Here at the Secret Library, we’re celebrating the fact that it’s nearly the weekend by squeezing into our flares and strapping on our platform shoes ready for a big night out! Well… not really, but we did find an old edition of the Yorkshire Evening Post from 1975 and got rather excited by the groovy…
Take a Heritage Tour of the Central Library
Have you ever wanted to know more about the heritage of our fabulous Central Library building or fancied looking behind the scenes? We are now offering bookable heritage tours around the building showing you how it has changed over the years and letting you see parts not usually accessible to the public. To whet your…
The Leeds Tapestry
During September this year Leeds Central Library had a visit from two year 4 classes from Farsley Springbank Primary School. They came to Central Library to see the Leeds Tapestries, which are housed on the 1st floor in the corridor between the Art Library and the Music Library. The Children’s Librarian spoke to the groups…
The Majestic remembered
Following the events this week at the Majestic we thought we would share some of our photographs from the early days as a cinema. All photographs are from our Leodis website. The Majestic was built on the site of the former recruiting office used during the First World War. This image from 5th October 1919…
George Corson, leaving his mark on Leeds
Today we bring you the architect and designer of our 1884 Municipal Buildings, George Corson. Born in Dumfries, Scotland, George like his older brother William, trained under Scottish architect Walter Newall. George followed his brother to Leeds, where on the 1851 census aged 21 and 28 they are registered as living at Number 21 Lyddon…
Beryl Gott and the Gott Bequest
By Library and Digital Assistant, Philip Wilde In volume 10 of our copy of ‘The Northern Gardener’ published in 1956, there is an article by Kenneth Lemmon, the Honorary Editor, which says of the Gott Collection in Leeds Central Library ,’I cannot think of another such collection outside the R.H.S. Lindley Library or the British…
Celebrating 80 years of the Children’s Library
This year is the 80th year that the children of Leeds have had a ground floor library at Leeds Central Library. Until then the junior stock was part of the lending stock that was housed on the second floor, where the Art Library is today. In 1934 the Central Library had a refurbishment and the…
Read More: Football and History
by Antony Ramm, Information and Research, Central Library. This is an entry in our Read More series. These are ‘long-form’ articles, where staff offer a curated and detailed look at areas of our book collections, usually based around a specific theme or subject. These posts aim to guide the interested reader through to those books that offer a…
The Secret Library | Leeds Libraries Heritage Blog 