page_title: Leeds
section_title: Museums
hierarchical_section_title: Leeds / Culture / Museums
caption_attribution_description: English: Royal Armouries Leeds, West Yorkshire, England
context_page_description: Leeds is the largest city in the county of West Yorkshire in Northern England, approximately 170 miles north of central London. It has one of the most diverse economies of all the UK's main employment centres and has seen the fastest rate of private-sector jobs growth of any UK city. It also has the highest ratio of private to public sector jobs of all the UK's Core Cities, with 77% of its workforce working in the private sector. Leeds has the third-largest jobs total by local authority area, with 480,000 in employment and self-employment at the beginning of 2015. Leeds is ranked as a High Sufficiency level city by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network. Leeds is the cultural, financial and commercial heart of the West Yorkshire Urban Area. The city is served by five universities, has the UK's fourth-largest student population and the country's fourth-largest urban economy.
context_section_description: Leeds has over 16 museums and galleries including 9 that are council-run.
  A new Leeds City Museum opened in 2008 in Millennium Square. Leeds's major museum, it showcases the city's designated collections of local history, world cultures, natural history, archaeology and fine and decorative arts plus a diverse programme of special exhibitions.
  Abbey House Museum is housed in the former gatehouse of Kirkstall Abbey, and includes walk-through Victorian streets and galleries describing the history of the abbey, childhood, and Victorian Leeds.
  Armley Mills Industrial Museum is housed in what was once the world's largest woollen mill, and includes industrial machinery and railway locomotives. This museum also shows the first known moving pictures in the world which were taken in the city, by Louis Le Prince, of a Roundhay Garden Scene and of Leeds Bridge in 1888. These short film clips can be found on YouTube.
  Thwaite Mills Watermill Museum is a fully restored 1820s water-powered mill on the River Aire to the east of the city centre.
  The Thackray Museum is a museum of the history of medicine, featuring topics such as Victorian public health, pre-anaesthesia surgery, and safety in childbirth. It is housed in a former workhouse next to St James's Hospital.
  The Royal Armouries Museum, the United Kingdom's national collection of arms and armour, opened in 1996 in a dramatic modern building when this part of the collection was transferred from the Tower of London. It is located a short distance from the city centre at Leeds Dock.
  Nearby is the Leeds Museum Discovery Centre (formerly housed at the Leeds Museum Resource Centre in Yeadon), the major storage of items not currently on display in museums, and open to the public by appointment.
  Leeds Art Gallery houses important collections of traditional and contemporary British art, with the best twentieth century collection outside London and a colourful wall painting for the Victorian staircase by Lothar Götz. Just next door, The Henry Moore Institute is dedicated to celebrating sculpture. In the iconic building, they host a year-round changing programme of historical, modern and contemporary exhibitions presenting sculpture from across the world. Located in the striking art deco headquarters of the former brewery, The Tetley is a centre for contemporary art, centred on creativity, innovation and experimentation.
  Smaller museums in Leeds include Otley Museum; Horsforth Village Museum; ULITA, an Archive of International Textiles; and the museum at Fulneck Moravian Settlement.
caption: Royal Armouries Museum
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