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…
Category: special collections
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…
Why The Golden Beam?
This week we welcome back Library and Digital Assistant Jan Pinder, who finds the answer to a question in the artistry of a local legend… Why was the newest Wetherspoons in Leeds named The Golden Beam? Opened on June 8 2021 it seems a curious name choice for a pub, particularly considering that many of…
The Chimney Corner: Secret Books from the Secret Library #10
The latest in an occasionally-regular series exploring books and other items selected from our vast collections. In this entry Librarian Antony Ramm looks at a collection of materials illuminating a late 18th century election in Yorkshire… Our previous entry in this series looked at a slim 18th century volume of Yorkshire topography. In this current article we remain in the…
The Chimney Corner: Secret Books from the Secret Library #9
The latest in an occasionally-regular series exploring books and other items selected from our vast collections. In this entry Librarian Antony Ramm looks at a slim 18th-century volume of antiquarian musings… Titled ‘A Survey of Yorkshire,’ it is debatable, really, whether this is even a book at all: although bound like a book, it is quite clearly a chapter, one…
Treasures of the Central Library
We launched an updated edition of our Treasures of the Library leaflet this month, packed full of new information about key items from our Special Collections. Take a look by clicking on the cover image below – or read on for an excerpted lookback at how our collections came into existence. Please contact us if…
The Gledhow Hall Scrapbook: A Library Treasure
This week we welcome Library and Digital Assistant Sue Stepan for an in-depth look at one of the Central Library’s real treasures – the Gledhow Hall Scrapbook. Sue also reveals a new resource that will prove beneficial to researchers of soldiers and medical staff involved in World War I. Do you have an ancestor or…
Ghost Stories and Weird Experiences (Part 2)
Halloween is officially here so today we continue with some more gruesome tales from the spooky scrapbook compiled by Edwin Hick. As mentioned in Part 1, this scrapbook is officially called ‘Ghost Stories and Weird Experiences, Life after Death etc.’ and is full of newspaper cuttings from the local newspapers detailing weird and wonderful stories…
