Leeds has a rich commercial tradition and fine buildings to match. This absorbing book provides the first authoritative and detailed guide to that architecture. The city's prosperity, founded on the wool trade, is reflected in the magnificent Jacobean church of St. John and elegant Georgian parades and squares with homes for wealthy merchants. Alongside them today stand proud warehouses and offices of the railway age in styles ranging from elegant neo-Grecian to Gothic and Moorish.

The civic pride of Victorian Leeds has as its crowning glory the grand Town Hall, testament to the talent of...