15 Dec History Of St James’ Safe Deposit, Leeds
Reviving an architectural gem in Leeds
In January 2015, St James’s Safe Deposit Leeds Bradford branch will be open for business. The new premises are located in the basement of a building called Greek Street Chambers which is located on the corner of Park Row and Russell Street, just a short walk from the mainline station.
The building that we occupy holds some interesting history. It was purpose built as a private bank in 1898, when the Greek Street Chambers building was originally built for William Williams-Brown – a very prominent and successful private bank of the period that also had a branch in the City of London.
William Williams Brown retained Alfred Waterhouse, a prolific Victorian architect (the Lord Rodgers of his time!) to design his new bank. Alfred Waterhouse had already designed iconic buildings such as Manchester Town Hall and the Natural History Museum in London and so to have secured his services must have been hugely significant.
In the early part of this century all banks had a requirement for a large vault. In the days before electronic cash transfers, banks and their clients held large amounts of cash as well as hard assets such as gold. Such commodities needed to be physically secured and every bank built in the early part of this century had a vault incorporated into the basement.
The 1900’s saw a spate of consolidation in the banking sector, and William Williams Brown was taken over by Lloyds Bank in 1902. Lloyds continued to occupy Greek Street Chambers and utilised the vault right up until the 1970’s when they re-located to a smaller site on the other side of Park Row.
When we first viewed the vaults in May 2013 they were layered in the dust and debris of over 30 years. However, it was quite clear as to why Leeds City Council had felt it necessary to designate them as a listed space. Although they had been abandoned for many years the magnificent vaulted ceilings, glazed brick tiles and huge vault doors couldn’t fail to impress us and we were quick to decide that this was the ideal vault and location for St James’ to take on in Leeds.
The vaults have undergone a 4 month programme of renovation, which saw the installation of a state of the art security system, lighting and air conditioning which makes the most of the architectural qualities of the vaulted space.
St James’ are proud to have renovated this magnificent Victorian vault back to its former glory and at the same time to have breathed a new lease of life into one of Leeds architectural gems.