Leeds Holbeck Crosland Street Protestant Methodist Chapel

This chapel was built very rapidly for the Wesleyan Protestant Methodists, with the foundation stone being laid on the 3rd September 1828 and opening for services on the 21st January 1829. It was built in brick as a single storey structure at a cost of £1200 to accommodate 400 people, there being no separate school accommodation. In 1835 the Protestant Methodists became the Wesleyan Methodist Association.
It was found, however, that more space was needed for scholars, and on the 26th April 1846 it was decided to add an upper floor to the building, move the chapel upstairs and dedicate the ground floor as a schoolroom, this being opened at the end of 1847 at a cost of £360. In 1857 the Wesleyan Association merged with the Wesleyan Reformers to become the United Methodist Free Church.
By 1861 the problem of space for scholars again became an issue, and the solution this time was to build a new chapel and dedicate the old one on Crosland Street entirely as a school. With the opening of the new Prospect Chapel on Sweet Street West in 1865, the Crosland Street site became Prospect School. In February 1871, following the introduction of the 1870 Education Act, Prospect School was offered to the Leeds Schools Board who, however, declined the offer.
Following the opening of another new Prospect Chapel, this time on Domestic Street and incorporating a new school, Crosland Street school became surplus to requirements, and on the 14th February 1882, it became the Crosland Street Ragged School and Temperance Society. It continued in this form until the late 1880s, when it became the St Helens Mission Room, remaining so till 1914. Subsequently, it was used for industrial purposes, and by 1920 was occupied by the Electrical Accessories Manufacturing Co as a factory for ‘Prento’ electrical switchgear, fuseboxes and other mains electrical accessories until 1926.
By 1950 it had become a brass foundry, and since 1992 has been in use as music studios. With the demolition of all the other buildings on Crosland Street and Front Walk, the address has now become Crosland Court, Czar Street. Crosland Street had been named after the cloth manufacturer Thomas Crosland of Isles House, Holbeck, who was the grandfather of the poet T W H Crosland.