The extraordinary Egyptian-style Leeds landmark hoping to become a second British Library — and they used to let sheep graze on the roof

Egyptian-style facade of a factory in Leeds

(Image credit: Alamy)

published 24 March 2025

A project to convert an extraordinary Egyptian-style Victorian mill in Leeds into the northern outpost of the British Library has been awarded £10 million from the Government. The total cost of the conversion is estimated at £70 million and, although the scheme received £1 million from Historic England in 2022 to make the landmark watertight, there is some way to go.

A Grade I-listed former flax-spinning mill, Temple Works has been empty for 20 years. It was built in 1838–40 for John Marshall by architect Joseph Bonomi and engineer James Coombe, inspired by the Temple of Edfu. Unlike its Egyptian counterpart, it was famous for its flat roof covered in grass, which maintained humidity in the building (preventing linen thread from snapping) and notoriously allowed the owners to graze sheep. They reached the roof via the world’s first hydraulic lift and, apparently, visitors flocked from far and wide to see the spectacle. With two front bays collapsed, Temple Works has been on the Buildings at Risk Register since 2008.

CGI image of what Temple Works could look like post-renovation — An artist's impression of what Temple Works could like after renovation works

‘We have worked hard in recent months with partners, including the West Yorkshire Combined Authority, Homes England and the British Library itself, to make the case for this funding,’ says councillor James Lewis, leader of Leeds City Council. He adds that the next job is to create ‘detailed plans for the full funding, design and development of a project that remains a complex and challenging undertaking, but one that offers a major regeneration opportunity’.

Leeds Civic Trust director Martin Hamilton calls the building’s British Library North regeneration ‘hugely important’, particularly for its impact on local communities. There are more than 230 vacant and under-used mills in Yorkshire, according to a recent Historic England report.

Annunciata grew up in the wilds of Lancashire and now lives in Hampshire with a husband, two daughters and an awful pug called Parsley. She’s been floating round the Country Life office for more than a decade, her work winning the Property Magazine of the Year Award in 2022 (Property Press Awards). Before that, she had a two-year stint writing ‘all kinds of fiction’ for The Sunday Times Travel Magazine, worked in internal comms for Country Life’s publisher (which has had many names in recent years but was then called IPC Media), and spent another year researching for a historical biographer, whose then primary focus was Graham Greene and John Henry Newman and whose filing system was a collection of wardrobes and chests of drawers filled with torn scraps of paper. During this time, she regularly gave tours of 17th-century Milton Manor, Oxfordshire, which may or may not have been designed by Inigo Jones, and co-founded a literary, art and music festival, at which Johnny Flynn headlined. When not writing and editing for Country Life, Annunciata is also a director of TIN MAN ART, a contemporary art gallery founded in 2021 by her husband, James Elwes.

Sign up for the Country Life Newsletter