City Square, Leeds

City Square is a paved area north of Leeds railway station at the junction of Park Row to the east and Wellington Street to the south.

The initial plan had tramway waiting rooms, and public lavatories welcoming new visitors to Leeds.

[3] However, Colonel Thomas Walter Harding (Lord Mayor of Leeds between 1898 and 1899) was so dismayed that he commissioned William Bakewell to design a square more in the style of an Italian piazza, with statues and trees.

[7] John Harrison (1579–1656) was a local cloth merchant and benefactor of Leeds, having built a church and a grammar school.

[7] Dr Walter Hook (1798–1875) was a vicar of Leeds and a major influence on both religion and education in the city.

[7] The famous chemist and theologian Joseph Priestley lived in Leeds from 1767 to 1773, and was the minister at Mill Hill Chapel, which is on the square.

[7] The most controversial feature of the square was a ring of eight nude females holding lamps, which attracted critical letters to the Yorkshire Post when unveiled in 1899.

It is in Ashlar, with slate and lead roofs of four stories and two main entrances with columns on the square, with a central clock tower.

The square is overlooked by the listed buildings Queens Hotel on the South and Mill Hill Chapel on the East, plus a modern skyscraper, No.

1 City Square (Norwich Union Building) completed 1998 by Abbey Hanson Rowe on the North.

[16] On the Southwest between Quebec Street and Wellington Street is the former Majestic Cinema and Ballroom (1921), a Grade II listed building in terracotta by the Leeds Fireclay Co.[17] On the Southeast corner is the Park Plaza Hotel, a 2003 recladding of a 1965 office tower block called Exchange House, and the former Yorkshire Bank (1899, Grade II listed), now a bar, in granite with a distinctive copper dome.

[14] The Square is the official start point for the 104 mile long-distance walk The White Rose Way which finishes in Scarborough, North Yorkshire.