Leeds Civic Trust’s 197th blue plaque for The Duchess!
On a sunny Saturday 14 September, we unveiled our 197th plaque for The Duchess of York music venue, as part of the annual Heritage Open Days festival. A crowd of 300 gathered on Vicar Lane outside what is now Hugo Boss to remember the pub that promoter John Keenan turned into a legendary venue on the international gig circuit, that gave a chance to countless bands, many of whom went on to achieve global success.
Speakers included Amanda Burns and Paul Cockroft, who led a campaign to secure a blue plaque for The Duchess. Sophie Asquith from the Music Venue Trust spoke about the importance of grassroots incubator venues. The Duchess gave a chance to bands that later hit it big, like Oasis, Nirvana, Manic Street Preachers, and many more. Sophie contrasted the ‘dynamic pricing’ controversy surrounding Oasis’s reunion to the accessible and hands on nature of grassroots music venues. Dr Paul Thompson and Brett Lashua of Leeds Beckett University, who helped with the research behind this plaque, along with Alex Sobel MP spoke about Leeds’s music scene today and its rich heritage.
The Duchess opened in 1985, with a capacity of 250 people, The Duchess of York (The Duchess) became Leeds’s most important grass-roots music venue where emerging bands and artists performed on their way to becoming commercially or culturally successful. The iconic list includes Oasis, The Verve, Radiohead, Blur, Coldplay, PJ Harvey, Muse, Bush, Placebo, Green Day and Pulp. The energy of legendary music promoter, John Keenan, made this rough and ready pub into a thriving musical scene of the early nineties.
The plaque reads “The Duchess of York (1988-2000). This building was once at the heart of the Leeds music scene. John Keenan helped transform “The Duchess” public house into a vibrant incubator venue for new artists including PJ Harvey, Oasis, Radiohead and Coldplay. Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain slept upstairs on a sofa after their gig on 25 October 1989.”
A long-standing campaign for a blue plaque finally came to fruition, after we, as the city’s custodians of the blue plaques scheme, approved a nomination. The plaque was unveiled by John Keenan on an easel and is now affixed to the Hugo Boss building on Vicar Lane, that was once The Duchess.
Funds for this plaque were raised through a crowdfunder. We want to give a huge thank you to our donors:
- Jenna Strover
- Bryan Longbottom
- Lee Terry
- Paul Cockroft
- Domantas Dilys
- Sarah McMahon
- David Pollard
- Chris Rowan
- Tara Cockroft
- Claire Dovey
- Georgie Hulme
- David Reynolds
- Alan Babington
- Mark Mcgill
- Denis Copeland
- Emma Heslop
- Jill Douglas
- Richard Bywater
- Pete Matthews
- Mark and Alison Smith
- Caroline Auld
- Lizzie Mussett
- Duncan Reed
- Simon Rix
And many more anonymous donors.
UPDATE 24/09/2024: The Duchess plaque unveiling was one of our most well attended of all time. As a result, we made sure to print more of our unveiling leaflets to hand out on the day than we thought we’d need – but we still ran out! Here is a link to the handout, so all those who missed out on the day can read a copy online or print at home.
