Going Underground to map Leeds pubs of the past

A PUB enthusiast has taken a trip down memory lane by producing an underground tube-style map of Leeds inns from the past 150 years.
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Steve Lovell has create a map of venues that have fallen by the wayside.

The map creator, 41, is confident that his guide, the Bygone Leeds Overaround, will prompt many happy - if occasionally cloudy - recollections of night out from the past.

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Steve, from Rothwell, near Leeds, said: “When I was working on the present day map, it occurred to me that this would be an interesting subject to explore.

“Hopefully people will agree with me!”

He added: “In an ideal world I would have looked at the lost pubs and bars of the whole Leeds area but in the end I decided to just do the city centre.

“The people who have seen it so far have found it really interesting.”

Steve spent months researching the map and also went back to the old ways to find out all the information he needed including scouring old telephone books, Yellow Pages, land documents and city records at Leeds Central Library.

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Familiar names from the past include The Duchess of York, Cafe Inseine, The Mitre, The General Wade and The Marquis of Granby and, where a venue has had a change of name but is still part of the current drinking scene, its present title is shown in green along with what went before.

Matching the style of the London Underground map, different areas of the city are represented as ‘lines’ with their own individual colours.

• Copies of the map are available for £12.50 from www.albanydesign.co.uk.

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