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This Jacobean House on Bank Street was built about the time of the Commonwealth Government. On the preservation order it is listed as numbers 78 and 80 Bank Street - one part being called Yew Tree House and one part Swinden House. In fact it has been two houses corresponding with these numbers since the Second World War, but for most of its existence it has been a single house with one or other of the names mentioned. It is thought that Yew Tree House was built by Richard Huntington, who emigrated to New England during the reign of Charles ll. The house was then bought by Edmund Waller, the Restoration poet, as a retreat from the court of Charles ll for his daughter Dorothy, who suffered from a deformity of the spine. It is stated that she travelled from home to Morley Old Chapel on Troy Hill by means of a Sedan chair, and that on her death in 1717 she bequeathed the house to the Minister at the Old Chapel, Timothy Aldred, who is also buried in the churchyard there. He was Minister at the old chapel for over fifty years and spent much of his time at Yew Tree House. In the 1830s the house became the property of a prominent Morley doctor, Dr. Swinden, and, because of his activity for the local Board of Health and various committees, the house then became known as Swinden House. Dr. Swinden tried to persuade Norrisson Scatcherd to leave the Old Chapel and join him at the new parish church of St. Peter's. In the 1880s the house was occupied by the Misses Green who had a clothing business in Morley Bottoms. At this time the house was seen to be constructed of large sandstone blocks, but, about 1900, it was cement rendered with the walls being about 60cm (2 feet) thick. Photograph from the David Atkinson Archive. | License: | http://www.leodis.net/article.aspx?id=12 | Rights holder: | Leeds Central Library | Subjects: | Edmund Waller Swinden House Scatcherd Bank Street Yew Tree House | Source: | Leodis - A photographic archive of Leeds | Identifier: | http://www.leodis.net/display.aspx?id=20... | Go to resource |
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