YOU ARE HERE
YOU ARE HERE is a temporary poster exhibition on the streets of Leeds to coincide with Heritage Open Days 2020.
Ten maps, through three centuries, show the development of a small, riverside, Yorkshire Dales town into a major city through various industrial revolutions. The beautiful, grubby, old maps are sequenced backwards in time from 1932 (no1) to 1726 (no10).
The poster trail starts at the junction of Wellington Street and King Street and winds its way through the city to finish on Kirkgate, its oldest street. Each poster is marked to show where you are, and where the next map is. There's no set route so find your own way from map to map, or lose yourself, in the streets, squares, yards, and garths.
The Heritage Open Day theme for 2020 is 'Hidden Nature', and the maps show some of the orchards, farms, tea gardens, wells, becks, footpaths and fields that have been covered with layers of history, concrete and tarmac.
And its not just nature that's hidden under the 21st century city. As you travel through the maps some of the streets and buildings may be familiar. Others appear and disappear. There are ghosts of graveyards, workhouses, breweries and buried bridges. And forgotten places like Timble, Eye Bright Place, Steander, Fearns Island plus countless foundations of workshops, factories, and hundreds of homes that have housed thousands of people.
The trail is about 2.5 miles. If you require a modern map to find your way there's a google one below.
YOU ARE HERE is a project with funding from Leeds Civic Trust, with additional support from The Thoresby Society and The Leeds Library. The artwork is by Creative Arthur, and the printing by FYI.