricks.

One thing of interest he told me was that it came a surprise when it was found that the building had been built on little more than the soil/ground surface. He had been informed that was not uncommon when the building was built, but though some such buildings still survive (like St Peter's Hall) some did fall fairly soon.

[Leodian]

The site has been closed off to the public for some time but on passing today (Jan 12 2016) I noticed that an access was open so I went to it. I then spoke to a workman who seemed interested to talk about the feature. Alas, though he could not say for certain, he thought the 'reredos' (or what it is) would likely not be particularly old as it was made of parts glued together and not the joinery quality making that he would have expected if it was quite old. He thought that it could be early 1900's. It has now been removed but not to Leeds Minster (he did not know where to). I would like to thank him for taking the time and interest to talk to me.