The Queens Hotel, Leeds: History of grand rooms and the tango at one of Yorkshire's most iconic buildings

Besides offering accommodation, the premises provided a venue for concerts, dinners, meetings, sales and commercial consultations. The Yorkshire Veterinary Medical Society held its annual meeting and dinner at the hotel on January 19, 1866.

During November 1867 Dr Melville begged to notify his correspondents in Leeds and its vicinity, as well as those suffering from any chest disease, that he would be at the Queen’s Hotel several days of that month.

Extensions were undertaken at the hotel in 1898 but the work was not without a tragedy. Bricklayer Thomas Kellington (31) fell from a scaffold 23 feet from the ground and died. It was reported that he had suffered a fit.

An article about the hotel in July 1903 mentions that prior to recent alterations there were 93 bedrooms but this had now increased to 118. A restaurant and a number of entertaining rooms were also added. A sum of about £20,000 was spent on the alterations.

During September 1905, it was announced that a Viennese Orchestra ‘plays daily’ at the Queen’s Hotel. In 1913 an adjourned Board of Trade inquiry into the Aisgill rail disaster was held there. In the same year, a report from November 25 said that there was an added attraction to afternoon teas at the Queens Hotel, the Tango. It was added: ‘At four o’clock yesterday the scene in the tearoom was charming; the dainty table, with their silver napery forming a circle about the extempore dancing floor on which Miss Renee Cremer and Miss Margery Overton, with their respective partners, Mr Denny and Mr Cleveland, demonstrated the all the latest steps of the Tango…there is every indication that “Tango at the Queens” will become one of the smartest functions of the city’s winter season.’

In what was described as ‘a joyous gathering’ about 200 Scots and their guests assembled at the Queen’s Hotel on Tuesday January 25, 1927. This was for the Leeds Caledonian Society, Burns Dinner. It was reported: ‘The spirit of Scotland permeated the whole proceedings…On the approach of the haggis, piped in with due ceremony, and paraded together with the indispensable bottles by thirty waiters down the length of the tables, the whole congregation rose…’

The first Leeds Queen’s Hotel survived until September 1935 when a rebuilding programme was begun by owners, the London, Midland & Scottish Railway Company. The last public function at the Queen’s Hotel, before it was broken up and the new building erected, occurred on Thursday August 23, 1935 with the end of the three-day sale of surplus furnishings. Eight hundred and fifty lots, varying from a bundle of stair-rods at a shilling, to 90 yards of tapestry carpet, which fetched £15, were disposed of a the rate of one a minute. Over a hundred buyers, mostly local dealers, attended the auction each day.

Within a few weeks, the old building was demolished. The architect appointed for the scheme was William Curtis Green of London. A former vice-president of the Royal Institute of British architects, Green had won several distinctions for London designs, including a medal awarded by the RIBA. His principal works included Stratton House, Piccadilly, and the Piccadilly and Albemarle Street branch of the Westminster Bank.

In January, 1936 an enormous hole was dug underneath what became the new structure. For this construction, deep foundations were excavated, reaching a depth of more than 40ft, below the level of City Square.

The foundation stone for the replacement hotel was laid by the Earl of Derby in October, 1936. At the event, attended by a large crowd, the Lord Mayor of Leeds (Alderman P.T. Leigh) said the new enterprise would bring many visitors to Leeds for no city was better situated. In the past, because of the lack of accommodation in the city, visitors to Leeds were forced to sleep in Harrogate, Ilkley and elsewhere. The stone-laying was one of two ceremonies, the other being the laying of a foundation stone by the Leeds Mayor for new railway offices adjacent to the hotel.

The new Queen’s Hotel, described as a modern essay in Portland Stone, opened on November 12, 1937. The ceremony was performed by the Earl of Harewood and the Princess Royal attended. Unique in many features, the hotel was claimed to be the most modern in the provinces. The predominant innovation was the reconditioned air which allowed for the purest of air throughout the hotel. The new Queen’s was the first hotel in this country to have this system incorporated into the actual building.

From the residential point of view, the building offered ideal comfort. Each of the 200 bedrooms was equipped with a private bathroom. Coal for the great kitchens was conveyed by underground railway and direct to the boilers. Thus, for the first time in this country, railway wagons carried fuel from the permanent way to the very doors of a hotel.

More than 50,000 tons of material were required for the construction. As the hotel was being constructed, each stone was numbered and allotted its place like a separate piece in some intricate mechanism.

One newspaper commented about the development: ‘The completion of the new Queen’s Hotel marks the first part of the LMS Railway Company’s scheme to remodel and merge the two adjoining railway stations Wellington and the New – already in such proximity as to be practically one. These twin projects are independent for, without some great economy of station space, there could have been no adequate scope in depth for an hotel of the proportions of the new Queen’s.’

The whole scheme, including the railway offices adjoining, cost close upon £1,000,000. The building contractors were William Airey & Son (Leeds), Ltd, and Sir Edwin Airey, head of the company had personally directed operations.

A Yorkshire Evening Post photographer took a picture during August 1969 showing part of the hotel edifice after it had been cleaned. It revealed how blackened the building had become over the years. At the same time, the newspaper launched a campaign for more grubby Leeds buildings to get the same wash and brush up treatment.

Another staff photographer took a picture in February 1993 of 19-year-old Londoner Kelly Sutton, wearing top hat and tails. She had been appointed hotel doorperson. An article added: ‘Kelly came to Yorkshire over a year ago to work in the hotel trade. She was previously employed in reception at the Queen’s. The Queen’s has had a door person since 1937 but the hotel is so busy that a second appointment was necessary.’ Part of Kelly’s new job, alongside senior doorman Keith Brookes, was to look after guests’ cars and luggage.

Thanks to Leeds Libraries, Leeds Museum and the Thoresby Society for help with this piece.