The Tiled Hall
A café inside a Victorian sculpture court sheathed in glazed faience and gilt, worth the visit on its own.
The finest room in the building is not a gallery at all but the café. The Tiled Hall served as a sculpture court from 1888 to 1941, then reverted to a library reading room and spent decades hidden behind shelving and plasterboard, until a 2007 restoration uncovered its glazed Burmantofts faience columns and tiled, gilded vaulted ceiling, so you now drink your coffee inside a complete Victorian interior. The gallery itself reopened in October 2017 after another campaign of works stripped a false ceiling from the Central Court and revealed a Victorian glass roof hidden for decades; daylight floods the main hall again, as William Henry Thorp intended when it opened in 1888. It sits on The Headrow, shoulder to shoulder with Leeds Town Hall and the Central Library, in the exact middle of the city. Entry is give-what-you-can, with a suggested £5 a head, and nothing needs booking. What lifts it above the usual civic collection is its 20th-century British holdings, designated of national importance in 1997: Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth, both of whom trained in Leeds, alongside Francis Bacon, Stanley Spencer, Paul Nash and David Bomberg. In the entrance hall stands a marble Queen Anne of 1712, the oldest civic sculpture in the city. An internal bridge connects to the Henry Moore Institute next door, which stages sculpture exhibitions, so you can move between the two without stepping outside. Keep expectations in proportion, though. This is not Tate Britain, and the upper galleries rotate temporary shows, so the permanent collection you see this month may be in storage by next. An hour to ninety minutes covers it comfortably, plus half an hour in the café. There is a long, gradual ramp at the entrance, and wheelchair access to the upper floors is via a lift in the adjoining library; ArtSpace on the main floor is a children's room with toilets and baby-changing, which makes the place genuinely workable with a pushchair on a typical wet Leeds afternoon. No prayer room is advertised, though staff will point you to quieter corners on request. Getting there is simple: roughly ten minutes on foot uphill from Leeds station, with several multi-storey car parks within half a mile, though on-street parking on Cookridge Street is limited. The gallery is closed on Mondays, opens only 11am to 3pm on Sundays, and shuts the upper galleries at 4pm on Saturdays, which catches out anyone arriving late on a weekend. Pair it with Leeds City Museum a few minutes' walk away; both are give-what-you-can.
A café inside a Victorian sculpture court sheathed in glazed faience and gilt, worth the visit on its own.
A nationally designated 20th-century British collection, with two sculptors who trained in Leeds itself.
The Central Court has its daylight back after a Victorian glass roof hidden for decades was revealed in 2017.
The Headrow, Leeds LS1 3AA
With young children, Leeds City Museum wins: it has mummies, a tiger and hands-on galleries. The art gallery is quiet and its paintings and sculpture are look-don't-touch, but ArtSpace offers drawing and play and the café is excellent. Both are give-what-you-can and minutes apart, so treat the gallery as an hour's stop after the museum rather than an either-or.
Just about. Sunday hours are 11am to 3pm only, four hours in total, and the café closes at 2:30. Arrive before noon and you will see it at leisure; turn up after 2pm and the place will be shutting around you. The gallery is closed entirely on Monday, so do not push it to the next day.