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…
Category: Leodis
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…
Family Allowance Toy Fair
by Louise Birch Day 7 of our Advent Calendar is all about Christmas Shopping. there is a commercial side to Christmas that many dislike, for some this is due to the affordability of gifts. Today’s entry recalls a toy fair that addressed this. These images show the annual Wykebeck ‘Family allowance Toy Fair’. Local residents…
A Gledhow Military Hospital Christmas
Day 4 of our Advent Calendar brings us to the Christmas Celebrations at Gledhow Military Hospital. During the First World War, Gledhow Hall was offered for use as a Voluntary Aid Detachment (VAD) hospital and run by the British Red Cross. This first image from 1917 shows one of the small huts in the grounds…
Snowy Tramscapes by Peter Lapish
We’re kicking off the 2021 festive period with our Secret Library Leeds Advent Calendar. Everyday in the run up to Christmas we will bring you something from our heritage & special collections, all with a seasonal feel. Day 1 – Prints from the Leodis.net photographic archive as chosen by senior librarian Louise Birch Impressionistic watercolours…
Paintings of Burley
This week on the Secret Library we hear from guest author Jonathan Hooper. Jonathan is an incredible painter, who is here to share some of his paintings of Burley and the inspirations behind them. You can see more of Jonathan’s artwork and process on his website. I am a painter – my subject is the…
The Lost Streets project goes live
Funded by a Jane Moody Scholarship, University of York PhD researcher Joanne Harrison has collaborated with Leeds Central Library’s Local and Family History department and Leeds Museums and Galleries to deliver five online workshops, a new website resource (bit.ly/loststreetsleeds) and a display for the Abbey House Museum. She reports here on the activities of the…
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