These buildings are an iconic part of Leeds’ past. The Works were built in the 1860s by the Harding family, who were manufacturers of steel pins for carding and combing machines in the textile industry. The towers – built over a period stretching into the 1920s – were originally chimneys and filter systems. They deliberately copied Italian models – Giotto’s great bell-tower in Florence, Verona’s thirteenth-century Lamberti bell tower, and, finally, the towers of San Gimignano – a town which retains the towers once common in all medieval Italian cities.
