Day 181, 010909, part 3

Right, where was I? Oh, yes.

After Lotherton Hall I was keen to carry on with my museum trips, and given I was quite close to the ring road thought the best place would be Kirkstall, for Abbey House and the Abbey itself. Although it was approaching lunchtime I thought I could fit in the two before needing to get some food, so made reasonable time getting there and parked up in the big car park next to Abbey House.

The last time I stopped at Abbey House was about five years ago, when we - that's Angela, Iain, Chris, Sarah and myself - went on a hard hat tour of the Abbey, and the museum was the meeting point. Didn't go in, which was probably remiss of me, as the museum is utterly, utterly barking and fun at the same time. It is a lovely building, the gatehouse to the Abbey, and now contains a somewhat peculiar pair of cobbled victorian streets, complete with skies, shops, undertakers, and cramped artisan cottages lifted brick-by-brick from Beeston back in the day. No kidding, this place would freak me the hell out if I was even remotely out of it for whatever reason.

The main street has a boozer at the end, a hatters, grocery, all sorts of shops. There's a barrow, and if you look carefully, some electric fans, all the rage in 1887.

The back alley was very different; it's designed to make you think about the juxtaposition between worlds in Victorian England.

The undertakers is here, as is the Sunday school and barbershop, with an interesting plaque about washerwomen, and how husbands would buy mangles as presents for their wives, just in case they became unable to work (or died) so their wives could take in washing to keep the wolves at bay.

Upstairs is a gallery of children's toys, the Tuke Map, and a small collection of local art influenced by Atkinson Grimshaw, which is deserving of more close study than I had time for. Also, the original artist skteches for the Town Hall; somewhat different to the reality, despite being done only three years before completion.

Popping over the road to the Abbey was a no-brainer. It has been many years since I'd had a good poke around Kirkstall Abbey, and it has changed quite a lot since then. The chapterhouse is now the entrance to the Abbey proper, and there's big fences around it to stop unauthorised access. Properly laid out routes exist, and all the really dangerous bits have signs on informing you that it is probably not a good idea to go scrambling over this loose brickwork or into these former drainage tunnels. I never tire of having a good look around ruined abbeys, and this is no exception, despite my first visit here being over 15 years ago.

There was a photoshoot going on off to one side and I had to be careful not to wander into shot. But the place is really photogenic and makes a fantastic backdrop to photograph against.


After I'd taken in enough crumbling architecture I decided to grab some food and go to my last museum, Armley Mills.