Kitty Ross

1880s advertisement for Magic Arzonic Soap made by J. Morgan, 86 Kirkgate, Leeds. Depicts a woman washing a fully dressed child in a tub. Leeds Museums and Galleries collections.

Magic Arzonic Soap anyone? Claims to clean grease, paint, clothes and babies and even cure scurvy. I suspect it just scoured several layers of skin. A gem found inside a scrap album donated to @leedsmuseums.bsky.social in 1961. Leeds c1885. @leedscivictrust.bsky.social @thackraymuseum.bsky.social

Coin used as Leeds bus fare was 2,000‑year‑old currency The coin was handed down to Peter Edwards from his grandfather in the 1950s.

This is the sort of thing a cashless society robs us of, the opportunity to try to get away with paying the bus fare in Carthaginian currency www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

In the Picture: Objects in Focus COMING SOON | Abbey House Museum | 28 February - 31 December | Discover iconic objects from Leeds Museums and Galleries collection paired with paintings and photographs of their history.

In the Picture: Objects in Focus | Leeds Museums and Galleries | Days out and exhibitions share.google/kojgnWrQl6pl...

Display showing the skeleton of Mok the gorilla alongside a sketch of him at London Zoo in 1936 (Leeds Museums)

An embroidered curtain being installed, Abbey House Museum

An 1850s crinoline dress displayed with a photograph of the original wearer, Abbey House Museum

Portrait of Colonel T Walter Harding wearing a Leeds University doctoral gown, Abbey House Museum

Abbey House Museum exhibition "In the Picture" finally opens today. Linking some fantastic objects with original pictures and photos. A real visual feast. @leedsmuseums.bsky.social

A photograph of Kirkstall Abbey by Leeds born photographer William Lyndon Smith (1836-1865) dating from around 1855. Smith exhibited widely around Britain from the 1850s.

🧵A photograph of Kirkstall Abbey by Leeds born photographer William Lyndon Smith (1836-1865) dating from around 1855. Smith exhibited widely around Britain from the 1850s until his untimely death in an ice skating accident attempting to save a couple who had fallen through ice

Bach MASS in B minor Since its completion in 1749, the B Minor Mass has been celebrated as one of the pinnacles of Western music, whose significance has only grown with time. Musicians and scholars through the ages have m...

wegottickets.com/event/676652...

Pair of mandarin ducks stood on a river bank and reflected in the water

Wishing this amorous pair of mandarins a happy Valentine's Day

List of birds seen in garden. 2 bullfinches, goldcrest, 2 bluetits, 2 coal tits, 2 dunnocks, 1 magpie, 2 great tits, wood pigeon, blackbird, wren, 2 robins, nuthatch

Wren

Bluetit and great tit

Male bullfinch

Pretty pleased with our #BigGardenBirdwatch tally this year. 12 species including bullfinches, goldcrest and nuthatch. @rspb.bsky.social @rspbengland.bsky.social @wildsheffield.bsky.social

Radio Leeds - Listen Live - BBC Sounds Listen live to Radio Leeds on BBC Sounds

I was also talking about these biscuits on Radio Leeds this morning (about 07.47) www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

Wartime Christmas greetings sent by biscuit revealed in Leeds Snacks given to frontline troops in World War One were used to send heartfelt messages home.

The WW1 soldiers who wrote messages on the surface of their basic emergency ration biscuits before sending them to their loved ones in Leeds.
@curatorkitty.bsky.social 👇
BBC News - Wartime Christmas greetings sent by biscuit revealed in Leeds - BBC News
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Pair of drumsticks with inscription "These Drumsticks Fight Fascists" Leeds Museums and Galleries collections

My last object cataloguing of 2025 for Leeds Museums @leedsmuseums.bsky.social and an inspiring message for the coming year (courtesy of The Gang of Four, currently on show at Leeds City Museum music exhibition).

Two magazines side by side. Kingfisher wildlife trust magazine with photo of a red toadstool. New Internationalist magazine with image of a red mushroom cloud headlined The New Nuclear Arms Race.

The two magazines delivered to our door yesterday. A rather sinister symmetry.

Without asylum:

Marks and Spencer wouldn't exist

Queen would have been without a front man

The other queen wouldn't have had a husband

Judith Kerr would never have written The Tiger Who Came to Tea

And thousands of less famous people wouldn't have been teachers, politicians, neighbours, etc

@leedsmuseums.bsky.social @leedslibraries.bsky.social @leedscitycouncil.bsky.social

School abacus or ball frame with ten rows each with ten balls on wooden stand painted lime green. Leeds Museums and Galleries collections.

Detail from a 1921 catalogue with an illustration of a school abacus, text reads: Ball Frames with 10 Wires 10 Wooden Beads on each wire. Designed by one of His Majesty's Chief Inspectors, on the principle that the Decimal System should be the basis of all renumeration. Leeds Museums and Galleries collections.

I love linking @leedsmuseums collections to old trade catalogues. Proves that this is not just a humble school abacus (in Leeds Education Committee lime green) but part of the long argument for the superiority of the Decimal System. 1921 catalogue of Leeds based school suppliers E. J. Arnold

Tour guide standing in front of a statue with a gull on its head.

This was a great way to finish the @museumsassociation.org conference and round everything off. Feel I understand Cardiff better now.

Deep-seated Histories: Chairs from the Collection (Vancouver Museum)

Deep-seated Histories: Chairs from the Collection (Vancouver Museum) wheelchair

Deep-seated Histories: Chairs from the Collection (Vancouver Museum) work chairs

Deep-seated Histories: Chairs from the Collection (Vancouver Museum)

I also appreciate a good exhibition title @museumofvan.bsky.social (@leedsmuseums.bsky.social) #Chairs

Display of broken windows illustrating anti-immigrant riots in 1907 Vancouver

Display about illustrating anti-immigrant riots in 1907 Vancouver

Display about shanty town life in early Vancouver

Display about 1960s protests in Vancouver

Some very imaginative ways of representing struggle, conflict and protest in the history of Vancouver @museumofvan.bsky.social. Lots of ideas to take back to @leedsmuseums.bsky.social

Rational recreation' was an ideal that nineteenth-century middle-class reformers hoped to impose on the urban working class. The pewter medals above from the collection of the British Museum were produced in 1854

Rational recreation' was an ideal that nineteenth-century middle-class reformers hoped to impose on the urban working class. They believed that leisure activities should be controlled, ordered, and improving' The Leeds Rational Recreation Society was created

As well as the Cleo Laine number, we will be singing #Shakespeare themed works by Byrd, Tallis, Monteverdi, Stanford Elgar, Vaughan Williams, Moeran, Weill and Gershwin. A fantastic concert for anyone free in #Sheffield Saturday night. share.google/wEgHmVkxfMxJ...

Cleo Laine sings Shakespeare, 'The Compleat Works' YouTube video by paulprocopolis

#RIP Cleo Laine. I hope that the Sheffield Lydian Singers can do justice to this song of hers in our concert tomorrow night (St James Church, Norton, Sheffield 7.30pm) youtube.com/watch?v=-2Mj...

Selection of Yorkshire Relish bottles made by Goodall Backhouse & Co Leeds. Leeds Museums and Galleries collections.

Cataloguing this fantastic set of Yorkshire Relish bottles into the @leedsmuseums.bsky.social collections is whetting my appetite for lunch. A couple still have their contents but are probably past their best after 80 odd years!

*UGHILL FARM: May 2025* | Sheffield & Rotherham Wildlife Trust YouTube video by Sheffield & Rotherham Wildlife Trust

Lovely little film from @wildsheffield.bsky.social about building climate resilience into Ughill Farm. Happy to have contributed a few pennies to help them buy this little plot of hope.
youtu.be/T8eEQcakWCs?...

Council-run museums and galleries bring Leeds a £47.3m boost City councillor says the economic impact of the eight institutions makes a

Council run museums provide a £47.3 million boost to Leeds. 👇
BBC News - Council-run museums and galleries bring Leeds a £47.3m boost - BBC News
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Technician Rick hanging a cuckoo clock on the wall at Leeds Discovery Centre.

Long case clock made by J. C. Elliott, Leeds c1858, with painted image of Leeds Town Hall, installed at Leeds Discovery Centre

Time to put up a few more #clocks at Leeds Discovery Centre @leedsmuseums.bsky.social, including one showing a view of #Leeds Town Hall c1858
@leedscitycouncil.bsky.social

kestrel in flight, Lathkill Dale, Derbyshire

grey wagtail sitting on a tree branch, Lathkill Dale, Derbyshire

Black cap with a grub in it's beak, balanced on cow parsley (or hogweed), Lathkill Dale, Derbyshire

redstart on a tree branch, Lathkill Dale, Derbyshire

A good day for #birds in Lathkill Dale today. These are the ones that stayed to be snapped - plenty of others were less co-operative with the camera!
@rspb.bsky.social @rspbengland.bsky.social @peakdistrict.bsky.social

Current Season Concerts Outline and detailed list of the current season’s concerts

sheffieldbachchoir.com/sheffield-ba... A wonderful concert at St Mark's, Broomhill, #Sheffield this Saturday 21st June including Bach, Handel, Elgar, Holst. Tickets available on the door.
@classicalsheffield.bsky.social

Sandsstone sculpture of a man wearning a hat and boots (but not much else), on Puppenbrücke (Puppet Bridge) in Lübeck, Germany. Originally sculpted by Dietrich Jürgen Boy 1774-1776, but these are replicas from 1907.

Another confused German nudist for @museumbums.bsky.social. Clearly a hat an boots are obligatory, but nothing else (spotted on the Puppenbrücke, Lübeck)

Valley of the Aire, Armley Pastures and Kirkstall, Leeds, 1853, by George I. Alexander, 1832-1913 (Leeds Art Gallery). #NorthernArt

cuckoo on wires, Thornseat Moor, near Sheffield

lapwing on grass with bilberry and heather, near Cartlege Stones, Derwent Edge

Golden Plover in grass and cotton grass, near Cartledge Stones, Derwent Edge

Had the moors to ourselves apart from a cuckoo and lots of curlews, lapwings and golden plovers. @bbcspringwatch.bsky.social @wildsheffield.bsky.social @rspb.bsky.social @rspbengland.bsky.social