Leeds City Museum, Art Gallery, and Some Arcades
This afternoon in Leeds, I visited the Leeds City Museum, the Leeds Art Gallery, and a few shopping arcades. I also did a bit more walking around—and a few other things that I’ll mention below. That sounds like a lot. It wasn’t. Everything I visited this afternoon was small. I didn’t spend long at any of them.
Oh—WARNING—here’s a spoiler: The DLJSSIA played a role this afternoon. Regular readers will recognize it when it comes around before I specifically call it out. Readers who haven’t been here before probably aren’t familiar with DLJSSIA. You’ll learn about it soon enough.
Leeds City Museum
The Leeds City Museum is small. It’s in the heart of Leeds.
The subterranean level contains taxidermy of various types of birds and land animals, along with a skeleton or two.
A sign outside the taxidermy gallery notes that, in the bad old days, they felt it was jolly good to travel around the world and kill native animals for the sole purpose of stuffing them and displaying them in the museum. The sign goes to say that they are much more progressive these days, but they have all the stuffed animals collected by the Philistines who used to run the museum. Rather than let them go to waste…
The sign didn’t quite phrase it that way, but that was the gist.
The ground floor contains the entrance and a large room that currently contains nothing other than a large map of Leeds on the floor.
The next level up in the Leeds City Museum contains a small gallery with information about Leeds. Above that is a small gallery with artifacts of a variety of types and vintages. There are ancient architectural elements, a section of an old floor mosaic that’s mounted on a wall, and a mummy, along with some more recent stuff.
There is also a space for temporary exhibits, but there wasn’t one on today.
None of the rooms in the Leeds City Museum are large. I didn’t spend much time there.
More artifacts at the Leeds City Museum"
The following doesn’t warrant a separate section, but I’ll mention it here because I went there after the Leeds City Museum. When I left the museum, I saw a couple of interesting spires poking up from a building two or three blocks away. I walked there.
It is the Leeds City Hall. It’s a handsome building. I didn’t go inside, so I can’t report on that.
It appears that, like at many (most? all?) city halls, weddings take place there. When I was there, a wedding party was lingering out front. Mazel tov!
Leeds Art Gallery
The Leeds Art Gallery is only a few blocks from the Leeds City Museum and not much farther from the city hall.
It shares a handsome oldish building with the Leeds Library. The gallery has only a few small exhibit spaces. All of the works I saw, there weren’t many, were “modern,” i.e. less than a few centuries old.
There was a combination of classical style pieces and abstract or abstracted works. (By “classical style,” I simply mean that the artists made honest attempts, and usually succeeded, at creating works of art that are easily identifiable as the people, animals, objects, landscapes, and/or activities they were intended to convey. The abstract pieces weren’t that.
The works at the museum included both paintings and sculptures.
More pieces at the Leeds Art Gallery:
The Henry Moore Institute is located across a lane from the Leeds Art Gallery. A glass-walled pedestrian bridge connects the two buildings. If you’re in Leeds and find yourself hankering to see an art collection devoted to Henry Moore sculptures, the Henry Moore Institute is absolutely not the place to go. In fact, I have no idea if such a place exists in Leeds.
To be honest, I don’t know if there’s ever a single Henry Moore sculpture on display there. The institute that runs it is named after the artist, but according to my walking tour app, GPSmyCity, Henry Moore began his artistic training in Leeds and the institute allegedly “showcases sculptures from around the world, offering fresh perspectives on the art form.”
“I don’t know” and “allegedly” probably twigged regular readers onto the role DLJSSIA (Don’t Let Joel See Stuff International Association) played today. A sign taped to the door informed me that the Henry Moore Institute’s exhibits are closed until September 30 for the installation of another show. Today is September 25. I leave on September 27. It was wise of the Henry Moore Institute to stay closed for an extra few days in case I surprised them by extending my visit to Leeds somewhat.
Shopping Arcades
In Leeds’ commercial district’s core, there are a few Victorian-style shopping arcades. (I don’t know if they are from that era or just of that style.) For the most part, they are one block long, with one end fronting on a wide, lively, pedestrianized shopping street. I visited Thornton’s Arcade, County Arcade, Cross Arcade, Queens Arcade, and Grand Arcade.
They are all broadly similar in style, with translucent glass ceilings and small shops on either side. The ribs in the ceilings of most of them are attractively decorated. Those decorative differences gave them each a different flavour.
The shops vary among the arcades. One of them houses some high-end international stores, but the others contain mostly mid-range and, as far as I know, independent stores and services.
The “Victoria Quarter” runs parallel to the County Arcade, with the Cross Arcade intersecting them and continuing to the next street over from the Victoria Quarter. The Victoria Quarter appears to be a pedestrianized street that was turned into an arcade. The stores on either side are in independent but abutting buildings. A glass ceiling, with decorated glass panels, stretches between the buildings on either side of the street. Glass walls with doors at the ends of the block create an indoor space.
The arcades of Leeds:
I mentioned the large pedestrianized shopping street that most of the arcades front on. It’s not the only one in downtown Leeds. There are a few generous streets given over entirely to pedestrians. Every city should have some of those.
After visiting the arcades, I wandered a bit. Here are pictures of a few of the buildings I came across:
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Riddle: What’s a self-respecting town without a taxidermy exhibit? Answer: A self-respecting town. Ba-da-dum. Nice dog painting. An interesting turn on the ‘classical’ designation, but clearly stated. I get it. A few very old things in the museum that I might call ‘classical.’ The mosaic with the tree and the horse (big dog?) was a hoot. A very self-satisfied animal. Seems to want us to share in the joke. But what is it, exactly? I found all those arcades quite attractive. They would also be quite welcome in inclement weather. But I heard that England doesn’t have much of that, does it? As to the DLJSSIA: they know where you are. In fact we all do now, don’t we? Enjoy.
Good joke.
I’m glad I was able to make my classical meaning clear.
There were a number of old things in the museum. One fewer after I left.
Surprisingly, I’ve experienced very little rain in the UK so far. I hope it lasts. Knock on wood. The arcades weren’t helpful on that score, but they were attractive.