Leeds Central Library

We were exploring Leeds today, and had heard the Central Library was worth seeing. It was opened in 1884, and includes lots of marble columns, tiled floors and walls (some tile from the Ironbridge area that we had visited a few weeks ago), stained glass, and carved limestone.

The Tiled Hall Cafe used to be the Reading Room. The ceiling had been covered by a dropped ceiling in the 1950s and the walls were hidden behind shelving. It was all rediscovered during restoration.

From the Tiled Hall Cafe, we wandered into a small exhibition some of the earliest paintings owned by the art gallery, with busts of the people involved in spearheading the idea of the gallery, to improve people's lives.Read more