Pages of manuscripts from a book - presumably a chapter in 'A Woman of Substance'. Lots of black ink scribbles and edits litter the page.
She wrote 40 novels, her books were translated into 40 different languages and sold more than 90 million copies. Last week @leedscivictrust.bsky.social unveiled a plaque at Armley Library, one of her favourite haunts as a child.
1880s advertisement for Magic Arzonic Soap made by J. Morgan, 86 Kirkgate, Leeds. Depicts a woman washing a fully dressed child in a tub. Leeds Museums and Galleries collections.
Magic Arzonic Soap anyone? Claims to clean grease, paint, clothes and babies and even cure scurvy. I suspect it just scoured several layers of skin. A gem found inside a scrap album donated to @leedsmuseums.bsky.social in 1961. Leeds c1885. @leedscivictrust.bsky.social @thackraymuseum.bsky.social
🎊Our 207th blue plaque for Barbara Taylor Bradford OBE has been installed at Armley Library!
📺 Don't miss the first episode of the new Channel 4 series 'A Woman of Substance', based on Barbara's internationally bestselling novel, tonight!
Here's our outgoing Heritage and Culture Panel Chair Lucy Moore to tell you why you, (yes, you! 🫵) should apply to be part of the panel, who decide which blue plaque applications are successful.
⏰Deadline - 16 March 5pm
👉 Find out more and apply here zurl.co/BbXrU
🚶Come on our guided walk!
🏙️We will explore some of the many photographic opportunities in an area of Leeds where there have been huge changes in recent years, but where heritage sits side by side with modern development.
📆16 April 11:30
🔗 zurl.co/xT8a6
🚶Come on our guided walk - The Port of Leeds!
🌊Explore the Leeds waterfront to find out how the city’s industrial and trading successes were made possible, even before the age of the train, by waterway connections to the east and west coasts.
🔗 zurl.co/9Xmcn
📣We're recruiting volunteers to join our Heritage and Culture Panel, who decide which blue plaque nominations are approved. We're recruiting new panel members and a new Chair.
👉Find out more about the role & apply here zurl.co/TWNPO
🎉Our guided walks season is back for 2026! This year we're offering 19 guided walks, our biggest season ever!
🦽We have improved our accessibility information are offering even more walks on evenings and weekends and more repeats of walks.
👉Get your tickets now! 🔗 zurl.co/rFq0Q
Here's Dr Kevin Grady to tell you about his second lecture in the 2026 Leeds in Your Lunch Hour Series, ‘The Ingenious Mr Thoresby’.
🦉Leeds in Your Lunch Hour lectures are all FREE! No booking is required, just turn up!
👉13:00, every Wednesday in February at Leeds Minster.
🔗 zurl.co/9u0Dz
Here's Dr Kevin Grady to tell you about his first lecture in the 2026 Leeds in Your Lunch Hour Series, '1626 and All That'.
🦉The lectures are at 13:00, every Wednesday in February at Leeds Minster. Free & open to all.
🔗 zurl.co/9u0Dz
Leeds in Your Lunch Hour Lectures 2026!
🦉 Lecture 4 - A City Transformed 1965-2025’: Leeds Civic Trust and 60 Years of Change in Leeds
👉 Wednesday 25 February, 13:00-13:45. Leeds Minster
🔗 zurl.co/WavUG
Leeds in Your Lunch Hour Lectures 2026!
🦉Lecture 3 - Dr Walter Farquhar Hook, Vicar of Leeds 1837 -1859: The Greatest Parish Priest of the Nineteenth Century
👉 Wednesday 18 February, 13:00-13:45. Leeds Minster
🔗 zurl.co/WavUG
🎤Leeds in Your Lunch Hour Lectures 2026!
🦉 Lecture 2, Wednesday 11 February: The Ingenious Mr Thoresby: First Historian of Leeds 1658-1725
👉 13:00-13:45. Leeds Minster. 🔗zurl.co/KQ8gL
Our first lecture in the 2026 Leeds in Your Lunch Hour series is:
1626 and All That: The first Municipal Charter and 400 years of municipal and metropolitan government in Leeds
👉 Wednesday 4 February, 13:00-13:45. Leeds Minster. Free.
🔗 zurl.co/WavUG
🎤Our annual series of FREE lunchtime lectures returns for its 19th year! As part of the Leeds 400 celebrations, the lectures focus on anniversaries marking the history Leeds.
📍 Leeds Minster. Every Wednesday in February. 13:00 🔗zurl.co/WavUG
#leeds400
👉Come to our event 'Mills Transformed: Images and Stories of Industrial Mill Regeneration in the North of England'. A Q&A and photographic presentation from Neil Horsley, author of 'Mills Transformed', about mill regeneration.
📆Tuesday 13 Jan. 15:00
🔗 zurl.co/sgSeG
🎅Merry Christmas from Leeds Civic Trust! 🎄
🦉 A warm welcome to everyone who has been gifted a Leeds Civic Trust membership for Christmas! We're looking forward to having you with us in 2026 💙
Merry Christmas to you Judith! 🎄🦉
😬 Need a last minute Christmas gift? Give the gift of a Leeds Civic Trust membership!
Gift membership is the perfect gift for any Loiner (a person who lives in Leeds!) Buy your gift membership today and your gift receiver will get their welcome pack in the post in the new year.
👉zurl.co/V0HoJ
💤The Leeds Civic Trust office is now closed until Monday 5 January for Christmas and New Year.
🎄We hope you have a wonderful Christmas, however you celebrate. See you in 2026!
Have just nipped into the beautiful Leeds Central Library to collect my Chapel Allerton history book, written by the very affable Steven Burt and edited by @leedstours.bsky.social . It's a hefty tome @leedscivictrust.bsky.social #chapelallerton #leeds #localhistory #publiclibraries
🔵 Our 206th blue plaque for Walter Farquhar Hook has now been affixed to the exterior of Leeds Minster for all to see.
🔗Read more about Walter Farquhar Hook here: zurl.co/zSQHN
🚊The announcement that the first lines in a new West Yorkshire mass transit network may not appear until the late 2030s, several years later than originally planned, has caused great consternation.
👉Read our article about the decades long quest for mass transit in Leeds:🔗zurl.co/d725c
As a long-standing supporter of Mass Transit in Leeds & West Yorkshire, we are once again disappointed that the proposed initial routes, including routes linking Leeds to Bradford & St James Hospital to South Leeds, have been further delayed.
Statement🔗zurl.co/pGFFp
📰The second edition of our members' magazine, The Owl, has landed! Leeds Civic Trust members will receive their copy in the post before Christmas.
🔗Sign up to be a member and get the Winter 2025 edition here: zurl.co/lCVSc
The speakers for our 2026 Future Leaders Lunches are:
Alison Lowe OBE @westyorkshireca.bsky.social
Jamie Jones-Buchanan CEO @leedsrhinos.bsky.social
Tom Wright, Artistic Director at Leeds Playhouse
Mike Birch, Director of Mass Transit @westyorkshireca.bsky.social
Join us: zurl.co/pCGtV
We want to know your thoughts about Leeds' heritage. By heritage we mean our buildings, landscapes and objects, stories, festivals, traditions and beliefs. This is your opportunity to say what you value and what about Leeds is important to you.
Take the 6 minute survey: zurl.co/qQY3g
📸 Here's a beautiful photo of our office in the early 1970s when it was home to the Normandy Cafe. We were delighted to be visited by the family who ran the Normandy Cafe earlier this year. Our upstairs offices were once their family's flat above the cafe!
Having lunch by the Roger Stevens Building. If this doesn't win Leeds best building of the last 60 years, I'll eat my hat.
A grave memorial to Susannah Marlaw who was married to William Darby known as equestrian performer & circus proprietor Pablo Fanque. Fanque was the first recorded Black circus owner in Britain. His grave is the small stone at the bottom front of the photo. The grave memorial is in Leeds General /1
