To accompany our recent Unearthed: The Power of Gardening exhibition, hosted at Leeds Central Library until 29 October 2025, a new collection of images has been created on the Leodis website. Ranging from formal gardens to allotments, these photos offer a glimpse of how the people of Leeds have grown plants, flowers and vegetables over…
Category: Leeds History
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…
Robert Dawes of Temple Newsam
Today’s article, by Becky Bavill, 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. Inspired by our collaboration with the British Library, and the reading of a particularly…
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…
More Tales from the Horsforth Research Guide
This week we hear from Library and Digital Assistant Jan Pinder with another fascinating ramble around Horsforth, following on from last year’s Tales from the Horsforth Research Guide… The Horsforth research guide was produced as a starting point for anyone wishing to use the Central Library stock to find out more about the history of…
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…
Working on the Spark Collection: a history about the Leeds Triennial Musical Festival in early years
Following Lauren Stead’s article in May, we now welcome MA student Xuan Li for a further exploration of the Central Library’s Spark Collection… Over the past few months, I’ve had the chance to work on a short-term archive project at Leeds Central Library, exploring the fascinating Spark Collection. This archive is named after Frederick R….
The Leeds Spitfire
Recently we were contacted by Garry Holden who had a photograph, taken by his father, that he thought we might like to include on Leodis, our photographic archive. After talking to Garry for a while we thought the story of his family would make a fascinating blog post and very apt for Armed Forces Day….
The Secret Library | Leeds Libraries Heritage Blog 