Leeds: My City

[magictreehouse]

This month marks five years since I moved to Leeds although it’s seven since I started working here, and in many ways it’s taken me to a while to really find a place that’s really for me. I knew I didn’t want to stay in Crewe, where I grew up; my university city of Sheffield didn’t feel right to stay in either, and Skipton, although pretty is much too small for someone of my interests. I was reluctant to move to the big city but it was the best thing I ever did. It’s just the right size for me. Manchester, although I spent a lot of my teenage years there, is far too big for me, whereas Leeds is just the right size, and has everything I love doing close together.

Leeds is a much maligned city. Manchester is larger and more famous, York is a super tourist-y haven and Sheffield for a long time had big things that Leeds didn’t – a massive shopping centre, arena etc. Whereas there are also coastal Yorkshire tourist towns that Leeds can’t compete with because it’s not by the sea – Scarborough, Whitby. However, Leeds is perfect as a tourist base simply because it’s bang in the centre of all of these places, plus others like The Yorkshire Dales or Bronte Country. Still, this makes it a little hard to say – “Come to Leeds for the day, there’s tonnes to do”. It’s definitely a place that you get the most out of if you either live here or stay here for a while, so this is my guide to my city.

2013 was a big year for Leeds. It finally got an arena for one, which I’ve been to three times now (Jesus Christ Superstar, Cirque De Soleil and Danny Elfman) and is a great addition to the city. It also opened a big and lovely shopping centre in the very centre of town. By far the greatest part of this, and the bit I visit it the most is Trinity Kitchen. It’s a food court with several permanent places, plus five different street food vans which change about every 6 weeks. The range is excellent and although it can be a little pricey, the joy is that you can spend as much or as little as you like. It’s become our go-to social meeting places. I’ve been to a birthday party there too and it’s where we’re going to have our 30^th birthday celebration at the end of April. I love it!

There are a few art galleries and museums in Leeds. The Leeds Museum is rather good and has a temporary exhibit upstairs housing all kinds of things. They had a Spice Girls memorabilia exhibit a few years ago! Around the corner from there is the Henry Moore Institute and more art galleries which tend to have more modern stuff in them. Attached to the latter is the beautiful Tiled Hall Café which I tend to take my Mum to when she comes to visit. The Royal Armouries is also a great place. On bank holidays they have jousting competitions and falconry which is great fun to watch.

One of the best things about Leeds is the wonderful amount of theatres we have here. There are four in the city centre alone and I don’t have enough time or money to see everything at all of them! The two I’m most familiar with, and I probably see most things at both, are The Grand and the West Yorkshire Playhouse. They both have very different purposes. The Grand only puts on visiting productions, it’s where you go to see musicals and the odd play. Whereas the Playhouse houses tours and puts on its own performances. They have a wonderful range too. Within a week I once saw Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging AND Waiting For Godot, and you probably don’t get more extreme then that. I go there more because it’s cheaper (and James volunteers so gets free or discounted tickets). My favourite productions? I’ve seen sooo many it’s very hard to say. The Grand tend to put more farces on than the Playhouse for some reason and Noises Off, One Man Two Guvnors were both brilliant. Some amazing musicals too with Hairspray, Avenue Q and Top Hat being my favourites probably. Funnily enough, my favourite things at the Playhouse have probably been musicals too! Loserville was like The Big Bang Theory – The Musical, whereas their production of Annie was incredible and a huge hit. Away from the musicals, there was a production of As You Like It which has always stayed with me, same with The Canterbury Tales. It’s also a coincidence that my favourite play – Bedroom Farce has been to both venues in the past few years.

There’s some great architecture in Leeds, and unless you look up I think that you tend to miss it. The ones that you can’t miss are mostly the Victorian structures of which I had tours of most of them. The Grand itself is Victorian, and the Town Hall and Corn Exchange are both wonderful to look at. I guess like a lot of cities, there is now a mix of old and now and I think that Leeds has nice examples of both.

Going out from the city centre there are plenty more tourist attractions. Kirkstall Abbey is out to the west and is very nice to walk around. It would be much better if it was ruins of course bet you can't have it all! There's a museum there that I've still never been to for some reason.

To the north is Harewood House which I’ve not been to for a little while. It’s a lovely place to go on a summer’s day, with a great bird garden and walk around the lake. I took my Mum and sister there a few years ago and we go to go to a bee-keeping demonstration which was rather good.

To the Northeast is Lotherton Hall. The house itself is full of curious things as the last owners were great travellers. It also has a bird garden! Again, nice in summer.

Moving round clockwise again you come to Temple Newsam, which is a wonderful old house given to the city. They also have a great rare breeds farm there full of animals.

I guess all cities have one-off yearly events and Leeds is no different. Party in the Park was always great, held at Temple Newsam. It was a one day pop festival and the line-up was always very good for a free festival. They’ve done it for years but due to the council cuts they’re no longer doing it :( No more chances for me to see One Direction then!

Other one-off yearly events that I’ve been to and enjoyed – the Waterfront Festival which includes Granary Wharf, Brewery Wharf (where I live), Clarence Dock and Thwaites Mill; the wonderful Leeds International Film Festival which takes over my life for two weeks in November and the Food Festival they hold on Millennium Square around June time. Light Night can be quite nice for a walk around too. That’s in October and is a little bit disorganised and arty for my liking. It’s not bad if you’re walking around town though. There’s always something going on.

So that’s my city. There’s tonnes of other little things that I could write about, a lot of them other cities have too. Like the shopping etc but above is the stuff that I like to do and the reason why I love living in the city centre.

Here’s a quite list of other things I like doing in Leeds:

• The Owl Trail – which is what it sounds like. A city centre walk built around the various (fake) owls you can see around the city centre.




• The centre of Leeds has all kinds of community groups in it. The only one I’m really involved with is my fortnightly board game group, Meeples, which is on the right side of geeky. I’ve met some lovely people through it.




• As well as the arena there are some quite good places for gigs. Although considering we have venues of all sizes you’d be surprised how few ‘UK tours’ from artists completely miss us out for Manchester. Still I’ve seen a fair few bands at either The O2 Academy or The Cockpit (which I always think should be a gay club really!).