SecretLeeds - History, culture and architecture in Leeds

Looks like an entrance to a basement car park.

There's no drop kerb to suggest that it was ever used as that... Maybe something that was built/started but not completed then.

mark1978 wrote: ↑

Fri 01 Mar, 2024 1:24 pm

243 views on the photos and no replies? Ok, please yourselves then!

That's over 14 years, not just your contribution

I was referring to the view count on the photos I posted (up to 364 now!).

Let's not get sidetracked anyway...

Maybe of interest ??
YEP 4th June 1953

Ah, thank you! So it's sounding more and more like the boarded up bit on Lady Lane was intended as an entrance to something that never actually got built. Wonder why - practical difficulties of tunnelling under Eastgate, perhaps?

I'm not sure if there might be something buried away in the planning application for the Victoria Gate project: https://publicaccess.leeds.gov.uk/onlin ... Q0FJB17S00. Design and access statements or heritage statements sometimes have plans or details of old structures. I tried look at planning records for 27 Eastgate (where the hoardings are) but there was nothing interesting there.

(This site gets thousands of page views a day. Most of them are bots so I wouldn't worry too much about the views on each image)

Purely speculation on my part but the Newspaper clippings suggest the Underground car park would be still further south of the southern side of Eastgate when developed. That would put it in the vicinity of Union Street/Harewood Street/George Street. Before the Victoria development I can only ever remember the area bounded by those and Millgarth Street as being an "unmade" overground car park. If it was such or planned as such at the time of the southside development, why bother with the expense of an undeground car park?

The recently demolished Millgarth Police Station had the public inquiry entrance halfway up the building in anticipation of the council's plan to have pedestrians on one level throughout central Leeds. Among other things, this meant there was going to be quite a lot of "underground" space.

That's interesting. I always thought that it was built that way because civil disruption was expected , and police stations (not just Leeds) were being built as defensive positions