Home to the Town Hall, the fantastic Art Gallery, Henry Moore Institute and Millennium Square, this grand corner of the city is where many of the main tourist draws are to be found. The Light with its shops, restaurants, bars, hotel, cinema etc in a beautifully converted historic building is of course a major pull; but venture along The Headrow and experience some of the best cultural attractions on offer in the city. The Art Gallery has great rotating exhibitions and the best collection of 20th century British Art outside London. Adjoining it are the Henry Moore Institute and the Central Lending Library with its beautiful victorian interior. Both the library and art gallery are going to be comprehensively renovated and restored in the next few months. Across the road is the Town Hall (see above), a breathtaking demonstration of civic pride.
On Great George St is a small selection of shops, the 19th century entrance (with a lovely colonial-style entrance hallway and small gallery space up the stairs) of the Leeds General Infirmary, and the recently restored Electric Press which is now home to the Carriageworks Theatre and several bars and restaurants, providing a semi-al fresco eating environment for all weather conditions. Next door is the impressive and well-used public space of Millennium Square (see above) with its attractive Mandela Gardens (opened by Mandela himself, now a freeman of the city, they are a lovely spot especially in summer) abutting the Electric Press building. The square is crowned with the Portland Stone neo-classical Civic Hall and the new City Museum (due to open 2008). Down on Cookridge St is the city’s small but unique Arts and Crafts St Anne’s Cathedral.
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