Time for Royal Armouries to begin a new chapter in Leeds - Nat Edwards
Thirty years ago, when the Royal Armouries Museum building was completed, it brought new life to this part of Leeds. It was the original regeneration scheme on the South Bank, taking an under-used and dilapidated post-industrial landscape and creating something quite unique.
There had been a time when Leeds Dock (then Clarence Dock) was at the very heart of the engine of Leeds.
In the 1840s, with industrial demands reaching fever pitch, the dock was utilised to bring coal to supply its industrial heartlands. The Dock was part of the infrastructure that made the city a key trading gateway, if not the UK’s most important inland port.
So when the Royal Armouries Museum was built in Leeds, we may have been bringing something very new to the city – the first (and so far only) national museum in the UK to move its headquarters out of the capital – but we were also bringing something back: the life and purpose that the dock, and the city’s storied waterfront, deserved.
Since we opened our doors in 1996, the landscape around us has continued to evolve. The dock itself has grown.
We have been immensely proud to be a part of that jigsaw but now it’s time for us to look at our own growth.
Last year, a Government loan allowed us to purchase the dock that we had previously rented.
For the first time in our 700-year history we owned our own home. Importantly it allowed us to unlock our own ambition to grow our capacity to stage and host events at scale and to develop our plans to ensure the Armouries remains a resilient and relevant organisation well into its eighth century of operation.
The conditions are now right to make those ideas a reality and our Waterfront Development is the culmination of painstaking work to realise this site’s true potential, with culture at its heart.
We are proud to remain a free-to-enter museum, here for everyone. In one way or another, our subject matter touches everyone’s lives and I am fiercely determined that we keep our doors open to all. But the reality is that it is getting harder to run a free museum. As costs rise, our government grant in aid seems to shrink and, while we welcome generous donations from visitors when they can afford it, we know times are tough all round.
When we first came to Leeds, we picked up some of the city’s enterprising spirit. We started hosting events, conferences and exhibitions and, over the years, they have become a core part of our operation at the dock. We have the specialist space and facilities to host events of the magnitude of UKREiiF - which in its swansong year with us in 2027 will welcome well over 16,000 people to the city. We are proud members of Team Leeds, bringing passion, expertise and a unique Leeds flavour to the events we host.
In many ways, UKREiiF was the catalyst that helped us imagine bigger and better and which has given us the confidence to make ambitious plans for the dock. But it has also shown us some of the challenges we need to overcome if we are to meet event organisers’ ambitions and to make Leeds competitive in the market.
UKREiiF has grown more than fourfold in a few short years (as well as the thousands of fringe event attendees that flock to Leeds each May) and, through a mixture of creativity, pragmatism and the goodwill of our neighbours, we have significantly scaled up our own activities and capability. But we now need to do more.
We are bringing in new, flexible spaces that can make the most of the latest immersive technologies. We are designing new waterfront space for meeting, eating and enjoying events. We are extending and improving the public realm around Armouries Square and we are developing new plans and partnerships to extend hotel accommodation at the dock.
It’s not just about bigger and better events but also ones that matter. Our success at hosting events is increasingly attracting some of the most important national conversations.
We are now well used to seeing metro-mayors and government ministers make important investment announcements at the Armouries and it was right here (at last year’s regional investment summit) that the current Prime Minister first set out his plans to return to parliament.
If the Armouries brought life and purpose back to the dock, over the years that purpose has extended to at times national significance. Leeds Dock is a place to be when important things happen and when important things are said. We need a venue that matches that importance.
The Waterfront Development - a programme of works anchored in culture and heritage - will more than double the event and exhibition space available. It will take an underutilised parcel of land, and transform it into something world class, that we can all be proud of.
Nat Edwards is director general and master of the Royal Armouries Museum.