Description: 2007.
View of the former childrens' library located on the first floor of York Road Library on the southern side of York Road. The Grade II listed building dates from 1904 and was designed by H. Ascough Chapman for Leeds Corporation. This view looks from, what was originally the Boys Library and Reading Room in the foreground, through the archways to the Girls' Reading Room. The doorways in the background led to three bedrooms and a landing belonging to a self-contained house likely to have been lived in by the caretaker of the public library and adjoining public baths. The library closed on 31st August 1940 and was then occupied by the Social Welfare Department until 1948. This floor was then occupied by the Circulating Department for the smaller branch libraries for many years. Plans drawn by the City Architect, R.A.H. Livett in August 1946 show how the ground floor and first floor were altered to accommodate a new evening lending library service and the Circulating Department respectively. In later years the rooms in this image became the Bindary Department for the Leeds Library Service. The run down building is in the process (2008) of being sold for commercial use.
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