The Best Things to Do in Leeds

The best things to do in Leeds are the ones locals still do on a day off: wander Kirkgate Market and the Victorian arcades off Briggate, spend a free afternoon at Leeds Art Gallery or the Royal Armouries, get the bus out to Kirkstall Abbey, walk Roundhay Park, and finish with a pint somewhere with a proper bar. Prices and hours below were checked in October 2026, so treat them as a guide and check before you set off.

Kirkgate Market

Kirkgate Market on Vicar Lane is where Leeds does its actual shopping, and has done in some form since an open-air market in 1822. The 1904 Hall, with its glass roof and ornate ironwork, is Grade I listed and the only part of the complex that came through the 1975 fire entirely. There are around 800 stalls, and Marks & Spencer was founded here in 1884 as a penny bazaar, which is worth knowing next time someone tells you Leeds has no history. It opens Monday to Saturday from 8am to 5.30pm and is shut on Sundays. Go hungry, buy something from a butcher you will not see in a supermarket, and eat your way round the stalls.

The arcades and the Victoria Quarter

Leeds shops under glass. Thornton's Arcade came first, built in 1877 to 1878, and its Ivanhoe Clock still has Robin Hood, Friar Tuck, Richard the Lionheart and Gurth the Swineherd striking the hours. The Grand Arcade's Vicar Lane entrance has an animated clock with armoured knights who strike two bells while guardsmen rotate through little doors on the hour. Then there is the Victoria Quarter: County and Cross Arcades by the theatre architect Frank Matcham, and Brian Clarke's 125 metre stained-glass roof over Queen Victoria Street, which is the closest Leeds gets to a cathedral for shoppers. For the full tour, see our guide to the arcades. Round the corner on Call Lane, the Corn Exchange is Cuthbert Brodrick's Grade I listed building from 1864, now full of independent traders and open until 9pm on Thursdays.

Leeds Art Gallery and the Henry Moore Institute

On The Headrow, Leeds Art Gallery opens Tuesday to Saturday 10am to 5pm and Sunday 11am to 3pm, closed Mondays. It is Give What You Can, with a suggested £5. Have a coffee and a slice of cake in the Tiled Hall Cafe, which was the reading room of the old Municipal Buildings and is the best-looking cafe in the city. Next door, linked by a bridge, the Henry Moore Institute runs changing sculpture exhibitions, free, Tuesday to Sunday from 10am to 5pm. It opened in 1993 in three converted wool merchants' offices, which is about as Leeds as an art gallery gets.

Leeds City Museum

On Millennium Square, in Brodrick's old Mechanics' Institute, the city museum is home to the Leeds Tiger, a Bengal tiger that has been in the city since 1862, and Nesyamun, an Egyptian priest around 3,000 years old who survived the 1941 bombing that destroyed two other mummies. It is Give What You Can and open Tuesday to Friday 10am to 5pm, weekends 11am to 5pm.

The Royal Armouries

Down at Leeds Dock, the Royal Armouries is free, though you need to book a free ticket. Opened in 1996, it is a museum of arms and armour on a serious scale, and the Hall of Steel staircase alone is lined with 2,500 objects. Look for Henry VIII's 235-part foot combat armour and the Indian elephant armour, which weighs 118kg and is recognised by Guinness as the largest suit of animal armour in the world. Daily combats and shows are included. It is 20 to 25 minutes on foot from the station. Afterwards, Thornbridge Brewery Tap is on the dock if you want a pint with your history.

Kirkstall Abbey

Kirkstall Abbey is a Cistercian abbey founded around 1152, closed in 1539 under Henry VIII, and given to the city by Colonel John North in 1889. It sits in a free public park. The abbey itself is Give What You Can, open Tuesday to Sunday, 10am to 4pm from October to March and until 4.30pm in summer. Across the road, Abbey House Museum has recreated Victorian streets for £7.35 an adult.

Roundhay Park and Tropical World

Roundhay Park covers more than 700 acres, with the 33 acre Waterloo Lake, an 1811 castle folly and the Mansion on the hill. It has hosted everything from the Rolling Stones to Ed Sheeran in front of 150,000 people, but on a normal Sunday it is dog walkers and kids with scooters. In the Canal Gardens, Tropical World has a butterfly house, a desert house, meerkats and crocodiles: £9.50 for adults and £5.50 for children aged 3 to 15.

A film and a pint

The Hyde Park Picture House on Brudenell Road calls itself the only gas-lit cinema in the country and still shows 35mm prints. A full price ticket is £10.50, or £6.50 for a weekday matinee before 4.30pm. Pair it with a gig at the Brudenell Social Club nearby in Hyde Park. In town, Whitelock's in Turk's Head Yard calls itself the oldest pub in Leeds, dating its licence to 1715, with marble counters and engraved mirrors to back it up. North Bar on New Briggate has been pouring good beer since 1997 and is a fine place to argue about where to go next.