Royal Armouries: £1.25m revamp ditches Churchill and Wellington room names to celebrate overlooked female war heroes

The Royal Armouries is well-known as the national museum of arms and armour but The Yorkshire Post has come to the venue today to find out more about the other vital string to the site’s bow – its burgeoning events and conference space.

The Royal Armouries and the associated New Dock Hall opposite has been a well-known conference and events venue regionally for more than 20 years but is now pushing for national recognition.

As part of that strategy, a £1.25m refurbishment of the venue has been completed over the past year while conference and meeting spaces have been renamed to help add to the more contemporary feel.

The Churchill Suite is now known as the Vera Suite after Leeds-born Vera Leigh who played a key part in the French resistance during the Second World War, guiding fugitive Allied servicemen out of the country.

She was eventually captured by the Germans and executed along with seven other agents from Special Operations Executive (SOE), which a secretive British operation running spy operations in Occupied Europe.

Leigh posthumously received the King’s Commendation for Brave Conduct and Ensign Leigh is listed on the Roll of Honour on the Valency SOE Memorial in the town of Valency, France.

The name change is not the only thing to be altered about the room, which has been given a glamorous makeover into a pub-style space complete with images of Leeds and posters of city-based brands.

Meanwhile, the Wellington Suite has also been renamed as part of its makeover and is now known as the Pearl Suite in honour of another SOE operative, Pearl Witherington.

She led lead an SOE network comprising 2,000 fighters and associated resistance groups called maquis. She received an OBE, the Legion of Honour and the Croix de Guerre in recognition of her service to the war effort. Pearl survived the war and died at the age of 93 in 2008.

Other changes reach further back in history and have seen an education room named after Agnes Hotot, a 14th Century woman who bravely fought and beat a man seeking to claim her sickly father’s land.

Venue director Ben Campbell says the refurbishment work was aimed at ensuring the Royal Armouries can compete with conference venue rivals in cities like London, Birmingham and Manchester. He says the associated name changes came about after careful consideration.

“We were really keen to have the names tied to Leeds and wanted to drop the masculine room names,” he explains.

“We looked at what key figures were in Leeds and link that to the museum element too. We started looked at rivers but then went to people tied to war and the Special Operations Executive.

“As the museum moves forward we are looking at making sure we are inclusive and diverse. War generally focuses on men and women aren’t very well recognised and noted in history for their impact in wars.

“It has gone down really well. The key part is they are names people don’t really know and the biography we have on each of the individuals has gone down really well as it has raised awareness of these stories.”

Campbell, who has been at the Armouries for around three years after joining from the National Railway Museum in York, says the changes are part of a wider strategy to host more national events.

“I started here just after Covid so it was a complete recovery from the pandemic, rebuilding the team and rebuilding the business,” he says.

“There was always that concern of how quickly the events business was going to come back. From the back of that we’ve come back stronger and changed our business profile. It has always been a local venue for local events. We very much look at it now on a national level and bringing huge events here.

“We have really grown our national market. Last year was our biggest and most successful year but we are looking at 2024 to be bigger.

“In 2023, we delivered to the Leeds economy our largest return which was just over £55m to the city’s economy. It has virtually doubled.

“Christmas here was always about 30 per cent of our business previously, which puts a lot of pressure on that part of the year. We’ve now reduced that to 15 per cent of our business, keeping the same volume and revenues but growing all the other market segments.”

Campbell says he loves the variety of the job, reeling off forthcoming events ranging from a dinosaur show to a comic convention followed by an NHS conference and then a heating exhibition.

“No two days are ever the same.”

One of the venues most notable success in recent years has been establishing itself as the venue for the popular UK’s Real Estate Investment and Infrastructure Forum (known as UKREiiF) event, which attracts thousands of delegates over several consecutive days.

Last year Leeds and the Armouries fought off competition from Manchester, Liverpool and Birmingham to retain the annual event in the city until at least 2027.

Campbell says Leeds could offer “the personal touch”, close proximity between the venue and fringe event sites as well as use of its waterways to get to the location in a similar way to the well-known MIPIM property event in Cannes.

Campbell says winning the contract was a combined city-wide effort involving Leeds City Council and the West Yorkshire Combined Authority.

He says the recent refurbishment programme at the venue is only the beginning of the ambitions for the Armouries.

“Everybody’s been blown away and surprised we have done it in a year. We’ve had some great feedback so far. This is the start of the journey. We have done the initial refurbs but are now looking at how we continue that programme.

“We are looking at our business model constantly to see what more we need to be doing to keep up with the rest of the industry and to keep Leeds on the map.”