Leeds City Museum in the old Leeds Institute building on the edge of Millenium Square is a great free resource for the people of Leeds. There are so many exhibits on display showcasing the history and heritage of the City. I have already blogged about one of my favourite exhibits – The Armley Hippo previously (I will add a link at the end of the blog), but a friend mentioned to me that Leeds City Council has plenty of other collections which there just is not enough space in the Museum to put on show.
To house these extra exhibits, a purpose built display storage facility was built in 2007 funded by Leeds City Council and a National Lottery Heritage Fund grant. I had been told that every so often they did private tours of the facility where you could get up close and personal to the hidden treasures.
After googling Leeds Discovery Centre and finding their website, I found that as well as offering paid for group tours, they also run a number of events and lunchtime tours which you can sign up for free. I signed up for myself and my wife to head along for a lunchtime “Discovery Tour”.
The Leeds Discovery Centre can be found just off Carlisle Road, down near the Royal Armouries and there is plenty of on street parking nearby. We met in reception and whilst I thought there would be lots of people taking advantage of the tour, there was actually only one other couple signed up.
We signed in and were met by Clare Brown, the Curator of Natural Science at Leeds Museums & Galleries. As we walked down the corridor Clare explained to us that the facility stored over a million items across key areas such as Textiles & Clothing, Archaeology, Social History, Natural sciences, World History and Local Heritage. She also explained that the Centre was a great resource for researchers and people in education to explore items at first hand for their studies.
As we walked down the corridor to the main storage room, we passed a case with a number of Waddington’s board games, which was once a famous Leeds employer producing games such as Monopoly.
We were then taken through a door with a huge elk skull hanging over it, into a huge climate controlled room. It reminded me a little bit of a cross between the large storage facility whre the Lost Ark was taken to at the end of Indian Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark and a Victorian private collection of natural history.
You just did not know where to look. There were giant squid hanging from the ceiling, elephant skulls, log boats, sea monster fossils, stuffed animals and much more. Our guide Clare Brown, obviously couldn’t show us everything in the facility but she explained that she would within our designated hour show as many of the highlights as possible.
The electronic device we were shown first was believe it or not, for curling hair, although it looks more like a torture device.
We then were shown inside the some the shelving units. The discovery centre has a world class collection of Mollusc shells.
We were then shown some of the natural history skull collection.
Followed by some small bird skeletons including some remnants from the sadly extinct dodo.
Next we went into the insect section, seeing a wonderful butterfly collection.
The next case we were shown was quite disturbing, it was creatures that had been found at Leeds fruit and vegetable wholesale market and included poisonous spiders and scorpions!
We continued looking through the various racks. Being shown mammoth tusks.
As well as pottery model casts – such as this tortoise.
There was even an Egyptian Mummy.
There was such a varied collection including toys including small sewing machines.
I love palaeontology, so it was wonderful for me to explore some of the shelves with ancient sea monster fossils such as this paddle of an icthysaurus.
As well as this lung fish fossil.
I’d mentioned the Armley hippo earlier, but in the storage facility they had further bones as multiple specimens were found in Armley. There is also a stuffed hippopotamus which was due to be moved back to Leeds Museum.
There was plenty of taxidermy and I particularly was drawn to this proboscis monkey with its large nose!
We were shown some groovy shoes which looked like they were from the 60’s or 70’s.
Our tour was due to end and Clare asked us if there was anything anyone was particularly interested in seeing that she had missed. The other couple then said – “we’ve been told we need to see the small hats”. I was intrigued but Clare knew what they were talking about.
We were taken to the relevant rack and shown a marvellous collection of miniature millinery. The remarkable range of tiny replica hats, some of which fit in the palm of a hand, were made by Leeds hatter John Craig in the early 1900s and is being carefully conserved as part of a project at the Leeds Discovery Centre.
Originally crafted to show to clients and demonstrate both the maker’s skill and the impressive range of products they could create, the mini hats include models made for both men and women, such as top hats, riding hats, gold trimmed bicorne, and tricorne hats and feather trimmed hats.
The centre currently over 200 objects made by John Craig, who established his business in the popular shopping district of Park Row, Leeds in the late 19th century.
It was a fascinating hour and something I would highly recommend looking into. The facility, doesn’t look much from the outside, but inside is a real treasure trove of fascinating finds. I did make a small donation after the tour as I couldn’t believe what we had just experienced had been free.
To find out more about the Leeds Discovery Centre visit https://museumsandgalleries.leeds.gov.uk/pQQeiJ/leeds-discovery-centre/home
If you want to find out more about the Armley Hippo – click here
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