Have you ever wondered what’s inside Quarry House?
More importantly, do you even know what Quarry House is? A lot of you might just know it as “that massive and creepy looking building near the Playhouse.”
Whichever it is, the people of Leeds have been captivated by ‘the Kremlin’ since 1993. If you haven’t worked there (or simply Googled the place) you could spend hours guessing its contents. Cause what other normal building looks like that? Especially in a city as architecturally modest and compact as Leeds. It’s not gonna be a Tesco, is it? You could stick a chain of trolleys outside and be fooling no-one.
The answer, shockingly, is not as dark as we might like to think. Quarry House is home to the Department of Health and more recently, the Department of Work and Pensions. The rest of it apparently functions as a social and leisure complex.
‘But there must be more going on?!’ I can hear you saying. ‘Alright, so it’s got a dole office and a pool. That can’t be it.’
That’s a good point. Maybe these old pictures of how it looked upon opening might give you a greater sense of the space it covers.
The Quarry Hill area, which now includes a brand spanking campus for Leeds City College, also plans to regenerate further; to bring it closer to what it was back in the day: an ambitious and much-loved housing project, itself gigantic.
In 1934, modernist buff R.A.H Livett set upon transforming the area into what became, for a short while, the largest social housing complex in the UK. Inspired by the likes of the Karl-Marx-Hof in Vienna and La Citie de la Muette in Paris, the Quarry Hill Flats served as the home to hundreds of Leeds natives from 1938 to 1978.
These photos show a cosy glimpse into what replaced the flats. In them, we see a water-themed foyer, a very dated staff restaurant, even the fancy garden plonked in the middle of the structure.
On others, we see the swimming pool and (a bit of) the gym. There’s one picture of a sign that proves at some point there was a hairdressers in there. Members of the Illuminati like to keep trim too, I suppose.
The building last made the news last September when — I’m not joking — employees were caught practising improper social distancing. Social distancing fails… in that.
So, yeah, ultimately it might be home to a few middle of the road government operations and apparently nothing else. But you can’t pull the wool over this lad’s eyes that much, Quarry House.
If you’re asking me, I reckon there’s an entire section devoted to recreating whatever it is Marcelo Bielsa is made of for the unthinkable day he leaves Leeds. A group of top-secret white coats churning out replacement after replacement with slight tweaks to throw the big wigs off. Dropping off the likes of Marquesio Salsa and Martino Batista outside Elland Road and praying for the best.
