What's happening in Beeston, Belle Isle, Cottingley, Holbeck, Hunslet, Middleton and Stourton
Heartless thieves have struck at the heart of south Leeds’ heritage by targeting the Middleton Railway for the second time in under a year. In this latest incident, thieves took between £6,000 to £7,000 of metal from the world’s oldest continuously working railway, which has been running since 1758. Volunteers who now run the
More than 20 people attended a public meeting in Middleton last night to hear about the work of the Leodis online archive of old Leeds photographs. The meeting was part of the Middleton Life local history project, which is made up of a group of local residents who are looking
The folks at the Middleton Life project always put on a good event – and tomorrow (Wednesday) night’s going to be no exception. The local history project will feature a talk by the people from Leeds’ online photo archive Leodis. All south Leeds residents are welcome to attend. The free
South Leeds residents are cordially invited to two public meetings which will examine the history of their community. The first meeting will be held next Wednesday, March 21, and will feature a talk by representatives of Leeds online history photograph archive Leodis. The following Wednesday, March 28, will see representatives from
Fancy your six year old son or daughter working down the mine, tied to stop them escaping the pitch black conditions for 14 hours a day? That was the question posed to members of the Middleton Life local history group as they went deep underground at the National Coalmining Museum near Wakefield. Middleton’s
Fancy swallowing some live snails to eat the phlegm off your chest and cure your TB? Or perhaps taking mercury to cure syphilis? Perhaps some liquorice could cure your whooping cough? Those were two of the 19th century ‘quack’ cures the Middleton Life history project crew discovered during their trip
Andy Hardy, the traffic manager at Middleton Railway, has written this guest post about a special anniversary and the biggest event in the railway’s history in June. This year, on June 24th the Middleton Railway will be celebrating an important anniversary. On that day 200 years ago, the first commercially
The pioneer of council housing in south Leeds – whose legacy can still be felt in Middleton, Belle Isle and across south Leeds even today – has been commemorated with a historic blue plaque marking his achievements. Social reformer the Rev Charles Jenkinson (1887-1949) was also vicar of Holbeck and was responsible for driving the clearance
Leeds writer Mick McCann writes about one of South Leeds’ most important sons Middleton scientist William Gascoigne for the Middleton Life local history project, which encourages local people to become community history reporters. Mick wrote How Leeds Changed the World, among others… Gascoigne (1612–1644) was one of the founding fathers
Following on from yesterday’s fun poll which asked which famous survey/publication mentions Middleton in 1086, we can now reveal the answer, which was: The Domesday Book! The Domesday survey lists that in “rodewelle [rothwell] and loftose, carletone thorpe and middletone’ there is pasturable woodland 2 leagues in length and 1