The Dark Side of Victorian Leeds @Leeds Festival of Gothica

Name: The Dark Side of Victorian Leeds @Leeds Festival of Gothica
Start: 2024-07-06T11:00:00+01:00
Location: Leeds Kirkgate Market

Schedule

Sat Jul 06 2024 at 11:00 am

UTC+01:00

Location

Leeds Kirkgate Market | Leeds, EN

The Dark Side of Victorian Leeds!
A dark history walk by Folklorist and Historian, Dave Weldrake
About the walk: Kirkgate is one of the oldest streets in Leeds. It is also one with a murky and almost legendary past. It’s not the sort of thing that faceless city developers want you to know about. For them there is no past at all: only a clean, bright and (presumably) profit-making future.
So, let’s defy them. Come along and hear stories of ghosts and spectral dogs. Find out where there is a thousand-year-old carving of a man in a flying machine. Why the police and the army were fighting one another in Kirkgate. Or about the man who had to be blackmailed into returning Leeds’s Anglo-Scandinavian cross. Then there are the skulls at the back of the Crown and Fleece pub. And why it is particularly apt that there is a satyr on the Leeds Festival of Gothica poster.
About the walk leader: Dave Weldrake is an archaeologist and local historian who was formerly the Education and Outreach Co-ordinator for the West Yorkshire Archaeology Advisory Service. Since taking early retirement, he has worked with T&A Productions to design a series of Walks which look at the ‘forgotten’ history of the City of Leeds.
The walk has been updated and expanded with even more dark facts and is run in conjunction with Leeds Festival of Gothica!

Meeting point: The Sophie Lancaster Foundation Stand at Leeds Festival of Gothica, Leeds Kirkgate Market. The walk is held around Leeds City Centre. Walk will finish back the market - perfect to shop, eat or have refreshing drink after all that walking!
Times: 11am and repeated again at 2pm. Walk is approximately 1hr 15minutes.
Tickets: www.ticketsource.co.uk/tanda-productions
(Pay on the day is accepted but numbers are capped to give the best experience so pre-booking highly recommended!)
Note: please wrap up warm and wear sensible shoes. Walk and venue are wheelchair accessible. Stewards will be present to ensure participants safety during the walk.