53°47′49″N 1°32′33″W / 53.7969°N 1.5424°W / 53.7969; -1.5424 Briggate is a pedestrianised principal shopping street in Leeds city centre , England. Historically it was the main street, leading north from Leeds Bridge, and housed markets, merchant's houses and other business premises. It contains many historic buildings, including the oldest in the city, and others from the 19th and early-20th century, including two theatres. It is noted for the yards between some older buildings with alleyways giving access and Victorian shopping arcades, which were restored in late 20th century. The street was pedestrianised in the late-20th century.
24-633: North Bar is a bar on New Briggate in Leeds , West Yorkshire in England. It was opened by John Gyngell and Christian Townsley in June 1997. North Bar was named winner of the 2006 Observer Food Monthly 'Best place to drink in Britain' ahead of 11,000 other licensed establishments. 53°47′59″N 1°32′30″W / 53.79959°N 1.54163°W / 53.79959; -1.54163 This pub -related article
48-473: A production of Verdi 's Rigoletto . The Stalls area was completely re-seated and re-raked, the orchestra-pit enlarged, technical facilities dramatically improved, and improvements to Opera North to the south of the theatre, accessible via a bridge and at street-level, which includes two new stage-sized rehearsal spaces and increased office space. The cost of the refurbishment has been estimated at £31.5 million. A second phase of transformation included
72-464: A projecting upper storey in Lambert's Yard, off Lower Briggate was built in the late-16th or early-17th century. By the 17th century, Briggate was lined with shops, offices, workshops and houses, grand and humble. It retained its medieval street pattern, but the burgage plots had been subdivided. The street was wide enough to accommodate open air markets. At this time the street ended in fields at what
96-473: A slate roof, the whole being a Grade II* listed building . The exterior is in a mixture of Romanesque and Scottish baronial styles, and the interior has such Gothic motifs as fan-vaulting and clustered columns. The auditorium and assembly room ceilings are by John Wormald Appleyard . The Assembly Rooms were modified to create a cinema, which opened in 1907 as the Assembly Rooms Cinema,
120-409: Is Queen's Court (1714), a former cloth merchant's house and business premises with packaging workshops and warehouses behind. During the 18th century, the population grew from 6000 to 25000 leading to overcrowding. Many merchants moved their homes away from Briggate to Park Square leaving their properties to be subdivided and converted for commercial use or multiple residences. The lanes and yards off
144-624: Is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Briggate Briggate's name comes from brycg , the Old English for bridge and gata , the Old Norse for a way or a street. It is the road leading north from Leeds Bridge, the oldest crossing point of the River Aire , and the main street in Leeds from its formation as a borough in 1207. When Leeds became a borough, land on either side of Briggate
168-566: Is a theatre and opera house in Briggate, Leeds , West Yorkshire , England . It seats approximately 1,500 people. It was designed by James Robinson Watson, chief assistant in the office of Leeds-based architect George Corson , and opened on 18 November 1878. It was built as a complex in three parts: the theatre, a set of six shops and Assembly Rooms , all facing onto New Briggate, in High Victorian style of red brick with stone dressings and
192-538: Is home to Opera North and is regularly visited by Northern Ballet . It has hosted many touring productions, musical artists and comedians . Since the "transformation" at the theatre, particularly after a state-of-the-art automated flying system was introduced, the theatre has been more able to host larger West End Musicals and plays. Productions at the theatre have included: The Phantom Of The Opera , Dirty Dancing , Shrek The Musical , Oliver , We Will Rock You and Wicked . Leeds Grand Theatre hosted
216-511: Is now the Headrow and a field path continued north. John Harrison , a wealthy cloth merchant and the King's Bailiff , owned land north of Briggate. He built a town house at the north end and extended the street into what is now New Briggate, then New Street. Harrison paid for a new Moot Hall and market cross by the market place on Briggate in 1615, and the grammar school on New Street in 1624. He endowed
240-642: The St John's Church which opened in 1634 to the west of New Street. The Battle of Leeds took place principally along Briggate during the English Civil War in 1643. In the 18th century, Briggate housed the shambles or slaughter place and meat market described by Ralph Thoresby as "the best-furnished Flesh Shambles in the North of England". The street was lined with fine three-storey merchant's houses often with gardens and fields behind them. A surviving example
264-494: The Central Arcade. Leeds is noted for the arcades on either side of Briggate. Modern arcades were built in the 1970s at the southern end, but the arcades of architectural significance are at its northern end. A feature of Briggate is its yards: more open areas behind the buildings on the street, accessed by a narrow alley or through a covered way. These are based on the old burgage plots and are thus mostly long and narrow, as
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#1732855085862288-532: The Empire Theatre and County and Cross Arcades. In 1819 Alice Mann 's bookshop and publishers on Briggate, according to the Leeds Intelligencer , appeared 'to be the head quarters of sedition in this town'. From the early 1900s trams ran along Briggate, until Leeds tramways closed in 1959. In 1907 a Post Office Exchange was built in brick and terracotta. It became Woolworths and an extra storey
312-428: The commercial centre, fairs and markets were held there by the end of the 13th century, when the woollen industry was beginning to grow. Leeds fair was held annually on Briggate from 1322 and from 1341 there were two. In 1533, Leeds was described as "a praty market" consisting of four streets, Briggate, Kirkgate , Swinegate and Boar Lane , plus the "Head Rows". Leeds' oldest building, a three-storey wooden house with
336-623: The fortunes of business in Briggate. Debenhams department store arrived in 1936 on the corner with Kirkgate with an unusual zigzag pattern of windows. Developments often required the demolition of old buildings, including the Empire Theatre in the 1960s, to make a very plain arcade. The 1980s saw the refurbishment of old buildings and the creation of the Victoria Quarter , three blocks between Briggate and Vicar Lane, comprising County Arcade, Cross Arcade, Queen Victoria Street and King Edward Street
360-505: The medieval form of long strips leading in both directions from the street, was suitable for the construction of shopping arcades, beginning with Thornton's Arcade in 1878. The Leeds Estate Company was formed to redevelop the shambles and surrounding slums. Redevelopment was carried out from 1898 to 1904 under the direction of architect Frank Matcham who created two new streets between Briggate and Vicar Lane : Queen Victoria Street and King Edward Street. The three blocks around them included
384-449: The name being changed to Plaza in 1958. The cinema closed in 1985 and it became rehearsal rooms. In 1970 it was bought by Leeds City Council and restored, becoming the home of Opera North in 1978. For many years it was programmed by Howard & Wyndham Ltd and staged plays, musicals, pantomime and revues. The theatre closed at the end of May 2005 for a major refurbishment, transformation , and it reopened on 7 October 2006 with
408-524: The restoration of the Assembly Rooms, making a second performance space, the Howard Assembly Room, which is used for recitals, concerts, chamber operas , experimental and educational work and other events for which the main theatre is unsuitable. The theatre is a large scale receiving house and hosts touring productions of West End and Broadway musicals and plays, comedians and music. The theatre
432-515: The street were filled with slum cottages and workplaces in the 18th and 19th centuries. In the early-19th century, Leeds was a "smokey city, dull and dirty", with Briggate its "one large street" but in 1889 it was "one of the broadest, handsomest, and busiest thoroughfares in the North of England". Leeds' commercial success led to the construction of many fine buildings, including the Grand Theatre on New Briggate in 1878. Land on Briggate, owned in
456-429: The working places between buildings. Several have or had inns within them. The back entrances to the yards were called 'low ins', or 'loins', which is where the term Loiner (a resident of Leeds) is suspected to originate. Loiner refers to the people who would 'hang around in the loins. Grand Theatre, Leeds The Grand Theatre , also known as Leeds Grand Theatre and Leeds Grand Theatre and Opera House ,
480-662: The world stage premier of Kay Mellor's Band Of Gold in November 2019. The theatre is managed by Leeds Heritage Theatres which also manages City Varieties Music Hall and the Hyde Park Picture House . Leeds Heritage Theatres as a unifying brand was launched in August 2020. The theatre was forced to close its doors during the coronavirus pandemic from March 2020 and reopened in June 2021 with Northern Ballet 's Swan Lake and touring productions of Six (musical) , Priscilla Queen of
504-455: Was added in 1920. In 1909 Marks and Spencer opened its first store at number 76. The present store at number 47 was begun in 1939 and completed postwar in 1951. In 1910, Dyson's Jewellers added a clock with a ball that dropped down at precisely 1 p.m. and became the landmark known as the Time Ball buildings . In the 1930s the Headrow became Leeds' main thoroughfare, which led to a decline in
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#1732855085862528-585: Was allocated into 30 burgage plots for tradespeople to carry out their business, setting the style and layout of the street today. A burgage plot was a strip with a length of between 10 and 18 perches and a width of 3 perches, i.e. 49 ft 6 in (15.09 m) in width running east or west from the road. This spacing can still be seen on many of the shop frontages and the buildings behind. The burgesses were also allocated half-acre agricultural plots in Burmantofts (burgage men's tofts). The street developed as
552-489: Was created in September 1990. In the 1990s the arcade on the site of the Empire Theatre was demolished and a glazed frontage to link the older buildings on either side of it were refurbished to create a Harvey Nichols store in 1997. Briggate was pedestrianised and closed to private vehicles in 1993, and in 1999 was paved with York stone and granite setts . Lower Briggate and New Briggate remain open to traffic. The paving
576-579: Was extensively refurbished in 2007 for Leeds' 800th anniversary celebrations. In 2008 the 1970s-built Burton's Arcade at the southern end of Briggate was demolished to make way for the Trinity Quarter that opened in March 2013. At the same time the Market Street Arcade at the southern end of Briggate closed for redevelopment. It was given an extra level, glass roof and new tenants and reopened in 2012 as
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