Train services from London to Leeds take just over two hours. Photo / Getty Images
Train services from London to Leeds take just over two hours. Photo / Getty Images
With the year-long LEEDS2023 culture festival in full swing and just two hours by train from London, England’s capital of cool should be on every visitor’s hit list, writes Fiona Whitty
“It’s like being in a living room in the middle of a city centre,” whispers The Leeds Library CEO Carl Hutton as he guides us along smart teak shelves crammed with books, over balconies framed by ornate iron railings and past upholstered armchairs.
Despite the fact The Leeds Library is in the city’s bustling heart, based discreetly above a bank, it’s “a place where you can decompress”, says Carl. But this isn’t your normal public library – it’s Britain’s oldest surviving subscription library, meaning members pay an annual fee to immerse themselves in such tranquillity.
The Leeds Library is in the city’s bustling heart. Photo / Supplied
Fortunately for the rest of us, visitors can take a tour of the Grade II-listed building. Since it was started in 1768, by 20 residents keen to share knowledge, it has accumulated 130,000 items, including a first edition of Charles Darwin’s On The Origin of Species.
A vibrant city cuddled by Yorkshire’s hills and moors, Leeds can be perfectly summed up by such a hidden gem. While metropolises like Manchester and Birmingham battle over Britain’s second-city status, Leeds’ cultural clout is hard to beat. The only city outside London with its own repertory theatre, opera and ballet companies, it’s brimming with stellar museums and galleries – many free – and incredible architecture, including Victorian arcades housing the city’s retail scene.
One of Leeds' beautiful Victorian arcades.
Photo / Fiona Whitty
This year, the LEEDS2023 culture fest aims to show off every secret gem through a series of unique events. Train services take just two-and-a-quarter hours from London so, if you’re UK-bound, it’s the ideal time to factor in a stay.
The year-long LEEDS2023 culture festival is in full swing. Photo / Getty Images
For a sense of its grandeur, visitors should start at Millennium Square, flanked by imposing buildings like the Grade II-listed Leeds Civic Hall, built in the 1930s for around NZ$76m in today’s money. Nearby Leeds Art Gallery, home to Damien Hirst’s Untitled 4 spot painting and sculptures by Sir Antony Gormley and Barbara Hepworth, pays homage to modern art.
Leeds Art Gallery pays homage to modern art. Photo / Getty Images
Drop by the stunning Tiled Hall Cafe alongside. Built in 1884 as a reading room and adorned with glazed tiles, a mosaic ceiling, an oak, ebony and walnut parquet floor and marble pillars, it was unceremoniously boarded up in the 1950s. Fortunately, a later restoration revealed its splendour, which you can now savour over enormous slabs of cake.
The interior at Tiled Hall Cafe in Leeds. Photo / Fiona Whitty
To let that settle you could wander across to Leeds Cathedral; on Monday lunchtimes you can listen to magnificent free organ recitals. And nearby lies another treasure: Iberica, a Spanish tapas restaurant set in a former auction house. Built in 1863, it still retains vaulted ceilings and original sandstone, marble and granite features and serves incredible food – think fine jamon from pure-breed black Iberian pigs, wild boar fideua and traditional black rice.
Iberica is a Spanish tapas restaurant set in a former auction house. Photo / Supplied
Armed with a taste of Leeds’ architectural magnificence, you might feel ready to hit the shops. Its huge Harvey Nichols was the first outside London, but its flamboyant Victorian arcades, gilded with mosaic floors and glass ceilings, are the real draw.
For style, there are few better places to stay than at The Queens Hotel, handily placed by the train station. Thanks to last year’s ambitious NZ $31 million Art Deco makeover it feels like a set from The Great Gatsby. The glamorous Grand Pacific bar with its chandeliers, bold wallpaper and dark wood urges you to grab a cocktail (try the eponymous G&T which includes Aperol and Yuzu sake) and, if you’re there on Sunday afternoons, a live string quartet adds extra chic.
The glamorous Grand Pacific bar at The Queens Hotel. Photo / Fiona Whitty
For a change of pace take a bus or train to Sunny Bank Mills for galleries, artists’ studios, a micro-brewery and gin distillery. The site in Farsley once produced the finest worsted textiles from merino wool - imported in part from New Zealand, then the world’s third-biggest producer. But when demand dropped the mill closed, until cousins John and William Gaunt – descendants of original trustee John Gaunt – reinvented it into a calming space for creatives.
Back in Leeds, great food abounds. For succulent steaks swing by The Cut and Craft, originally an early 1900s cafe with live music. The luscious ocean-themed decor – plush velvets, glistening metallics and a glass domed ceiling - is a nod to its historic Titanic link. One of its musicians, Wallace Hartley, had joined the liner as bandmaster on its doomed 1912 voyage and, as the ship sank, brave Hartley and his men played to the death, quite literally.
To try some of Yorkshire’s cracking real ales and craft beer go to Leeds’ oldest pub, Whitelock’s. With its open fire and chestnut leather sofas, it’s a real home from home…another living room in the heart of this unbelievably cool city.
For great ale and craft beer, head to Leeds’ oldest pub, Whitelock’s. Photo / Supplied
CHECKLIST
Getting there
Trains to Leeds with LNER run up to every half hour from London Kings Cross. lner.co.uk
Details
Stay at The Queens Hotel from NZ $238 per night for two people sharing a double room. thequeensleeds.co.uk
