The Places We Live: Local History Collections Around Leeds

As part of Local and Community History Month, Librarian Antony Ramm briefly explores our local history collections stretching all around Leeds, and introduces a new guide to stock relating to Rothwell… As readers of this blog may already know, the Local and Family History department at the Central Library in Leeds houses a huge collection…

A Brief History of Coffee in Leeds

Two coffee venues feature as entries on the Edible Leeds heritage trail, at numbers 4 and 20. Librarian Antony Ramm offers a very brief overview of those locations, bringing the story up to date with a more modern addition… We at the Secret Library don’t know exactly when the first coffee house in Leeds opened…

Heritage Advent Calendar: Dec 24

Our final Advent Calendar entry comes courtesy of Librarian, Antony Ramm and a notable match played at Elland Road. While Christmas Day football has a long and venerable history in England, there hasn’t been a top-flight match played on that day of seasonal festivities since Blackpool beat Blackburn Rovers 4-2 in 1965. Those days are…

How to Research Christmas

By Antony Ramm, Librarian It’s Day 14 of the Heritage Advent Calendar, and it’s time to look into the history of Christmas. Even Christmas – that eternal day of uniformity – has a history; a history of why people have celebrated Christmas and a history of how people have celebrated Christmas, both changing through time….

BlueBeard – Grand Pantomime

By Antony Ramm, Librarian ‘He’s Behind You’ – Day 5 of our Heritage Advent Calendar brings us everyone’s favourite seasonal theatre – Pantomimes. ‘Bluebeard’ and the Leeds pantomime scene go back a long way. While it may not have been the first-ever panto in the town, it was certainly the first at the most prestigious…

How do you solve a problem like a Michelin Star?

This week on the Secret Library we hear from Librarian Antony Ramm, who has been researching locations on our Edible Leeds heritage trail – published as part of our Heritage Open Day Week events. In this first entry in our series of longer articles exploring some of the people and places on that trail, he…

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…

Early Maps of Leeds: Power and Control

This week Librarian Antony Ramm analyses some early maps of Leeds. This article is based on a recent talk given by Librarians in the Local and Family History department; it draws in part on two previous articles on this site A MAP OF ROTHWELL, OULTON AND LOFTHOUSE, MADE IN THE REIGN OF HENRY VIII (1531)Our…