SecretLeeds - History, culture and architecture in Leeds

When looking at some old photos I came across one I took on September 5 1984 showing buses parked in the Transport Depot off Sovereign Street by the River Aire near Leeds Bridge (the colours in the photo are a bit faded now). I made a scanned copy of that photo and show it as the first photo below (sorry for the poor quality). As a comparison of the change of scene from then to now I took a photo from nearly the same viewpoint on October 3 2017 and show it as the second photo.

In my note on the back of the first photo I noted that Leeds Bridge was covered in tarpaulin and I wondered if it was being repainted. There is a bus crossing the bridge and a boat nearby. By coincidence there was also a bus on the bridge when I took the second photo.

Nice photos. How things change.

edlong wrote:Nice photos. How things change.

In the 1984 photo does anyone know what was the 1960's era building behind the buses?
It always strikes me odd that so many 1960's buildings have been demolished and replaced after only 40 or 50 years whereas hundred year old buildings from the Victorian and Edwardian era are often renovated and reused as flats. What a terrible waste of the investment made in the 50's and 60's when the country really was in a state of "austerity"( i.e. "skint").

The building behind the buses appeared between 1938 and 1951 and was the offices of the Omnibus Depot. The building behind it used to be the Tramway offices.

Hi Warrington Rhino and Blackprince, the building behind the yellow bus with all the glass windows was not offices.
It was a car park, and also housed an underground car park, the staff canteen was on the first floor and the top floor housed the social club. I know because it was my workplace for 25 years.
You are quite right in that the building behind that was the original LCT offices until that was sold and became the Malmaison Hotel and they kept the Leeds City emblem above the doorway.
The building on the far left of the photo is occupied by a number of businesses.

I wish more of Leeds looked like this instead of the concrete monstrosity's we have been left with it shows with care some buildings can be modernized inside and still retain there exterior looks i know a lot of buildings have been treated in this way but a lot more have been pulled down so they could build so called modern office space .Bar humbug moan over for now.

What a pleasure to see this still as it used to be. To the right not in view was a Three Storey Factory which occupied Concordia St. and Sovereign St.That was William Stembridge and Sons, a tailoring factory where i worked quite happily until 1954 when the National Service came calling, as i was the only male there under 20 in a workforce of about 200 mainly female you can imagine i was dragged kicking and screaming into accepting the Queens Shilling. Any social events ie. Christmas Dinners or Concerts were held over there. I can't recall which floor the large room was but it had a Stage at one end of the room.
As Tilly remarks why can't other buildings when being modernised be done with some care.