In the last couple of years I've visited Manchester, Liverpool and Birmingham and this spring I took a trip to Yorkshire, visiting Leeds and York.
The weather for my main day in Leeds turned out to be rather glorious for the time of year (sadly this didn't last!) so I spent a really enjoyable day walking all over the place, admiring the architecture and sampling lots of tea and cake along the way. I'd never visited the city before so it was really great to be able to get out and explore.
In the afternoon, I decided to visit the Royal Armouries Museum because (as you've probably gathered by now if you're a regular reader of my blog) I do like a nice museum.
It turns out that the walk from the city centre is rather lovely.
The canal was looking gorgeous in the sunshine and there were plenty of interesting buildings and historical bits and bobs to see along the way.
The Royal Armouries Museum is located at Clarence Dock.
It was built in the 90s to house the national collection of arms and armour - there are apparently over 8,500 objects on display here!
I visited the Royal Armouries at the Tower of London last year and really enjoyed seeing all the armour and weaponry on display, so I was rather looking forward to seeing the bigger collection in Leeds.
The setting is, of course, a tad less fancy than at the Tower of London but the large, purpose-built space means there's plenty of room for the large pieces in the collection (which includes armour for an elephant!) and for events like talks and demonstrations.
There are six themed galleries: War, Tournament, Oriental, Self-Defence, Hunting, and Peace. I looked round them all but definitely only just scratched the surface of the collection - there were so many interesting objects to see and interesting stories to discover.
The museum is free to visit so it's definitely worth a look if you're even slightly interested in history, and you get to enjoy the canalside walk on the way there and back as well, hurrah! All in all, an excellent (and free!) way to spend the afternoon.
I enjoyed the canals and old buildings most of all when I visited England and you pictures brought back the emotion :) The canals convey such a pastoral atmosphere to even the big cities!
ReplyDeleteGlad you enjoyed the post! Interesting city architecture + water = always a great combo in my book :)
ReplyDeleteI'd love to visit that museum! Fascinated with how armor was constructed and the techniques used. Serious craftmanship, it's no wonder so much was passed down through families.
ReplyDeleteI'm also fascinated with how building are built right on the water (especially pre-1900's) with the way the river runs right against them. And the whole water way is like that!
They have a LOT of really interesting armour! :)
ReplyDeleteI guess the old buildings are mostly industrial, and were built to back directly onto the canal so goods could be loaded/unloaded etc easily?