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More than 5000 entries on the history, culture and life of Britain (published in 1993 by Macmillan, now out of print)
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Leeds
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(706,000 in 1991)
City in West Yorkshire on the river Aire, which by the 16C was an important centre of the woollen industry. In the 19C it won a dominant position, which it still holds, in the manufacture of clothing. The wealth of Leeds at that time is revealed in its Town Hall (1853–8), a massively confident Victorian building in the classical style by a then unknown Yorkshire architectect in his thirties, Cuthbert Brodrick (1822–1905); he also designed the Corn Exchange (1861–3).
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A wide range of painting and the decorative arts is displayed in two nearby country houses, Temple Newsam (a Tudor exterior with interiors of several later periods) and the mainly Edwardian Lotherton Hall. The grammar school, now independent, was founded in 1552. The Leeds International Piano Competition was founded in 1963 and is held every three years.
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The city's industrial history is displayed in Armley Mills, a fulling mill dating from 1806; and the ruins of Kirkstall Abbey, a 12C *Cistercian house, now include in their gatehouse a museum of local domestic history. The City Art Gallery, founded in 1888, is particularly strong in British art of the 20C. In 1993 a major new institute and gallery devoted to sculpture was opened (the Henry Moore Sculpture Institute) and since 1996 the city has been the home of the *Royal Armouries.
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