This week on the Secret Library we welcome Orla Kennelly from the Norfolk Heritage Centre. Orla kindly agreed to write a section for our blog focusing on the circus manager and performer, William Darby – aka Pablo Fanque. Darby was born in Norwich, but is buried in Leeds; Orla’s section looks at Darby’s early years, while our part concentrates…
Category: Child Friendly
Takeover Challenge 2015
As Part of the 2015 Takeover Challenge Day we invited Carr Manor Primary School Year 4 pupils to take over our heritage blog post for the day. We gave them a tour of the building and the department resources, so now it’s over to Caitlin, Harry, Safa and John to tell you what they found…
Leeds Central Library – The Hallowe’en Files
by Sally Hughes, Local and Family History, Leeds Central Library For a building almost 130 years old the walls of Leeds Central Library have many tales to tell. If you have visited or even seen photographs of this beautiful Victorian building you will know that there is a rich history to be explored inside. A…
What’s in a Noun?
Our weekend of Heritage Open Day tours is in full swing here at Leeds Central Library – and places are all now fully booked up (sorry!). This year, as well as enjoying a trip around the nooks and crannies of our grand Victorian building, our visitors are getting a peek at some little treasures from…
Do We Look Strangely Familiar to You?
This group of girls and boys with their bicycles are posing with attitude on Wolseley Road, Burley, in 1969. They had just returned from Kirkstall swimming baths on Kirkstall Road, which was close by. And that’s when visiting photographer Eric Jaquier captured the moment in a striking black-and-white image, full of the warmth and personality…
Presented for your entertainment…
While looking through our playbill collection we were fascinated by the range of different acts which have been presented to audiences in Leeds over the years. Here are just a few. The Theatre, which was on Hunslet Lane, opened in 1771 with room for 600 people. Most of the plays performed were comedies, or comic operas,…
Leeds Celebrations for VE Day
On Tuesday, May 8, 1945, the front page headline of the Yorkshire Post announced “THE EUROPEAN WAR IS OVER AND THIS IS VE-DAY AND A HOLIDAY”. After six long years of bitter struggle, the British people had won freedom from fear and they celebrated in style. No more so than here in Leeds, where despite…
1920s Eclipse Fever
“Leeds never really went to bed last night. The last ordinary trams had scarcely stopped running at midnight, when a special series of ‘eclipse’ cars began the journey to City Square to meet the convenience of the thousands going to the shadow-belt by rail and charabanc.” This was the news that greeted the city from…
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