The three Victorian streets
Full-size lanes with shops, a schoolroom and workshops rebuilt inside the building.
Behind a twelfth-century stone gatehouse, once the inner gate for the monks of Kirkstall Abbey, hide three complete Victorian streets: shopfronts with their glass and stock, a chemist, a schoolroom with wooden benches, craftsmen's workshops, all full size and dimly lit as if by gaslight. The three lanes (Abbey Fold, Harewood Square and Stephen Harding Gate) are not genuinely old but were rebuilt inside the building between 1954 and 1958, yet they convince children completely and surprise adults with their detail. This is Leeds's social-history museum, open since 1927 and refitted with roughly £1.5m of National Lottery money between 1998 and 2001. The ground floor is the real prize. The upper floors belong to childhood: dolls, board games, prams and school uniforms spanning two centuries, plus a temporary exhibition that changes every few months. The whole thing takes an hour to ninety minutes, and that is its proper size; anyone expecting a London-scale museum will find it small, anyone with children aged roughly four to ten will leave content. For families it is among the easiest museums in Leeds: a step-free main entrance, a lift to the second floor, toilets with baby-changing, and a large free car park right beside the building. Note the irony: the ruins of Kirkstall Abbey across the road are give-what-you-can (a £5 donation is suggested, nobody is turned away) and close at 4.30pm in summer, 4pm in winter, while this museum charges (£7.35 adult, £3.60 for children aged 3 to 18, and a £16.25 family ticket for two adults and three children). Tickets are sold at the door only, no advance booking, and queues are unusual. Closed Mondays except bank holidays, Saturday opening is from noon only, and last entry is half an hour before closing. The right way to do it is one half-day: ruins first while the weather holds, since they shut before the museum does, museum when the rain starts, then cake and coffee at the visitor-centre café opposite. Buses 33, 34 and A1 from central Leeds stop outside the abbey in about 20 minutes, and Headingley and Kirkstall Forge stations are both roughly a mile's walk. In the short-lit British winter this is one of the few places around Leeds still enjoyable after three in the afternoon, though last admission is 4.30pm.
Full-size lanes with shops, a schoolroom and workshops rebuilt inside the building.
Two centuries of dolls, toys and prams on the upper floors, reached by lift.
The building itself is Kirkstall Abbey's original inner gatehouse, Grade II* listed.
Abbey Walk, Kirkstall, Leeds LS5 3EH
Without children and short on time, the ruins alone suffice (donation optional) and photograph far better. With children aged 4 to 10 the museum earns its hour and its family ticket, and on a wet day it becomes the better of the two.
Yes: the main entrance is step-free, a lift reaches the second floor, and there is baby-changing in the entrance toilets. The lanes are cobbled and a little narrow but passable.