On a plaque on the wall of 33 Park Square, Leeds is a brief life of its onetime occupant Sir Berkeley Moynihan, a pioneering abdominal surgeon who “prized ‘caressing the tissues’ rather than speed in surgery”.
Trying to get to know a city of the size of Leeds requires an approach as careful and generous as (I’d imagine) ‘caressing the tissues’. It is a task as challenging as (I’d imagine) performing an exploratory laparotomy – once you begin to open it up you realise the complexity of what’s inside.
Today I made a slight incision intro the city’s industrial history by walking into the centre along the River Aire, then the Leeds-Liverpool Canal, and stopping to see the vaults under the railway station, known as the Dark Arches. An iron bridge permits pedestrians to walk through the series of enormous brick-lined caverns, above the swelling water. Stepping onto this bridge for my first sight of the Dark Arches I’m sure I felt something move inside; it was a stomach-churning encounter.
They really meant it, the people who designed and built the Dark Arches, over the river, mighty and tough enough to underpin a major railway terminus. Strikes me, walking through the centre again today, that they still really mean it, the people redesigning Leeds, leaving no space unexploited, including airspace, for the newer buildings are reaching higher and higher. All this is good, for the local, regional, economy. I’m sure though that the Dark Arches and today’s Leeds superstructures also have a hidden history – that of the people employed, precariously, to build them. I know I’m not going to get deep into their story in the short time I’m here, but if I at least get a sense of it then I won’t be gutted.