SecretLeeds - History, culture and architecture in Leeds

I was on Harrison Street today (August 4 2012) and by chance the massive hydraulic mechanism that is used in taking things to and from the Grand Theatre was in use. This photo shows a very long lorry just about to enter the then ground level mechanism.

This photo shows the lorry almost fully in the lifting cage.

This photo shows the open rear of the lorry as it is about to be lifted.

This photo shows the up (or almost up) view of the lorry.

This photo shows the lorry fully up and connected to the cross over passageway for loading/uploading of items. The large door on the wall was not used as the lorry only had rear access. I wonder if that though is the norm for vehicles using the hoist mechanism?

Thanks for this Leo, I hope to see it for myself pone day but photo's are good.Does the door in the wall pre-date the lift, perhaps? I would guess to use it a slightly smaller van than the one pictured would back into the lift.

Thanks for this Leo, I hope to see it for myself pone day but photo's are good.Does the door in the wall pre-date the lift, perhaps? I would guess to use it a slightly smaller van than the one pictured would back into the lift. That is if it's accessible form the lift at all, is there a gate in the barrier around the lift?

Hi Barfly.I had expected that the large door high in the wall would be that used to load/unload from lorries but on seeing that the cross over passage was used that immediately made sense as otherwise lorries would need to be side opening. I wonder therefore if that wall door is used now, as it is high so would still need the lifting mechanism. One thing is that because of a surrounding metal grid cage it does not seem possible to photograph the mechanism when it is not raised, though it can be seen (with difficulty) when looking down through the grid of the cage when that is at street level. The whole mechanism is massive. I wonder what weight it can take?While I was taking photographs I was chatting with one of the lorry crew and he was very pleasant. He said there would be 7 lorry loads today (August 4 2012) so there was clearly some large shifting going on. As the lorry I photographed was raised empty it seems likely that stage material was being removed.

Ta LeoWondered what that was/how it worked.Seem to recall in the early 80's there was a nice Indian Restaurant just opposite that.

Leodian wrote: Hi Barfly.I wonder what weight it can take? I had a thrilling ride up in the lorry lift a couple of years ago when, on one of the Heritage Open Days, folks were allowed to do that.The registered authorised load for the lift is an incredible 56 tons !!