A Photography Exhibition featuring exclusive Leeds Development Corporation 35mm slide photography.
Experience Leeds at the turn of the 1990s in our new exhibition featuring original Leeds Development Corporation slides and modern day photography.


From September 2023 to May 2024, a team of volunteers at Leeds Civic Trust worked on turning a dusty jumbled up collection of 35mm slides retrieved from an attic into an exhibition telling a tale of urban development in Leeds over the last three decades.
In 2023 Leeds Civic Trust were gifted a collection of over 500 slides by an old member of staff at the now defunct Leeds Development Corporation (1988-1995). Leeds Development Corporation was a government run agency responsible for developing sites in South and Central Leeds, such as Kirkstall Valley (Cardigan Fields) and the city centre waterfront including the Royal Armouries.

Our volunteers identified the locations in over 500 slides and then went out to photograph the sites as they stand today. The photography taken in this project demonstrates the vast array of contrasts, changes and also similarities in south and central Leeds over the last 30 years.
The exhibition attracted 400 people over the four days it was open. Visitors saw familiar sites such as Brewery Wharf and the Royal Armouries as barren sites under construction, as well as constrasting developments in iconic Leeds buildings and streets like the Third White Cloth Hall and Kirkgate.

Visitors had the opportunity to flick through a slide carousel and leave their own reflections and memories on development in Leeds. Over 100 photographs were exhibited.
Since the exhibition, our photography has been used in the refurbishment of the Third White Cloth Hall, now a food and drink venue once again. Our exhibition featured photographs of the building in a disused state, then as a Pizza Express.
Due to the popularity of this exhibition and repeated calls to make an online archive available, we are exploring options to host the exhibition again in 2025.
The Promised Land ran from Tuesday 21st – Saturday 25th May, 10:00-16:00 with late opening on Friday 24th. It was held at 2 Brewery Place, Leeds City Centre, LS10 1NE, a venue kindly offered by Rushbond PLC. The exhibition was free to enter.
