Kirkstall Abbey

So, after my talk at Leeds Met in May, I took a wander around the city where I was born, and experimented with my new camera. Some of these pictures are of locations I used in The Untied Kingdom...but as you can see, they look rather different now!

(for a larger version of each picture, click on it. They're pretty high-resolution)

The wonderful glass ceiling of the Victoria Quarter, just outside Harvey Nichols (who do a wonderful breakfast involving crumpets and melted cheese)

The Kirkgate, by which Eve and Harker enter the city. As you can see below...

...it looks somewhat different today!

Approaching Kirkstall Abbey, north of the city centre. It's beside a fairly main road now (which apparently once ran through the nave of the ruined church!) but still incredibly quiet and peaceful.

The Abbey seen from the northeast, looking towards the kitchens and Abbot's quarters.

Approaching the ruined church.

The infirmary (reduced to low stones on the ground now) with the Abbot's lodging behind it.

The east end of the church, where I can only imagine a rather splendid window once dominated. Now, it looks like a rather sinister gaping maw...

The Abbey from the eest.

The nave of the church, where Harker and his squad found soldiers billeted.

All that remains of the guesthouse from which the squad liberated the first computer. Now, I'm not saying Harker levelled it to the ground, but...

A tunnel which probably leads to something prosaic like a drain under the kitchen, but which for my purposes, leads to the tunnels where Eve was imprisoned.

A few more artistic shots of the Abbey...

From the south

Cloisters

Vaulting on the south side of the church.

Pillars in the nave of the church.

The interior of the church, looking east, with my friend Alysia at the end of the path for perspective. That's a big church, right?

In The Untied Kingdom, Harker and the squad visit Kirkstall Abbey a number of times, finding it at the centre of a huge refugee camp. I tried my hardest to find out the layout of the place before it was ruined, and was happy to find nothing to massively contradict me when I visited. Phew! If you're even in Leeds with an afternoon to spare, get the 757 bus to Kirkstall and spend an afternoon wandering around. It's even free to get in. Just don't, you know, get beaten up in in the cellars or lob any grenades around or anything. You're not in an alternate universe now...