Celebrating the past, present, and future at Leeds Beckett Heritage Open Days

England's largest community led festival of history and culture, Heritage Open Days brings people together to celebrate community, heritage, and history. Involving thousands of local volunteers and organisations, history is brought to life through storytelling and exploring traditions.

Leeds Beckett University’s diverse programme brings together our rich heritage and close ties to the community. You can look forward to engaging creative writing workshops, a history of visual technologies in Leeds, walking tours that will allow participants to discover the history and evolution of the Leeds music scene and venues, a fanzine workshop and more.

All events are free and come as Leeds Beckett celebrates culture across the city as part of LEEDS 2023. As a principal education partner of LEEDS 2023, we’re letting culture loose. The Creativity Unwrapped theme of this year’s Heritage Open Days adds to this celebration of everything Leeds has to offer.

Today Leeds Beckett is located across two campuses in Leeds city centre and at Headingley.  The university was founded with The Leeds Mechanic Institute which was established in 1824 and was once housed in what is now the Leeds City Museum.

The origins of Headingley Campus can be traced back further, to the Cistercian monks of Kirkstall Abbey during the mid-12^th century. It passed through the hands of William Beckett, a landowner and banker from Leeds, before eventually becoming the City of Leeds Training College in 1913.  

While the university’s affiliation with Headingley Campus extends back more than a century, the estate itself has been a prominent landmark in Leeds for even longer. The oldest building on Headingley Campus, The Grange, has stood since 1626 and formed part of the temporary hospital that was based on the estate during the outbreak of World War I.

As an institution, both history and looking to the future is important at Leeds Beckett and we continue to make a positive different both locally and globally. Leeds Beckett has a track record of preparing students for the future, with graduates playing a vital role in driving the economic growth and prosperity of Leeds and beyond.  The university’s programme of Heritage Open Days events celebrates the past, the present and the future this September.

More information can be found here.