City of Leeds: Where to go and what to see

Leeds is Britain’s third largest city, but people know very little about it. It is not spoiled by the attention of tourists: they prefer not the city itself, but its picturesque surroundings: Harewood House, the Yorkshire Dales, Haworth, Harrogate – northern Bath. And the beautiful city of York itself is only half an hour’s drive away. It doesn’t have a world-famous soccer club like Liverpool and Manchester City: Leeds United FC are certainly loved in the city, but outside the English north, the club doesn’t have many fans.

Nevertheless, Leeds is worth a visit – and there’s certainly plenty to see.

Museums: Royal Armouries и Thackray Museum

Royal Armouries is probably the main attraction of the city, and the one that most tourists from all over the country come to see. It is one of the world’s largest museums dedicated to weapons and military science. Everything from medieval lats and knights’ swords to firearms and real air bombs are here. It is unlikely that anywhere else in this part of the world you will see, for example, a medieval Indian war elephant fully equipped. Admission is free.

Another interesting museum in Leeds is the Thackray Museum of Medicine, housed in a former Victorian hospital. It is dedicated to the history of medicine and the development of healthcare. Abortion forceps from the turn of the last century, Victorian surgical instruments, and collections of antique apothecary ware are just a small part of what’s in its collection. To top it off, you can visit the reconstructed anatomical theater of bygone times and see a real amputation with your own eyes. True, it will not be a live performance, but a video of the war years. But the amputation there is shown real, and it was done without anesthesia. And secondly, on one of the floors a fragment of a Victorian industrial city street is recreated, with its cramped houses, dirt, smells and sounds – so that a modern person could imagine the unsanitary conditions in which people lived at the beginning of the last century. The odors are not an exaggeration, the curators tried to convey them too. Entrance to the museum is paid.

Building: Temple Works

It is Leeds’ most famous building amongst architecture buffs. And of course, it is industrial in nature, as the history of the entire city of Leeds is primarily commercial and industrial.

There are barely two dozen industrial buildings in the whole of Britain that are Grade I listed buildings. Leeds has one. It is a former flax spinning mill built between 1836 and 1840 by industrialist John Marshall.

Industrialists in those golden times had plenty of money and could afford exquisite decorations for their factories. John Marshall, too, was not shy and ordered a beautiful facade with Egyptian figures, so much so that everyone still gasps.

What’s so amazing about it? It is that this facade was created long before Egyptian motifs became fashionable all over the world. It was later, in the twentieth century, when archaeologists unearthed Tutankhamun, the Western world became fascinated with Egypt and began to mold characteristic figures on the facades of cinemas, stores and public buildings. But this building was built eighty years before the Art Deco invasion, and architectural historians are grateful to Marshall and architect Bonomi for that.

Interestingly, the first elevator in Leeds and one of the first in Britain was built in the same building. But it was not for people, but, you won’t believe it, for sheep. The thing is that the flat roof of Temple Works was waterproofed in the old English way: they poured earth on it and planted grass, which collected moisture. And to prevent the grass from growing too much, sheep were launched there, for which the first hydraulic elevator was designed, because a sheep could not climb up to the roof on a stepladder.

Temple Works is currently undergoing refurbishment, although you can still see its famous facade from the street. But if you come to Leeds in a few years’ time, you’ll be able to visit the inside – the British government has recently awarded a grant to create a northern branch of the British Library in this historic site.

Market: Kirkgate Market

Many people know Michael Marks, co-founder of the Marks & Spencer retail empire – he was born in the town of Slonim in Grodno province (now Belarus) and emigrated to Leeds at the age of 23. He started his life’s work in the city’s main market, Kirkgate Market, and the stall that started the world-famous British retail chain is still proudly displayed here.

But this market is not only worth visiting for Marx’s sake. Kirkgate Market is one of the largest indoor markets in Europe and a real architectural landmark. Most of the indoor space is taken up by the food market, where you can find cuisines from all over the world – from Lebanese to Indian (my absolute favorite is the fish-and-chips at The Fisherman’s Wife). It is better not to waste time on all the other shops, except for food – everything there is just like in an ordinary bazaar and is of no interest to tourists.

Stores: Leeds Corn Exchange

Leeds Corn Exchange is one of Leeds’ most impressive pieces of Victorian architecture and an outstanding creation of architect Cuthbert Brodrick – Leeds’ most famous architect, a ‘genius of place’ who also designed the City Hall. The unusual oval-shaped building was modeled on the Bourse de Commerce in Paris, and was once indeed a bread exchange under Brodrick, but in the twentieth century was converted to a shopping arcade.

Today it’s the hipster-shopper hub of the whole city, whose managers clearly favor independent makers, artisans and artists. So instead of the usual Primark, Costa and Paddy Power, you’ll find a master bookbinder, Lydian jewelers, several art galleries, independent clothing stores, a “Chinese laundromat” (which, in truth, is also a clothing store) and all sorts of other local commerce.

By the way, if you need souvenirs, check out The Great Yorkshire Shop on the first floor. There’s a great selection there, from magnets to postcards with inscriptions in Yorkshire dialect, which even many English people don’t understand.

Street: Otley Road

Otley Road, the street that runs from Headingley into the center to the University of Leeds, has given its name to the student tradition of the Otley Run. To see what it’s all about, come strictly on weekends and strictly during the academic year.

Contrary to its name, it has nothing to do with running and sports. It has to do with the fact that on Saturdays local students like to drink in pubs on Otley Road – and not just for fun, but in carnival costumes, going from one establishment to another. This is the Otley Run. The custom is to pass all the pubs along the way, from Woodies Craft to The Dry Dock, and have a drink in each one. The rarefied students usually come to this event in groups, so if you find yourself walking down Otley Road on a Saturday, you’ll come across companies of Spider-Men, flocks of Catholic nuns, Mario and Luigi in marketable numbers and all manner of firemen, policemen, nurses, dragons and penguins. All this merry company will slowly and unsteadily move towards the center, and you move along with it. The main thing is not to be surprised and not to be offended by anything: there are 17 pubs in the route, and those who honestly follow the rules of this fun pub-crawl, by the end of the route are not knitting any bunting.

But if you don’t want to jostle elbows with students, and you want a drunken adventure, then Call Lane is a street in the center of Leeds, where there are a lot of bars and nightclubs. It’s like Soho or Shoreditch in London – loud, fun, drunk and no cheap suits from Amazon.

Pub: The Tetley

Yes, another pub. But this one is not like the ones on Otley Road and Call Lane. This is a real pub-museum, located in the lobby of the former largest brewery in Yorkshire. The brewery itself ceased to exist about fifteen years ago, and its huge production facilities in the center of Leeds have already been demolished – now they are building housing there.

But the beautiful lobby with its Art Deco interior remains and has been turned into a museum of Yorkshire beer. And at the same time a pub where you can drink it. Even if you don’t like beer, it’s worth a visit if only to appreciate the interior, which hasn’t changed much since the 30s. The original elements have been preserved inside: wooden panels, brass details, wide staircases, shaped grates. The only thing missing is red carpets and a haughty porter to make you feel like in an old New York hotel of the Great American Depression era.

The memorial plaques with the names of those brewery employees who fought in both world wars have also been preserved. As is customary, the names of the fallen are carved on the stone in alphabetical order – except for the first lines, which are occupied by several fallen soldiers and officers with the surname Tetley. Neither the employees of the brewery nor its owners evaded military service.

By the way, Tetley’s is also in the pub’s range, although it has been brewed in Wolverhampton rather than Leeds since 2011. If you want to try a local Leeds beer, go for something from the Kirkstall Brewery range (such as Three Swords pale ale).

Gallery: Leeds Art Gallery

Leeds’ most famous art gallery was opened in 1888. The building, which has the status of an architectural monument of the II category, was built with the people’s money in honor of Queen Victoria’s jubilee. The gallery is known for its collection of 20th century British art, officially recognized in 1997 as a collection of national importance. Among the collection’s iconic objects are works by Rodin, Francis Bacon, Paula Regu, Henry Moore and other masters. Leeds’ oldest city sculpture, a marble statue of Queen Anne from 1712, can also be seen inside.

There was also an embarrassment here in 2022. When war broke out in Ukraine, the gallery curators moved one of the works by Yorkshire artist Jacob Kramer (it’s called Hear our Voice O Lord) to a place of honor at the entrance – as an anti-war statement. And they did so because Kramer was thought to be Ukrainian, having emigrated to England from the Chernigov province of the Russian Empire.

What the curators did not take into account were two things. First, a historical and geographical nuance: the place where Yasha Kramer was born is the town of Klintsy, and today it is located in the Bryansk region of the Russian Federation, not in the Chernihiv region of Ukraine. And secondly, that he emigrated at a very young age and has as remote a relation to Klintsy as Stanley Kubrick has to the village of Probizhna in the Ternopil region or Mark Rothko to the Latvian town of Daugavpils.

But the picture itself is very strong, and when you look at it, you can feel the pain of the Jewish, Ukrainian and any other persecuted people. So it is certainly worth seeing.

The Tiled Hall Cafe

Don’t leave Leeds Arts Gallery without visiting the café in the same building. Marble walls, high ceilings, tiles from the local Burmantofts factory, bas-reliefs depicting great poets and thinkers – this solemnity of the interior, albeit slightly unkept, is reminiscent of the halls of the Lenin Library in Moscow. There used to be a library here, but now instead there is a coffee and sandwich store and a bookstore. It is a popular place for Lida students to meet and spend their leisure time – Sunday through Friday. On Saturday, as we remember, they are elsewhere.

You don’t have to drink coffee – it’s the same as everywhere else. It’s better just to walk around the hall (in Victorian times they built spacious halls), look up at Aristotle and Goethe from below, and be in awe.

Ruins: Kirkstall Abbey

The most picturesque place in the city is, of course, the ruins of Kirkstall Abbey (yes, the aforementioned brewery is named after it). To see them, you have to drive a bit away from the center, but it’s worth it. Monks once lived here, herded sheep, brewed ale and prayed to God, but then there was a ravaging of monasteries all over Britain, and for the last five centuries the abbey has been destroyed and stoned by the locals. What remains, however, is still impressive: a dilapidated Gothic cathedral on the banks of the river. The abbey is especially beautiful on those evenings when there are events and the ruins are illuminated – you can’t take your eyes off it.

Event: Leeds International Piano Competition

Leeds is one of Britain’s biggest cities, and there are of course many good cultural events. But there is one unique one: the Leeds International Piano Competition. Although it is a competition, all of its performances are open to the public and take place in the city’s best venues, including the City Hall and the University of Leeds Concert Hall, so it is in fact a music festival.

Of course, music lovers know that this is one of the most prestigious piano competitions in the world – it ranks alongside the International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow, the Van Cliburn Competition in Texas and the Chopin Competition in Warsaw, and future and present world stars come to perform there. It has been held every three years since 1961. Come back in 2027 – we will listen to the best pianists on the planet together.