Leeds' Taxi Boats

Travelling on Leeds' Taxi Boats

Above - One of the boats seen in the Granary Wharf stop, this is a short walk from the south entrance of Leeds Station and is signposted from the station entrance, though it can also be seen from the glass building that stands over the river as it passes under Leeds Station.

In 2014 a Taxi Boat service was introduced between Leeds Railway Station and Leeds Dock as part of the Leeds Waterfront Festival that year using a pair of boats brought from Amsterdam. The service proved so popular that it became a permanent feature after the festival. It was out of action for a few months in 2026 due to the winding up of the firm that had operated it but was reinstated under new ownership.

The service runs 10am to 6pm seven days a week usually with two boats running about every 15 minutes. On Mondays (and occasionally on other days for maintenance requirements) during summer and Monday - Friday in winter one boat operates about every 30 minutes. The boats can be tracked on the Taxi Trak website.

Open Street Map

1908 Map

GRANARY WHARF

Below - The stop seen without a boat. Boarding is via the side step seen on the right. The land beneath the modern develop was previously occupied by boatyards, mainly dealing with barges operating on the Leeds & Liverpool Canal that connects to the River Aire here.

Below - The stop seen from the land side. On the right the lock at the entrance to the Leeds & Liverpool Canal can be seen.

Looking across the river. On the left the station's south entrance can be seen. On the right is the former Coop Coal Wharf.

Below - The former Coop Coal Wharf. The rails in the ground mark the site of a pair of rail mounted steam cranes.

Below - Taxi Boat approaching Granary Wharf after passing under Victoria Bridge.

Below - Passing the entrance to the Leeds & Liverpool Canal and the goods warehouse that was provided for the Leeds end of the canal.

Below - The entrance to Hol Beck that gives the Holbeck area of Leeds its name. The beck runs along Water Lane but continues underground for some distance as the city development has grown up above it.

Below - A Kingfisher seen on Victoria Bridge.

Below - A landing at the back of what is now Asda House. I believe in an earlier scheme to introduce passenger boats this was to have been an intermediate stop but couldn't find any mention of this.

Below - A Sign for Kings Mill, one of the largest mills in The Calls area. This was a water powered mill with a mill race that has since been filled in that ran from the site of the main entrance to Leeds Station.

Below - Leeds Bridge.

Below - The warehouse is shown on the old maps and had a connection to the river allowing boats to be unloaded under cover inside the warehouse.

Below - Passing the other boat. Two boats operate the service, Twee and Drie, both 12 seater Dutch water taxis.

Below - Brewery Wharf. The round building was the short lived museum of the Tetley Brewery. Not long after it opened the brewery's owner Carlsberg closed the brewery and shifted production of beer under the Tetley brand name elsewhere.

Below - Crown Point Bridge looking towards Granary Wharf. On the right is Fearn's Island, the navigable channel runs on the south side of the island with a wier on the north side. On the other side of the entrance to Leeds Dock is Leeds Lock.

LEEDS DOCK

Below - The Taxi Boat enters Leeds Dock, previously known as New Dock and Clarance Dock.

Below - The Taxi Boat in its pier in Leeds Dock. On the right can be seen the main attraction of the dock, the Royal Armouries museum.

Below - The Water Taxi stop at Leeds Dock.

Below - A floating bookshop in the dock. The area now redeveloped around the dock was previously dominated by timber yards.

Below - The modern development around the dock. The bridge I'm stood on restricts boat access south of here but the space is used for events.

Below - Looking north from the same bridge.

Below - The Royal Armouries museum. In the 1990s a large part of the Royal Armouries collection was moved to the new purpose built museum, allowing the Tower of London to concentrate more on its historic buildings.

Below - Both boats seen on the Leeds Dock site last year after the day's service finished. During summer a Friday and Saturday evening cruise runs east of Leeds Dock departing at 1830 for an hour long trip to Knostrop Lock.

Open Street Map

Below - The Taxi Boat in Leeds Lock on the east side of the entrance to Leeds Dock.

Below - A maintenance barge.

Below - Warehousing still lines the riverside but these buildings no longer receive boat traffic, and how long before housing development reaches this far?

KNOSTROP LOCK

1908 Map (top left of map)

There isn't a stop to alight from the boat at Knostrop Lock, it stops at the lock entrance before turning back towards Leeds Dock. With the proposals to turn Thwaite Mills a short walk from here into a visitor attraction of craft shops, restaurant and events venue it would be great if some day a regular Taxi Boat service might run here too. It would probably make sense for such a service to depart from the north side of the Armouries to save time in Leeds Lock. Perhaps like London we could one day have a network of passenger boats through Leeds?

Below - The entrance to Knostrop Lock. The railway line with a couple of wagons used by the Blue Circle stone terminal can be seen in the background, this line used to continue over the river on a swing bridge to connect with the Great Northern line at Beeston. The swing bridge was built with the intention of bringing ocean going ships up the river here to Leeds as the Manchester Ship Canal had done for Manchester. In the end ocean going ships got bigger and the swing bridge only opened for testing. 

I have previously explored the Thames Clipper boats in London and the Leeds & Liverpool Canal and Springs Branch around Skipton.

I visited Thwaite Mills when it was a Leeds City Council run museum.

Ilkley's Roman Fort

A short walk around Ilkley's Roman Fort

In Ilkley remnants of the Roman Fort thought to have been Olicana, established in 79AD can be seen on the corner of Church Street and New Brook Street.

Below - Evidence of earthworks of the north east corner of the site.

Below  - Map of the site today from Open Street Map. All Saints Church was built on the site of the Headquarters Building, the Principia. That would be around the centre of the fort which suggests the south gate would have been in what is now the car park on West Street. It would have been similar to some of the medium sized forts I visited on my Hadrian's Wall Walk such as Birdoswald, Great Chesters, Magna, Chesters and Segedunum

Below - A model of Arbeia Roman Fort at South Shields which I visited on Day 4 of my Hadrian's Wall Walk. It follows the usual playing card shape with the rounded off corners of the walls, North, East, South and West gates and the Principia in the centre. It is different to normal though as the example in the model was primarily a supply base so it has more granaries and fewer barracks blocks. 

Below - A marker at the site of the North Gate. In the trees is the River Wharf.

Below - Information board in the fort site between All Saints Church and the site of the North Gate. (Click to enlarge)

Below - A bit of wall survives around the North West corner of the fort. Being in a populated area the stone was inevitably reused after the fort was abandoned to a greater extent than seen in the forts along the more rural locations of Hadrian's Wall. The remains of wall seen would have been the core of the wall, on the edges of the wall there would have been neat rows of faced stones.

The first fort here was abandoned around the time of Hadrian's Wall's construction as at the time the area was considered sufficiently Romanized and the resources were more needed at the empire's northern frontier. Relations with the Brigante tribe deteriorated though and the fort was reestablished. 

Below - The section of wall at the North West of the fort looking towards the Manor House Museum. 

The Ilkley Manor House Museum is set in a manor house dating from around 1390. It was built where barracks blocks of the Roman fort would have stood. The museum features items found at the fort site, though unfortunately the museum only opens at a weekend so I didn't visit it on this occasion.

Below - Another information board close to the surviving piece of wall.

Below - All Saints Church, built on the site of the fort's Principia.

Below - Inside the church are a series of 8th Century stone crosses that previously stood nearby and have been moved in to the church to protect them from erosion. 

Below - Behind the crosses is some stonework from an earlier phase of the church, this reused stone from the Roman fort and remnants of Roman inscriptions could be seen on the stones.

Below - Information on the reused Roman stonework (click to enlarge)

I continued walking around the car park where I was hoping there might be a marker for the site of the south gate but couldn't see anything. The main shopping streets to the south of the car park would have been built on the site of the Viccus, the civilian settlement that would have grown up around the fort. 

Derby Litchurch Lane Works

A walk around the Derby Litchurch Lane works during the Greatest Gathering event

Just over a year ago one of the highlights of the Railway 200 events was the Greatest Gathering at Alstom's Derby Litchurch Lane works. The event was reminiscent of the works open days that were commonplace before the privatisation of the railways, though on a much bigger scale. Aside from the displays of modern and heritage locomotives, it was a chance to see inside the UK's last large scale train building site (with other UK works doing little more than final assembly on German, Spanish or Japanese built trains). The event was able to take place at the site due to a downturn in train building at the time. Alstom had completed orders for trains based on its Aventra design, with just an add on order of ten units for the Elizabeth Line to be constructed. Work had begun on refurbishing Cross Country's Voyager fleet and new HS2 trains were still at the development stage.

1914 Map (bottom right of map)

1914 Map (top right of map)

Google Map

The works was never a locomotive works, it began as the Midland Railway's Carriage and Wagon Works. Derby had a locomotive works to the north of the carriage and wagon works, however that closed in 1990 and the site of it is today occupied by Pride Park industrial estate and Derby College, the latter retaining a couple of the historic buildings.

The modern works is recognisable from that shown on the old maps with a few of the buildings have been replaced by more modern structures more suitable for the modern fixed formation multiple unit trains.

Below - A map of the site seen on one of the walls during the event (click to enlarge).

 

Below - Entrance to the site from Litchurch Lane itself and A Shop, on the bottom left of the above map.

Below - BR Standard 73129, built at the nearby Derby Locomotive Works. The building behind is the K Shop. The more modern works buildings can be seen to the left, similar brick buildings would previously have occupied that area.

Below - The front of the K Shop.

Below - The A Shop.

Below - The T1 Shop, used for a recently completed contract to supply mono rail vehicles to Cairo.

Below - 46115, an LMS locomotive but one built by North British in Glasgow (site visit). The V Shop can be seen to the right, on the left can be seen the hard standing for pallets of panels and other components used to construct new trains.

In the following section there is a bit of my own guess work as to how the items seen in the works buildings fit in with the train building process. Please comment below if you know otherwise.

Below - Containers of panels for new train bodies seen across one of the transversers from the shop in which they would be assembled.

A road / rail vehicle used to move the parts around the works.

Below - The panels that are welded together.

Below - One of the roof sections in the jig in which it is assembled.

Below - The welding jig used to assemble the sections of panels.

Below - Some of the electrical components.

Below - The jigs on which side, roof and floor components would be put together to form a body shell.

Below - Here's one we made earlier. One of Greater Anglia's class 720 Aventra units.

Below - A Cross Country Voyager in for overhaul, These units were largely built in Bombardier's Bruge works with some final assembly at Crofton (site visit). The works usually just builds new trains but has taken on this work between orders for new stock.

Below - Midland Railway 1000, built in Derby Loco works.

Below - One of the traversers.

Below - A turntable is maintained on the site. It is presumably occasionally required to turn vehicles.

Below - Turning the clock back, the works originally built locomotive hauled coaching stock for the Midland Railway, London Midland and Scottish Railway and British Railways. Multiple unit construction began in the 1930s with what became the Class 502 units for Merseyside.

Below 44932. This was built at Horwich (site visit), behind is the U Shop.

Below - Inside the U Shop are examples of the PEP and Mk3 units of classes 507, 455 and 317 (all York built)

Below - Class 465 unit from the Networker family of units, this particular unit was built at Metro Cammell in Birmingham. 

Below - Aventra class 345 unit for the Elizabeth Line seen on the works test track.

Below - On the corner of the G Shop (bottom right on the above map) is the Training Academy.

Below - A class 730 bodyshell and cab in the training academy.

Below - The venerable class 37 locos often haul new trains out of the works, though in this case it had brought a Spanish built Northern class 331 here for the event.

Below - Now outside the works site these former works offices on London Road have been put to new use as a school.

Below - The LMS lettering can be seen above the former doorway. After the grouping of 1923 the LMS built a few new offices as it brought together departments from the railways it took over resulting in a few grand Art Deco buildings such as those at Euston and Leeds.