News

The much-loved Leeds Tapestry celebrating the city’s history has received an inspiring new panel, completely designed and stitched by residents to explore ideas of freedom.

Leeds Storytelling Festival will return from Saturday 14 February to Sunday 8 March, bringing a citywide celebration of stories especially for children and families.

A key support hub for Leeds residents has received a full refurb, including new glass panelling to make sure it’s warm and inviting in the winter months.

This is the most recent move from the council in its commitment to continue investing in Leeds Kirkgate Market and its future.

An audacious bid to rescue King Charles I from imprisonment in Leeds is among the timeless tales discovered amid the pages of the city’s earliest written history.

The remarkable plot, told for what is believed to be the very first time within the centuries-old text, saw the notorious monarch offered a chance of escape from Red Hall in the city centre in 1647 by donning women’s clothes, which he politely declined.

More than 500 years of in-depth knowledge cultivated by green-fingered gardening gurus through the ages has taken root in a new exhibition in Leeds.

Unearthed: The Power of Gardening at Leeds Central Library explores the story, impact and legacy of gardening and the positive role it has played in the lives of thousands of people past and present.

Vintage Victorian music hall tunes have been brought back to life this week for a series of historic performances more than a century in the making.

The corridors of Leeds Central Library are being filled with the sounds of once popular ballads which last entertained audiences in the city’s theatres and concert venues at the turn of the 19^th century.

Leeds Libraries are inviting residents to help create an inspiring new tapestry that will become a lasting part of the city’s cultural heritage. As part of the national campaign Our Freedom: Then and Now, the Threads of Freedom project has received funding to work with communities across the city to produce a collaborative textile artwork. This new piece will be displayed alongside the much-loved Leeds Tapestry on the first floor of Leeds Central Library. 

Visitors to parks in Leeds are being encouraged to listen to stories while they take a stroll this summer through the new ‘Walking Books’ project.

The hope is to introduce reading to new audiences with free eAudiobooks and promote wellbeing.

They were the boisterous barroom ballads that once rattled the rafters of Victorian music halls across Leeds.

Now librarians are calling on the city’s modern-day musicians and singers to help them bring an incredible collection of vintage sheet music to life for the first time in more than a century.

Some of the world’s oldest football fanzines, which kicked off a wave of people-powered publications on terraces across the globe, are going on display in a new exhibition in Leeds.

A copy of Foul, widely regarded as the original magazine created by football supporters, is among the scores of titles which feature in Voice of the Fans, which opens at Leeds Central Library on Friday (May 9) and has been co-produced with the British Library.

Events running from February 14 to March 8

Music lovers have today been given their first look at the city’s new 21^st century music centre at Leeds Central Library.

Set to be a hit with the city’s budding recording artists, musicians and podcasters, the project has seen the building’s historic music library transformed into a dynamic new space, complete with specially created walk-in recording studios, pianos and podcasting facilities.