Sophie Mei Lan Malin takes a look inside.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00 Let's take a look inside West Yorkshire History Centre and Archive Service.
00:06 You may have noticed it on Kirkgate but it's often overlooked.
00:11 Yeah I guess I mean it's the archive, it's kind of like the repository for the history
00:18 of West Yorkshire really. So we have some very old documents, kind of like medieval
00:23 documents as you can kind of see around here, right up to kind of like Victorian, modern
00:27 days, so we're kind of like the storehouse of the history of West Yorkshire really.
00:34 From medieval archives to more modern day issues such as housing deeds. Upstairs is
00:43 this special archive. You can't just wander through without invitation but it's fascinating
00:51 what these so-called dreary looking boxes actually contain such as the Lord of the Rings
00:58 author J.R. Tolkien's deeds from when he lived in Leeds as well as lots of other people's
01:05 deeds which are often used in land disputes and solicitors can have access to some of
01:12 the maps and documents here. While a lot of people think this place is just office blocks
01:21 and a grey building on a busy main road, actually this is the key to some of West Yorkshire's
01:28 most fascinating history. Sophie Mayline-Maylin for Yorkshire Post.
01:33 [BLANK_AUDIO]