As part of the 2014 Yorkshire Festival we wanted to show you some of the Heritage Yorkshire stock we have here at Leeds Central Library. ‘Yorkshire Painted & Described’ by Gordon Home was acquired by the Leeds Public Libraries Reference Library on the 9th June 1956 with 71 illustrations accompanying Home’s description of his tour…
Author: Leeds Libraries
Doorways to Another World
Title quote from writer Michael Sims When your building is 130 years old covering five floors you end up with many doors leading to many different places. Doors are easy to miss, they are never your focus but an object that needs to be gotten past on route to your destination. Today we have stopped…
D-Day Remembered
Today marks the 70th anniversary of the Normandy landings by the Allied invasion as part of World War II Operation Overload. Approximately 156,000 Allied troops landed on the beaches suffering casualties in excess of 12,000 personnel. Leeds Central Library holds a large number of items detailing the invasion, and the days and months that followed….
Gott Chelsea Fever?
With the excitement of Chelsea Flower Show this week we thought it timely to give you a glimpse of the fabulous Gott collection housed in the Special Collections at Leeds Central Library. The Gott bequest is a collection of 600 early English gardening books and periodicals including works published in the 16th, 17th and 18th…
Making a Mark – Leeds Libraries Style
In 2010 a certain Internet search engine estimated the number of books in the world to be around 129,864,880. I’m guessing in the years since that figure has grown somewhat. So how do we show which ones belong to Leeds Libraries? Well we brand them. Today it’s a pretty bland process, our name, phone number…
Pickle Pidgeon Anyone
Today we delve back into the Central Library Stacks to bring you a recipe taken from English Housewifry Exemplified by Elizabeth Moxon, 1764. The first page of the book tells us that the following are available. In above four hundred and fifty receipts, Giving directions in most parts of cookery; And how to prepare various…
Beautiful Bindings – A Record of the Black Prince
Welcome to our new feature series ‘Beautiful Bindings’ where we dig out treasures from the library stacks to show you just how elaborate the art of book binding has been throughout the years. Today’s item is A Record of the Black Prince by Noel Henry Humphreys, 1849. The intricate book cover has been created using…
Lepidoptera in the Library
Spring is definitely here, trees are heaving with blossom, daffodils are swaying gently in the breeze and the butterflies are back. To celebrate this re-emergence of colour into the natural world we bring you a selection of our heritage Butterfly and Moth stock. Now those of you who don’t consider yourselves Lepidoptera fans shouldn’t flutter…
The Secret Library | Leeds Libraries Heritage Blog 