Welcome to Local Community History Month – this month all our blog posts will be focused on the local communities that make up Leeds.

Help wanted! Leeds Libraries have recently been experimenting with a fascinating online tool provided by Google: My Maps…and we need your support.

We first came across this site while working with PhD. researcher Joanne Harrison on her Lost Streets of Sheepscar and Burmantofts project, which culminated in an interactive map tracking streets in those two areas that no longer existed (bit.ly/loststreetsleeds). Figuring there may be other interesting uses for that website, we’ve put together our first effort: a map to plot the ‘lost’ buildings of Leeds*.

While we’ve made a (modest) start filling in the map, we’ve decided to throw it open to you, the public, even in its early stages; we’ve made the map fully editable, which means anyone can add (or remove!) buildings, anywhere in Leeds (including its surrounding suburbs and towns).

All we really ask is that you add as much descriptive detail as you can to new entries, including an image – where possible. You can find descriptions, photographs or prints of most of the relevant buildings on the Leodis website, our collection of digitised historic images of ‘old Leeds’ (www.leodis.net) – again, we just ask that you credit Leodis as the source for any images you upload.

And that’s about it, really – you can find the map through this link, and make a start editing as soon as you like**: Lost Buildings of Leeds

Please get in touch with us at the Local and Family History department of our Central Library if you have any questions, or require any support: localandfamilyhistory@leeds.gov.uk or 0113 37 86982.

*We’ve defined ‘lost’ in this context as either (a) no longer physically in existence; or (b) so substantially altered in terms of appearance or use that the original purpose of the building is ‘lost’ to modern Leodensians

**(you’ve got to be logged into a Google account to edit the map, but all that is required is to sign-up for a free Gmail address)