Abbey House’s 1152 Club Showcases ‘Literature in Leeds’ Exhibition

Key Points

• The 1152 Club is a free, drop‑in history and heritage talks series at Abbey House Museum in Kirkstall, Leeds, designed specifically for people aged 55 and over.​
• The talks are hosted in the Gatehouse at Abbey House Museum, with no booking required and seats allocated on a first‑come, first‑served basis.​
• The series forms part of Leeds Museums and Galleries’ wider community outreach offer, aimed at supporting older residents’ engagement with local history and culture.​
• The 1152 Club runs as a regular programme through the year, with future dates also advertised for early 2026 as a continuing over‑55s heritage talks series.​
• This edition of the 1152 Club focuses on the 2025–26 temporary exhibition “Literature in Leeds: Prose, Poetry and Plays” at Abbey House Museum.​
• “Literature in Leeds: Prose, Poetry and Plays” is a community display celebrating Leeds writers from historical crime fiction to contemporary poetry, plays and screenwriting.​
• The exhibition runs from 1 July 2025 to March 2026 and is included within standard admission to Abbey House Museum.​
• Assistant Community Curator Pat Bourne, who works across Abbey House Museum and Kirkstall Abbey, leads this 1152 Club session and introduces the themes of the exhibition.​
• The display brings together loans from Leeds‑linked writers, including notebooks, laptops, word processors, iPods, minidiscs, flyers and other material showing their writing processes and inspirations.​
• Contributors to the exhibition include historical crime novelist Chris Nickson, poet Clare Wigzell, writer and activist Khadijah Ibrahiim, short story writer SJ Bradley, writer and performer Becky Cherriman, novelist Jennifer Saint and screenwriter Lisa Holdsworth, alongside tributes to figures such as Alan Bennett.​
• Abbey House Museum presents the exhibition within its evocative recreated Victorian streets, linking contemporary and historical literary voices to Leeds’ industrial and social past.​
• Attendees at the 1152 Club talk are offered Pay As You Feel tea, coffee and biscuits as part of the session, further underlining the programme’s focus on accessibility and social connection for older people.​

The 1152 Club at Leeds’ Abbey House Museum is spotlighting the city’s writers and literary heritage in a new over‑55s talk led by Assistant Community Curator Pat Bourne, ahead of a major 2025–26 exhibition titled

“Literature in Leeds: Prose, Poetry and Plays”. 

the free drop‑in session invites older residents to explore how local authors, poets and playwrights have chronicled Leeds life, while enjoying an informal heritage talk with Pay As You Feel refreshments in the historic setting of Abbey House.​

What is the 1152 Club and who is it for?

The 1152 Club is described by Leeds Museums and Galleries as a free history and heritage talks series hosted at Abbey House Museum for people aged 55 and over. As outlined in the official museum listing, it is a drop‑in programme where attendees “just turn up”, with seats allocated on a first‑come, first‑served basis and no booking required.​

According to the “Community at Abbey House Museum and Kirkstall Abbey” information page, the club forms part of a broader offer of community engagement activity, with Abbey House specifically running

“a free, drop in heritage and history talks series (the 1152 Club) for the over 55s which runs monthly”.

As promoted in a separate listing on Visit Leeds, the 1152 Club is further described as “a free, non‑bookable history and heritage talks series” at Abbey House Museum, emphasising its ongoing role as an accessible cultural space for older adults.​

How and when does the 1152 Club run?

Leeds Museums and Galleries’ events page for “1152 Club: Talks at Abbey House Museum” shows that the series takes place on Tuesday mornings in the Gatehouse at Abbey House Museum, with sessions typically scheduled from 10.15 to 11.15. The listing highlights multiple dates over the winter period, reinforcing that the club is a recurring event rather than a one‑off talk.​

On the broader community information page, Abbey House Museum notes that the 1152 Club “runs monthly”, aligning with the pattern of dates advertised and positioning the club as a regular fixture in the museum diary. A later Visit Leeds listing for “The 1152 Club: over 55s heritage talks series” extending into early 2026 confirms that the programme is intended to continue beyond 2025 as a standing part of the museum’s outreach to older audiences.​

What is the ‘Literature in Leeds’ exhibition?

As set out in Leeds Museums and Galleries’ dedicated exhibition page, “Literature in Leeds: Prose, Poetry and Plays” is a community display at Abbey House Museum running from 1 July 2025 to 6 March 2026. The exhibition is included in standard admission and is billed as

“a community display celebrating Leeds writers, from historical fiction to thought‑provoking poetry, and plays”,

drawing together voices from across the city and beyond.​

The museum explains that the exhibition

“brings together loans from writers, from notebooks and word processors to items that have inspired them, to writing implements from our own collections, and objects related to themes in their works”.

This mix of personal artefacts and collection items is intended to show how authors work, what influences their writing and how Leeds’ streets, industries and communities have been represented in prose, poetry and drama.​

Which Leeds writers are featured in the display?

In the exhibition outline, Leeds Museums and Galleries lists a number of named contributors whose work and personal items appear in the “Literature in Leeds” display. Among them is historical crime fiction author Chris Nickson, described as an author whose books “focus on Leeds history from the 17th to 19th centuries”, linking crime narratives with the city’s evolving past.​

The museum further notes that poet Clare Wigzell contributes material that “draws on Kirkstall Abbey and its depictions by Romantic artists such as Turner”, directly tying the poetry on show to the nearby abbey landscape and visual art traditions. Writer and cultural organiser Khadijah Ibrahiim is said to have loaned items which

“reflect her writing process and output, from laptops to ipods, from minidiscs to flyers for events like Rootz Runnin and Leeds Young Authors poetry slams”,

signalling the exhibition’s interest in spoken‑word and performance‑based literature.​

How broad is the range of literary forms represented?

The exhibition description states that the community display covers a spectrum of literary forms including novels, short stories, poetry, plays and screenwriting. Short story writer SJ Bradley is mentioned, with some of their work represented in the gallery by a Stone Chat from the museum’s collections, reflecting themes and imagery present in their fiction.​

Writer and performer Becky Cherriman is highlighted for work that “touches on themes such as women’s history and industrial working conditions”, echoing social histories that are also explored through Abbey House’s Victorian street settings. Leeds Museums and Galleries also lists novelist Jennifer Saint, whose fiction “looks at Ancient Greece and the lives of ordinary women in those times”, as well as screenwriter Lisa Holdsworth, representing contemporary screen‑based storytelling with Leeds connections.​

How does the exhibition connect with well‑known Leeds names?

Alongside contemporary and emerging voices, the exhibition notes that it

“also pay[s] tribute to the greats of living memory such as playwright and author Alan Bennett”.

This acknowledgement connects the community display to one of Leeds’ most internationally recognised literary figures, whose plays, memoirs and fiction have been widely acclaimed over several decades.​

By situating tributes to Bennett within a broader community display rather than a stand‑alone retrospective, the curation frames Leeds’ literary heritage as a continuum that stretches from household names to local writers working in community settings, festivals and small presses. This approach positions the exhibition as both celebratory and inclusive, highlighting how nationally known authors and grassroots voices share a common city backdrop.​

What role does Assistant Community Curator Pat Bourne play?

According to a public professional profile on LinkedIn, Patrick (Pat) Bourne has served as Assistant Community Curator with Leeds Museums and Galleries since 2014, working across Abbey House Museum and Kirkstall Abbey. A social media profile on X (formerly Twitter) similarly identifies him as “Assistant Community Curator at Abbey House Museum & Kirkstall Abbey”, reflecting a remit that combines historical interpretation with community engagement.​

As indicated in promotional material for Abbey House community activity, Assistant Community Curators are central to the design and delivery of programmes such as the 1152 Club, connecting exhibition content with local audiences through talks and discussion. In this edition of the 1152 Club, the museum states that the session “focuses on the 2025–26 Abbey House temporary exhibition ‘Literature in Leeds: Prose, Poetry and Plays’, with Assistant Community Curator Pat Bourne”, formally linking his role to the event.​

How does Abbey House Museum frame the setting for literature?

Leeds Museums and Galleries describe Abbey House Museum as a space where visitors can “be transported back to the 19th century and stroll the Victorian streets with the authentically recreated shops, pub and houses”. Within this environment, the “Literature in Leeds” display is installed as part of a sequence of galleries that explore Leeds’ social history, enabling writers’ objects and stories to sit alongside everyday artefacts from the city’s past.​

The exhibition materials suggest that objects related to themes in the writers’ works are drawn from the museum’s own collections, creating visual and material echoes between the recreated Victorian streets and the narratives captured in contemporary novels, poems and plays. This curatorial approach allows older visitors attending the 1152 Club talk to situate the literary material in spaces that may resemble streets, shops or workplaces remembered from their own lives or those of their parents and grandparents.​

Why is the 1152 Club significant for older residents?

The community overview explains that Abbey House Museum and Kirkstall Abbey run projects aimed at tackling social isolation, improving wellbeing and fostering learning among local communities, with the 1152 Club specifically aimed at those aged 55 and over. A free, drop‑in format with Pay As You Feel refreshments reduces financial and logistical barriers to participation, aligning with wider cultural sector priorities around inclusion and accessibility for older people.​

For this edition of the 1152 Club, the focus on local literature allows older attendees to connect personal memories of Leeds with representations of the city in fiction and poetry, as well as to hear about writers whose work draws on places such as Kirkstall Abbey. By anchoring the session in a live exhibition, the museum also creates an opportunity for participants to explore the gallery spaces before or after the talk, deepening their engagement with both the objects on display and the stories behind them.​

How does this event fit within wider cultural programmes in Leeds?

The “Literature in Leeds: Prose, Poetry and Plays” display is listed on cultural information platforms such as Arts Together, which categorises it under “Writing” events and describes it as

“a community display celebrating Leeds writers, from historical fiction to thought‑provoking poetry, and plays”.

Its presence on such platforms places the Abbey House exhibition within a broader network of literary and arts activity across the city, including festivals, workshops and performances.​

At the same time, listings on Visit Leeds for the 1152 Club highlight how the heritage talks series complements other museum events and city‑wide campaigns to support older people’s access to the arts. By tying a regular over‑55s heritage club to a major temporary exhibition, Abbey House Museum underscores its dual role as both a guardian of historical collections and a convenor of contemporary cultural conversations in Leeds.​