Photo of the Week 2 - Leeds Canal Basin

Leeds became a prosperous cloth market town in the Middle Ages due to the fact that the Aire river was navigable along much of its length. Cloth and other bulky goods such as coal and limestone were gathered in from the surrounding areas into the huge warehouses along the river front owned by major merchants before being shipped onwards.

In the eighteenth century, the Leeds & Liverpool canal was built to make shipping these bulky and heavy goods over the Pennines to the port city of Liverpool possible, as well as shipping them down the Aire. It took 46 years to build in its entirety. This is the very end of the canal, the basin in Leeds where it was joined via locks to the Aire river.

This area has recently reopened after redevelopment. Sadly, this translates as 'one of the few central green spaces in the city now has a blocky ugly hotel and an apartment tower on it, with a few benches and tiny patches of grass left over to keep the public quiet'

However, many other redevelopments along the canal and river front in Leeds are a lot more sympathetic to the history of the area. Expect a great many other photos of the waterways in the future. This picture was taken from the bridge near the Canal offices, looking towards the Aire river. The new hotel is on the left.