Today’s article, by Antony Ramm, forms part of a series of posts inspired by Unearthed: The Power of Gardening – an exhibition in partnership with the British Library’s Living Knowledge Network, at Leeds Central Library from 10 September – 29 October 2025. A previous article in this series, by Becky Bavill, justly brought to light the life and…
Category: exhibitions
A Selection of Botanical Treasures
Here at Leeds Central Library, we recently hosted a treasure handling workshop to show off a few more of our botanical items that we could not fit in our current exhibition – Unearthed: The Power of Gardening – at Leeds Central Library until 29 October 2025. First up was Flora Londinensis by William Curtis. This…
The man who turned into a moss: The botanical exploits of Richard Spruce
In connection with the ongoing Unearthed exhibition at Leeds Central Library, here’s a sneaky look at the backstory of a Yorkshire botanist whose passion for plants led him far and wide, touching on the worlds of science and medicine, empire and gardening. We then peek into his connections to one of the biggest scientific breakthroughs…
Heritage Open Days 2025
This week we take an in-depth look at events at Leeds Central Library during the Heritage Open Days Festival 2025. Local History Open Day Running on Saturday 13 September, 11.00am – 2.00pm in the Local and Family History Library, the Open Day is a chance for librarians to exhibit some of our most cherished and…
Unearthed: The Power of Gardening
Unearthed: The Power of Gardening is a new, free exhibition at Leeds Central Library running from 10 September – 29 October 2025, exploring the transformative, enriching and sometimes radical power of gardening. Inspired by the British Library’s major exhibition and following successful visits to Armley, Rothwell and Compton Road Community Hubs and Libraries, Unearthed celebrates…
The Final Whistle: Voice of the Fans is over
We said farewell to the Voice of the Fans exhibition on August 10 – hopefully you were able to visit our Central Library to see this free exhibition exploring the past, present, and future of football fanzine culture during its run. A Leeds Libraries and British Library co-production, Voice of the Fans was seen by…
The mystery of Leeds United’s first colours
This week we welcome back guest author Pete Slater. Pete is one of a small team of volunteers working with us for the joint Leeds Libraries/British Libraries Voice of the Fans exhibition celebrating football fanzines and football fan culture. One of Pete’s roles has been research using our microfilmed local newspaper collection – this article…
Voice of the Fans: Cricket meets football
This week on the Secret Library Leeds we hear from volunteer Pete Slater, with a brief description of a surprise visit to our Voice of the Fans exhibition. Voice of the Fans – a co-production between Leeds Libraries and the British Library – can be seen at our Central Library until August 10. We also…
The Secret Library | Leeds Libraries Heritage Blog 