This week our guest writer is Dr Laura Ager, Academic researcher and Creative Engagement Officer at the Hyde Park Picture House, who is writing about the history of old cinemas in Leeds. Before the era of the corporate multiplex cinema began, Leeds used to have many different and unique small cinemas. I have read that at…
Category: Entertainment
Fake News 18th May 1904
Fake News is a new project, by Tim Knight, which uses Local and Family History’s newspaper archive to publish a fictional front page every month. Curated from cuttings of The Yorkshire Post and The Yorkshire Evening Post—Leeds’ oldest continuous newspaper—Fake News will explore the goings-on, mishaps and miscellany of Yorkshire through the ages. Today’s edition,…
Tales from Circus 250: A Topography of the Circus in Leeds, Part III
Part III of a short series of stories from the glory days of the Circus in Leeds and the surrounding area. All the stories can be found in the History of Leeds Circus tab at the top of this page, continuing with today’s third topographical look at the various Circus sites in and around Leeds… KING CHARLES…
Tales from Circus 250: A Topography of the Circus in Leeds, Part II
Part II of a short series of stories from the glory days of the Circus in Leeds and the surrounding area. All the stories can be found in the History of Leeds Circus tab, continuing with today’s second topographical look at the various Circus sites in and around Leeds… COMMERCIAL STREET Mr Kite erected his…
The Sheepscar Triangle – the Irish community in Leeds
This week, as part of Irish History Month, Librarian Helen Skilbeck looks back at some of the local haunts of the Irish community in Leeds and the specific importance of the Sheepscar triangle. 1968, bottom of Roundhay road. Sheepscar Library is in the back centre of the photo and the Pointer Inn is to the…
Cross-dressing in Yorkshire
This week we welcome guest writer Lauren Wells, Post-Graduate Researcher at the University of Leeds, who explores the history and meaning(s) of cross-dressing in Yorkshire… My research examines men who cross-dressed in Yorkshire from the end of the nineteenth century until the eve of the Second World War. When I first conceptualised this project, I…
The Life of Patric Knowles
University of Huddersfield history student and library volunteer Haaris Mahmood looks back over the life of a legendary but lesser-known Hollywood star who began life in Horsforth. The city of Leeds has been home to many advancements in the world of filmmaking; both technically and in talent, being the birth place of a number of…
Tales from Circus 250: A Topography of the Circus in Leeds, Part I
To mark the 250th-anniversary of Philip Astley’s leap into show-business with his ring of entertainments near to Waterloo in London, the Secret Library presents a short series of stories from the glory days of the Circus in Leeds and the surrounding area. NEW BRIGGATE Charles Adams opened his Grand Circus on the site in New…
The Secret Library | Leeds Libraries Heritage Blog 