The Quarry Hill site forms part of two Improvement Schemes commenced under "The Housing of the working classes Act, 1890" one relating to "York Street Insanitary Area" 1896, the other to the "Quarry Hill Unhealthy Area" 1901. The two areas were comprised of a total of 66-75 acres on which were 2790 houses, 53 public houses and several other properties purchased under compulsory order of demolition, 1901. A total of 2147 houses, displacing approximately 9060 persons, were demolished prior to 1930. Most of the remaining houses have since been demolished and further purchases made in order to provide a site for present development.
The Site -
Situation - Quarry Hill is situated within half a mile north-east of the centre of the city and forms the focal point of the east end of the Headrow. The site is bounded on the north by New York road, on the south and east by York Street and Marsh Lane, and on the west by St.Peters Street and Eastgate.
Suitability - The site is well elevated and has a gradual rise from the South-West to the North-East. It is surrounded by wide thoroughfares and served with bus and tram transport. The Central bus station is now in course of erection, adjoins the site. Schools are adjacent to the site, also the Leeds Parish Church, St Marys Church, and St Patricks Roman Catholic Church and School. The principal shopping streets of the city and the Kirkgate Market are within a few minutes walk.
Development -
The scheme has been planned as a self-contained community and is an open vertical development rather than one of horizontality, planned with the object of obtaining the maximum amount of light, air and public space.
Dwellings - 938 dwellings are included in the scheme, the allocation being:
Type A1 - two-room dwellings - 80
Type A2 - three-room dwellings - 400
Type A3 - four-room dwellings - 394
Type A4 - five-room dwellings - 36
Type A5 - six-room dwellings - 28
= 938
Density - 36 dwellings per acre.
Storeys - from 2 to 8.
Population - It was estimated that the dwellings will house 3280 persons or 125 persons per acre.
Amenities -
The amenities include - Thirty-one stores available for prams, cycles and hawkers' barrows. A refuse disposal station providing for the disposal of all refuse, which will be conveyed from the dwellings in underground suction pipes. A communal laundry fitted with steam and electrical equipment and providing for 64 sets of washing and drying equipment, together with ironing room, attendants' room, cloakroom and lavatories, also a boiler house with special provision for obtaining auxiliary heat generated in the incinerator in the refuse disposal station.
A small radio by-wire sub-station from which wireless programmes can be relayed to the dwellings. A small electricity sun-station was included at the request of the electricity committee. Provision has also been made for a small mortuary, or "chapel of rest", also two estate offices and the necessary maintenance stores.
The site also had space reserved and plans prepared for a community centre, including a hall to seat 520 people, with stage and dressing rooms also a smaller hall (Wich could have been divided into a number of rooms) and a refreshment room, kitchen servery. The plan also included a child welfare centre at the ground floor level and a small pavilion serving two bowling greens and two tennis courts. The pavilion can be made available during the day-time for use as a sun balcony by children.
Public Space -
Playgrounds - Five Equipped playgrounds (incorporating small shelters with lavatories and drinking fountains) are included for children of varying ages.
Recreation grounds - In the centre of the development, provision is made by the terracing of the land for two bowling greens and two tennis courts.
Ornamental greens - Large areas will be laid out as ornamental greens and shrubberies and planted with varieties of flowering trees and provided with adequate seating conditions.
Construction work began on Quarry Hill Flats in the 1930's and were ready for habitation in 1938 though construction continued for much time after. The Flats were modelled on Karl Marx Hof flats in Vienna and built by Leeds City Council. It was the largest housing scheme in the country at the time and aimed to incorporate the latest housing ideas and techniques.
The Flats were to have solid fuel ranges, electric lighting, a refuse disposal system and communal facilities. The steel frame and concrete construction was to prove disastrous and in 1978 the whole complex was demolished.
Quarry Hill Key Reference Points -
- Previous slums on the site were back to back houses.
- Crowded houses and communities with no proper sanitation.
- Council recognised something had to be changed about the unclean areas of the city.
- Slums needed to be improved or demolished.
- By 1914 half the slum dwellings in quarry hill had been emptied and demolished.
- People were rehoused in the suburbs.
- Many working class people missed the close-knit communities of the back to back terraces and also wanted to live in the city.
- Leeds City Council decided to build flats on the Quarry Hill site, providing affordable housing for council tenants.
- Charles Jenkinson and the Director of Housing, the architect R.A.H Livett, decided to base the design on Karl Marx Hof in Vienna.
- New style estate with huge blocks of flats.
- Communal public spaces and facilities for tenants.
- Formal Gardens
- Courtyard
- Playgrounds and kindergarten
- Laundries
- Shops
- Flowers cascading down from the balconies which impressed delegation from those who visited Leeds
- QH designer also visited an estate called 'Cite De La Muett' at Dracy in France to look at the revolutionary building techniques which had been used there, which was designed by Eugene Mopin.
- Mopin was commissioned to produce a structural design for Quarry Hill. The 'Mopin System', as it became to be known, used a light steel frame encased in pre-cast concrete units.
- Using the Mopin System meant that construction of quarry hill did not require scaffolding.
- The system eliminated the need for plastering or brick-work, so there was no need for a skilled labour force.
- No skilled workforce made the project very economical
- The scheme was ment to be 800 flats but the heights of the buildings were increased to seven or sometimes eight storeys and the number of flats became 938.
- Livett's original designed incorporated a community hall, seating 520 people, with a stage and dressing rooms, 20 shops, indoor and outdoor swimming pools and a wading pool, even an estate mortuary to lay the dead.
- In the final Design, the swimming pools were replaced with 2 tennis courts and a bowling green but these were never completed.
- The flats used the new Garchey waste disposal method.
- The garchey is the mechanism in the original kitchen sink into which you are meant to put your wet rubbish – vegetable peelings etc. – and items like cans and bottles.
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