For International Women’s Day 2023 we’re going to delve into the Leodis photographic archive and look at a woman who followed her own path, regardless of social conventions, and while doing so left a mark on the collective memory of Leeds residents. The undated image shows a woman who was once a very familiar character…
Category: Leodis
The Bright Lights of Leeds
This week we welcome guest blogger Bryan Walters. Bryan is a keen historian and creates YouTube videos telling the history of Leeds. Here, with the help of Leodis, he tells us a little bit about life in Leeds. For six pence, at the end of the Victorian period, a working man could enjoy a Turkish…
National Volunteers’ Week 2022
This week (1-7 June) is Volunteers’ Week and we’re taking this opportunity both to thank our current volunteers and launch some new heritage volunteering opportunities Firstly a huge thanks to A, C, J and R for being excellent heritage volunteers. They all began pre Covid but have stuck with us through lockdowns and closures and…
Help us map the lost buildings of Leeds
Welcome to Local Community History Month – this month all our blog posts will be focused on the local communities that make up Leeds. Help wanted! Leeds Libraries have recently been experimenting with a fascinating online tool provided by Google: My Maps…and we need your support. We first came across this site while working with…
A Day of Marches & Demonstrations
Librarian Louise Birch uses photographs from the Leodis archive to remember events that took place 50 years ago today. 5th February 1972 was a day of marches and demonstrations in the city of Leeds. Using images from the Leodis website we will take a look at the marches and their causes. Over 500 people took…
Christmas Parties
Is it even Christmas if there isn’t a party happening somewhere? For day 18 of our Heritage Advent Calendar, we are visiting our Photographic archive Leodis.net to look at some of the heritage images we have of Christmas parties from years past. 4th December 1984. A group of ladies in party hats enjoying mince pies…
The Infant Prodigy Master Herbert – It’s Panto Season
By Becky Bavill, Library and Digital Assistant For Day 19 we’ve got more Pantomimes for you with another entry from our Playbills collection which can be viewed on the Leodis.net website. At Christmas, many families enjoy seeing a show. On Tuesday 21st and Thursday 23rd December 1830 they could have gone to the Concert Room…
Lewis’s Picture Perfect Windows
For Day 12 of our Advent Calendar, Senior Librarian Louise Birch looks at the closest thing Leeds had to the store from the movie Miracle on 34th Street. Lewis’s department store opened in 1932 on the widened Headrow. Every Christmas Lewis’s provided beautiful Christmas displays, becoming citywide legendary in the 1970s and 80s. This displays…
The Secret Library | Leeds Libraries Heritage Blog 