Description:
St. Paul's House was built in 1878 by John Barran, a Leeds clothier. He commissioned Thomas Ambler to design a new warehouse, factory and showroom in one building and acquired a site near to the railway station. Ambler produced a brick and terracotta, double cube building, splayed off at one corner to mark the entrance. He disguised the factory in the fancy dress of Victorian Architecture as a Moorish Palace (Pevsner). John Barran Limited prospered and moved to larger, less notable, premises. Over the years, in successive ownerships, the building deteriorated to the extent that in the late sixties when English Property Corporation Limited acquired it, pieces of crumbling terra cotta were falling off. Restoration of the shell of the building and conversion to office space. New reinforced structure was inserted with more floors. New entrance was created.