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Heritage Watch – Scott Hall Farm

Heritage at Risk Top 10 – Following on from last month’s penultimate article on Meanwood Hall, our final feature from our Heritage at Risk Top 10 for 2024/25 will focus on Scott Hall Farm in the Meanwood area of Leeds.


The list entry for Scott Hall describes a picturesque mid-18th-century, three-storey merchant’s house constructed from hand-made bricks with rusticated stone quoins under a slate roof (List Entry Number 1256090). Although the interior was never inspected, the listing notes that “this is a rare survival of the plainer houses built by merchants in Leeds in the 18th century.”

It is, admittedly, difficult to reconcile this description with the shell of a building that remains today. This is likely because the building was first listed on 5 August 1976 and, since then, the site has fallen out of use, remaining largely unoccupied following the death of its last tenant farmer in the mid-1990s.

Scott Hall was previously owned by Leeds City Council, who sold it to a private individual in late 2008. The site changed hands again in 2018, when it was put up for sale and acquired by a new owner.

For over 30 years, Scott Hall has remained derelict, its condition steadily deteriorating. The main house and adjacent buildings were damaged by fire in the early 2000s, compounded by targeted vandalism and persistent anti-social behaviour in later years.

Following the most recent change in ownership, proposals were submitted to Leeds City Council in May 2019 for planning permission and listed building consent to demolish structures on the site, and to refurbish the existing stables with the construction of a new single-storey extension to accommodate studio/work units, along with a raised patio area, vehicular access, and parking (applications 19/03067/FU and 19/03068/LI). Both applications were refused, as the proposals were considered contrary to the aims and objectives of Leeds Core Strategy policies and conflicted with advice in the National Planning Policy Framework on the protection of the historic environment.

Further proposals were submitted in May 2021 for a similar scheme (applications 21/04188/FU and 21/04189/LI). Leeds Civic Trust’s Planning Committee considered these new applications and, whilst welcoming the intention to bring part of the site back into use, we remained concerned that the proposals failed to address the future of the Grade II listed building on the site and we submitted a formal objection. The Council echoed our concerns, particularly that the proposals focused solely on the development of the land rather than bringing the listed assets on the site back into meaningful use. The applications were refused for a second time in September 2022.

Marveland, a community interest company was launched in 2022. Working with the owners, they sought to reinvent Scott Hall as a community arts event space. Since its inception, Marveland have organised several events at Scott Hall Farm and partnered with another local organisation to bring music events to the site.

Artists-Impression of a restored Scott Hall Farm credit Mass Architecture

In recent months, volunteers from our Heritage Watch Group have tried to make contact with Marveland, but to no avail. A quick trawl of Companies House highlighted that Marveland Enterprises C.I.C. was dissolved in July 2024, and so it would appear that their involvement at the site has ceased.

We must ask the question, what next for this former merchant’s house? We remain hopeful that revised proposals to bring the whole site back into use will come forward at some stage, but at this point, that remains little more than a pipe dream.

Our Heritage Watch Group will continue to monitor the condition of the building where possible. We would certainly be pleased to hear from the current owner and hope to engage in constructive conversations about the future of Scott Hall Farm and what it might hold.

Clare Chapman – Heritage Watch Group Chair

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