Leeds City Museum, Millenium Square, Leeds, West Yorkshire.
Posted by: 
greysman
N 53° 48.093 W 001° 32.836
30U E 595675 N 5962421
A centrally placed museum in Leeds overlooking bustling Millenium Square in the centre of Leeds.
Waymark Code: WMGAXD
Location: Yorkshire, United Kingdom
Date Posted: 02/07/2013
Views: 3
On four floors, this museum is housed in the old Leeds Intitute building, Grade II* listed and built in 1865-8. For a time it was used as the theatre and college of music.
Designed by Cuthbert Brodrick it is built of gritstone ashlar and brick, has a slate roof with fish-scale slates to the pavilion. Cast-iron details include lamp standards and wrought-iron railings. It is rectangular in plan with the entrance on the long side and up a steep slope approached up a flight of steps flanked by low walls with lamps. The external appearence is of one principal storey showing Italianate and Second Empire French influence, over a battered rusticated basement podium. There are large pilasters flanking a central round-arched recessed entrance with the words 'LEEDS CITY MUSEUM' in the frieze over. A segmental pediment above this has a carved tympanum with the words 'THE LEEDS INSTITUTE' in its frieze. There is a truncated pyramidal pavilion roof above this covered in fish-scale slates. Further back is a large rotunda above the four floors.
To the frontage there are twelve segmental-headed windows with round-arched, decorated tympana over and cast-iron balconies, six each side of the entrance, five roundels above the windows each side, a deep entablature and dentilled cornice is over all with a plain parapet. Two pilasters at the outer corners and flanking the entrance are surmounted by urns.
The museum was officially opened in September 2008 and many of the famous objects from the old Leeds City Museum are on display, including the famous Leeds Tiger, fossils, lots of artwork and much about the history of Leeds. Going through the main entrance there are steps down to a display of endangered and extinct species with wall displays and an ongoing photographic display examining taxidermy, insects, eggs and skulls. (This will change with time). Here there is also a caffeteria and cloakroom. Lifts are available to all floors.
The fourth floor has a display of ancient Egyptian and Roman artifacts including Leeds' very own 3000 year-old mummy.
Other floors have exhibits covering: 'The 'World View' gallery focusing on Africa, the different types of life on earth and experience the sights and sounds of a rainforest, the Leeds Collectors gallery, next to the shop on the ground floor, looking at what and why people collect, and finding out how Leeds has been shaped by its landscape and its people from pre-historic times to the modern day in the expansive Leeds Gallery.
Full details can be found at Leeds City Museum 1
..with a video tour at Leeds City Museum 2