About
Leeds City Walking Tours
Engaging, knowledgeable, experienced and audible guide
I'm Rachael Unsworth, urban geographer and enthusiastic communicator.
I offer a mix of tours and presentations (online and in person).
Are you interested in a private tour for your group, company or family?
Get in touch (opens email) to ask about dates, themes, prices
& vouchers - excellent gift for a special occasion.
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Follow me on Bluesky
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Brief appearance in 'A House Through Time' BBC2 Sept 2021 (Episode 1, near the end)
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Click here for some short tours recorded for East Leeds FM.
And here I talk about the River Aire flowing through Leeds:
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If you attend a free online event, I invite contributions here:
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Featured tours
Prepare to be hooked on the history and geography of our regional capital
The making of the University of Leeds
The story of how the Yorkshire College of Science became a giant of higher education
Founded “to promote education of both sexes and to provide instruction in such sciences and arts as are applicable or ancillary to the manufacturing, mining, engineering and agricultural industries of Yorkshire”, the College started with 3 professors and 24 students.
How did it become a place with more than 38,000 students and 8,000 staff?
How has a former residential area been transformed to accommodate today’s vast range of research, teaching and learning?
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Visiting Leeds with a view to studying here?
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Are you and your fellow alumni returning for a reunion?
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Interested in our "open air exhibition of architecture & social change?" - historian Professor Maurice Beresford
​Book a tour of the campus - with its amazing range of buildings, spaces and art works.
Add a tour of parts of the city centre - right next to the campus.
​Get in touch to arrange a time & date.
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I offer a mix of some favourite tours developed over the years & new topics - more info & booking here
Commission your own special tour?
Choose:
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a general introduction to the city - with start and finish to suit you
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one of the topics you can find here
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a theme that fits with the interests and stamina of your family/friends
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a route that will strike a chord with your organisation's focus - such as engineering history, greening of the city, an aspect of architectural history. (I've taken on some interesting challenges).
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Give me a call: 07712 739153
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​Want reassurance that this will be worthwhile and enjoyable? Read some of the reviews left by walkers since early 2019.
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Stuck for a gift idea? Give a tour voucher
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as a welcome to Leeds
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as a birthday, anniversary or Christmas present
Request a voucher with the name of the recipient(s) - you can specify the wording and choose a topic or leave it up to the guest to choose.
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Walking through the centuries
New to Leeds? Or lived here for ages without learning much about your city? Visiting for the weekend? You have visitors staying?
Come with me from earliest times to the present day - Kirkgate to the West End. I'll explain how a little town where cloth was traded became the regional capital and a major centre for financial services, healthcare, cultural activities, learning and digital creativity.
What was the importance of 'fulling'? What is the 'Navigation' and why was it so vital to Leeds? Why was Leeds well placed to become an early industrial town? When did Leeds become a city? These and many more questions will be answered.
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York & Leeds - Confluences & Divergences
Exploring similarities, linkages and differences between two major Yorkshire cities
York has been a very significant place for many centuries, while Leeds only really surged up the urban hierarchy from 250 years ago. Why this great contrast? And yet what do the two places have in common?
You’ll get a sense of how economic, social, technological and organisational change play out in the landscape. Each city can be understood more fully with reference to the other.
​ I’ve known York all my life, lived there briefly in the 1960s and have visited very often. In contrast, I’ve ‘only’ been getting to know Leeds for 30 years, since taking up a part-time lectureship in the School of Geography at the University of Leeds.
​ York deservedly attracts many tourists, yet they tend to stick to the very well known 'picture-postcard' areas and miss some really important elements of the area within the walls and of the broader context of the city's story.
​ I'll be offering this as a public tour occasionally. I'd be pleased to take you - and your family or group - on this unusual tour of York and give you the option of coming to Leeds for the corresponding tour.
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I'll be offering an online presentation on this topic at 16:00 GMT on Sunday 12 January 2025.
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Get in Touch
This is part of the map of Leeds in the early 20th century.
Can you still find your way around?
