A Garden Through Time: Headingley Zoological and Botanical Gardens

This week on the Secret Library we hear from local artist Matthew Bellwood, who talks us through a fascinating interactive local history walk, which we were very honoured to contribute resources to, primarily from Leodis, our archive of historical Leeds images… A lost landmark of Leeds has been brought back to life in A Garden…

Leeds Zoological and Botanical Gardens: A Brief History

This week, Kyle Thomason, a heritage volunteer at the Central Library, writes about the long lost Zoological Gardens in Headingley. The Leeds Zoological and Botanical Gardens were unknown to me until a few months ago. However, when I was younger I regularly saw what I thought was a mini Castle, over grown with no information…

Up, Up & Away, in My Beautiful Balloon

Local History librarian, Antony Ramm, writes about a fascinating little diary held in the collections at the Central Library – and looks ahead to the latest in our Lunchtime Talk series… A recent search through our collections brought to light a most wonderful discovery: a small, handwritten diary for 1848, written by R.B. Harrison of…

A Hidden Victorian Treasure in Headingley

by Nick Tasker, PhD student in Philosophy at the University of Leeds During pleasant afternoons in Leeds Central Library I have been discovering a story of upward social mobility in Victorian Leeds. It’s also the story of my front room. I recently moved into a new place in Headingley. It’s in a large Victorian house…