Leeds Dragons

buffaloskinner · Post by **buffaloskinner** » Thu 28 Nov, 2013 8:08 pm

Look about and you will see a dragon flying free, but where is he?

tilly · Post by **tilly** » Thu 28 Nov, 2013 8:14 pm

I have been with a few Leeds Dragons in my time but i dont know where this one is.Could it be in one of the arcades.?

drapesy · Post by **drapesy** » Thu 28 Nov, 2013 8:20 pm

Kirkgate market I believe

buffaloskinner · Post by **buffaloskinner** » Thu 28 Nov, 2013 8:38 pm

Kirkgate Market it is, after all these years only noticed today

Cardiarms · Post by **Cardiarms** » Thu 28 Nov, 2013 11:33 pm

Where is the other dragons' nest in Yorkshire.

buffaloskinner · Post by **buffaloskinner** » Thu 28 Nov, 2013 11:35 pm

Halifax MarketLeeds’s Kirkgate market hall is one the best surviving Victorian retail buildings. Opened in 1904, it still retains much of its original decoration, including the numerous cast-iron wyverns (two-legged dragons) on the ground floor that are in fact brackets that support the gallery level above. These outsized monsters are a curious legacy of the Victorian fascination with the grotesque and a reminder of a vanished way of thinking about the value of the decorative in civic buildings. But what do these particular wyverns mean? Surely not mere whimsy, ornament for ornament’s sake? After all, this was a public building, built with hard-earned public money. Why did Leeds’s civic authorities deem it necessary to include wyverns in the people’s market hall?In fact, these wyvern motifs were specified by the architects of the market hall (John and Joseph Leeming) in their original competition drawings for the project and developed from similar ones they used in an earlier market hall in Halifax (1896). In the late nineteenth century, dragons and their wyvern cousins were both common heraldic motifs in Britain and were also associated with industry; in 1845 the Midland Railway adopted a wyvern as the crest in their unofficial coat of arms, believing it to be the symbol of the ancient kingdom of Mercia, or the Midlands as it effectively was in the Victorian era; the company incorporated cast–iron wyverns into luggage rack supports, bracket signals, and the spandrels at Hellifield railway station (1880).And that's a fact

buffaloskinner · Post by **buffaloskinner** » Fri 29 Nov, 2013 12:12 am

And here they are

Phill_dvsn · Post by **Phill_dvsn** » Fri 29 Nov, 2013 12:19 am

Think I posted these dragons on Weetwood Lane as a guess where before.It's funny to think what these creatures symbolised, and why they were incorporated into buildings and architecture. I think I also posted these serpent snake benches in Leeds as a guess where before as well. They also have a similar meaning as the dragons. Asclepius the Greek god of health and medicine had a staff with a snake entwined around it. It is this symbol that is still used by the medical professions today.The North Eastern Railway standardised the benches on their stations by using this particular design. The spa towns of Harrogate and Berwick still have these serpent benches made and installed today.

Chrism · Post by **Chrism** » Fri 29 Nov, 2013 12:37 pm

There's a dragon taking off from the ridge of this house on the corner of Bentcliffe Lane and Street Lane. This is the best I could get from Street View. If anyone's up in the area they could get a better one with a camera.

Steve Jones · Post by **Steve Jones** » Fri 29 Nov, 2013 12:40 pm

I'm pretty certain there are dragons or maybe wyverns in one of the arcdes as well but can't think of which one.i know i spotted them on some stantions once.