Kirkstall Abbey, Kirkstall Leeds
Kirkstall Abbey is just down the road for me, so its an easy place to get to for a bit of peace and quiet walks. The grounds get quite busy when its hot during the summer months, but aside from that there are very few tourists who ever make it here. Events are held at Kirkstall Abbey throughout the year, including the Kirkstall Festival, Classical Fantasia in September and the Leeds Shakespeare Festival in July and August. The cloisters make a superb venue for open air theatre which retains the intimacy of enclosed theatrical space, while the grounds make the perfect venue for open air music.
I missed the Shakespeare Festival this year for the first time in 10 years which is why it is absent from this guide. I made it to both plays that were performed in 2006, and took a lot of ribbing for going to see Romeo and Juliet with my mate Charles. We were both so drunk by the interval we were barely able to contain our bladders. In all those years I've gone through plenty of dates with real girls and only ever seen one bad performance - I won't say which year, but I could have eaten a prompt book and pooed a better Ophelia.
Kirkstall Abbey as viewed from River Aire
Kirkstall Abbey Rear view
View of Kirkstall Abbey
Kirkstall Abbey was partially pulled down during the Dissolution of the Monastaries in the 1530s and the builders finally turned up to rennovate the place in 2005. They hadn't turned up previously because apparently it was the 'wrong sort of century' for them to carry out the work, or they'd promise they'd come next century for four hundred years before they finally turned up. The restoration work done thus far looks incongruous to be honest, with obviously brand new roofs placed on a twelfth century building. In some way restoring the Abbey also manages to wipe out 500 years of the site's history. Its a ruin for a resaon, and its part of its charm and character. So, Leeds City Council, if you're listening please leave it alone and concentrate on designing bus lanes that don't work.