# Temple works Leeds



## phill.d (Apr 1, 2009)

I was lucky enough to have a permission visit to Temple works in Leeds. I was most surprised to get it, considering the building recently suffered a major structural fault and a lot of it fell down! 





Temple Works in Holbeck, Leeds is based on the Temple of Horus at Edfu, with a chimney designed in the style of an obelisk and its facade reflecting John Marshall's ardent interest in Egyptology. 




When the building was first created it was said to be the largest single room in the world. The roof was covered in grass to to retain humidity and prevent the linen thread from drying out and becoming unmanageable. Sheep really did graze on the roof to keep the grass short. Temple works is a grade one listed structure.










During the night of the 8th December 2008, part of this 170 year old Temple mills collapsed without warning. 
One of 18 ornate stone pillars on Temple Mills partially collapsed, firing a large slab of millstone grit stone across a perimeter fence on to the pavement in Marshall Street, Holbeck.
The unoccupied building had a night security man on duty at the time.




The collapse of the 11th pillar resulted in a large stone from the arch above slipping and threatening to fall further bringing down the arch above the collapsed pillar. Marshall Street was cordoned off by police at either end of the building for fear of a further collapse.




DON'T SNEEZE lol 









THE DOMINO EFFECT!
It just goes to show that one small failure in a building can have a catostrophic effect.
This tie bar snapped on the night of the 8th December 2008. 
The night was one of the coldest in Leeds for many years.
The weight of the roof pushed out towards the external wall, one of the external columns buckled under the weight, and a large section of roof came crashing down.









Emergency structural scaffolding has been erected to stop any further collapse.




The largest single room in the world when first constructed!




The columns are hollow inside, they carried rainwater from the roof to the basement for the massive boilers.



















The warning signs of the impending Temple works collapse were already there when the Google street view cam car passed last summer.

Hope you enjoyed it guys!


----------



## Lightbuoy (Apr 1, 2009)

Wow -an absolutely stunning building. Well done for getting permission. I find such results make for a much more relaxed explore 

Some lovely details. Good to see that they've stabilised the structure. Hopefully these summountable problems won't be used by the Owner's as an excuse to take the easy way out any apply to have it knocked-down 

Thanks for posting Phil -enjoyed these muchly


----------



## TK421 (Apr 1, 2009)

I love how the owner used his love of a particular age and crafted it into his works, where else would you get that these days? Great report, and the interior photo of the fault around the windows is quite dramatic, I bet that made a heck of a racket when it came down.


----------



## phill.d (Apr 1, 2009)

Thanks guys!

Yes i think the roof collapse would have woke the night security man up for sure anyway


----------



## cactusmelba (Apr 1, 2009)

keep 'em coming Phil, always interesting to read your reports, thanks for the thought and effort you obviously put into them....


----------



## foz101 (Apr 2, 2009)

I read about this in Private Eye a few weeks ago now. Lovely building left to rot and harder to enforce the upkeep due to a council error. According to the Eye.

I didn't think I'd see inside this soon. Lovely shots too.


----------



## Dirus_Strictus (Apr 2, 2009)

foz101 said:


> I read about this in Private Eye a few weeks ago now. Lovely building left to rot and harder to enforce the upkeep due to a council error..



The outer stone pillars are in fact constructed around a central hollow cast iron pillar, similar to the interior ones. Ingress of water and 170 years of winter frosts have done the inevitable, along with the more recent ill thought out alterations. This delightful building wanted some serious restoration before the collapse, it now requires very large sums of money just to stabilise the structure. 

It's alright giving a building Grade 1 listing; however, unless some serious thought is given in the grant to funding the ongoing maintenance of the structure, all we will ever see is an ever increasing 'buildings at risk' register. Old industrial buildings such as this, can never earn enough money to enable them to be properly maintained. More importantly for the Temple Works, a new occupancy that is sympathetic to the original interior form will be difficult to find.

Unique buildings such as this should be preserved by the State and if this means that I have to pay more in tax, so be it. The only other answer is to leave the inevitable to nature - because when the textile industry started to decline, money for building maintenance just was not there, so these buildings are in a terrible state structurally. I have the maintenance records and costings for the Castleton Mills in Armley, which were built and owned by my wife's family - they make frightening reading, especially in the later years when the bottom line was always in red! The listing of the four storey block was the final impetus to close and sell up after trading for over 140 odd years.

After studying Phil's ever excellent photographs, I think they indicate a different cause of the collapse to the one mentioned in the report. If the arched roof were to become unstable, the resulting thrust would be parallel to the damaged wall - not into it. The Google photograph of the old damage certainly indicates that movement has occurred, but this does not necessarily mean that collapse is immanent. The clue is in the stonework thrown onto the pavement, and in the spalling to the face of the lower courses of the failed pillar. As I stated previously the stonework of these pillars is more decorative and only partially load bearing. corrosion of the inner cast iron column had transfered much of the roof load at that point onto the stonework. I suspect that the very low temperature over that period caused some very severe deep seated frost damage, which along with the unusual contraction of the metal supports, caused the inner pillar to finally fail. The sudden transfer of weight into the stonework cased it to literally 'explode' - hence the pieces on the pavement, this meant that the foot of two roof bays were not supported at the wall end and the bays collapsed inwards towards the internal pillars. The very fact that the outer wall escaped relatively undamaged, indicates that shock loadings were mostly vertical with very little horizontal component.

Sadly the damage indicates that the structure probably has serious hidden faults, which will be costly to survey and even more expensive to correct. Perhaps the time has come for the authorities to allow the roof structure to be replaced with a modern, lightweight structure that replicates the internal shape and presence of the very heavy original. Surely that huge floor space can be put to some public good, sports, exhibitions, play area, who knows?


----------



## The_Revolution (Apr 2, 2009)

What an interesting building and an excellent report as usual. 

I'm ashamed to say despite living in Leeds for many years I don't actually remember seeing this before.


----------



## Foxylady (Apr 2, 2009)

Gorgeous building! Love the columns with their authentically painted decoration.
Really hope something can be done to save it.
Excellent stuff as always, Phill.


----------



## Bunk3r (Apr 2, 2009)

Dirus_Strictus said:


> TSurely that huge floor space can be put to some public good, sports, exhibitions, play area, who knows?


looks like someone tried that and it didnt do much to help it!

Looks like they had let people play airsoft in there and a large number of "thunder flash and the parabolic grenades" were used, I think it is fair to say that these will have helped it come down. but to be fair they will have only sped up what was going to happen, people have said "For years the building has had a problem of a crack along the wall". (source of information http://www.secretleeds.com/forum/Messages.aspx?ThreadID=1444&StartAtMessage=50 )


----------



## Trinpaul (Apr 3, 2009)

That is a truly impressive building. It looks more like a carbon copy of the temple of Horus rather than just being based on it.


----------

