The parish church of St Thomas was built in 1841 in
Neo-Norman style and is now
Grade II listed. It was designed by H. Rogerson. The foundation stone was laid on 5 November 1839, by John Farrar of
Pudsey. The organ chamber and vestry were added in 1870. There are examples of
stained glass dating to the 1860s and painted panels from the late 1880s. There is a notable marble memorial to John Butler of
West Royd, d.1884 which was erected by the men of the Stanningley
Ironworks where he was the manager. St Paul's Parish Church was constructed in 1853 and its
register started in 1856. The last burial at the church took place in 1939 before it was closed in 1982 as the parish was merged with Pudsey's St Lawrence Parish. After the closure, the building was converted into an office space and used by companies like
Rockstar Leeds, a
video game developer. As of December 2018, the building is privately owned. In 1894, the park lodge at Stanningley Park was built. It has the
coat of arms of Leeds mounted on the park side of the house. The park once had a
greenhouse. The distinctive
1920s Pavilion Picture House was opened in February 1920. It was designed by J. P. Crawford of Albion Place. The first film shown was
Daddy-Long-Legs starring
Mary Pickford.
UK's first High Occupancy Vehicle Lane A section of the
A647 road Stanningley Road and Stanningley By-Pass became the UK's first High Occupancy Vehicle Lane in 1998. It began on a trial basis and was made permanent after proving successful. This part of the route between Leeds and Bradford experienced high levels of traffic congestion and there were few public transport priority measures. The council originally wanted to install a bus lane, but found that bus service frequencies were too low to justify it. The project was part of an EU research project called Increasing CAR Occupancy (ICARO). Its objectives were to increase car occupancy by encouraging car sharing and to demonstrate the feasibility of providing a lane for shared use by buses, other high occupancy vehicles, motorcycles and cycles. == Economy ==