The Fforde Grene was a public house and music venue located in the Harehills district of the city of Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. It is now an ethnic supermarket and online grocer, CC Continental Supermarket.
It hosted many bands before they became famous, including The Sex Pistols, [1] U2, Simple Minds, Dire Straits, Diamond Head, Be Bop Deluxe, Def Leppard, and The Rolling Stones and artists including Bo Diddley. [2]
Be Bop Deluxe played the venue to a packed house of fans who became incensed that the landlord would not allow an encore, resulting in a riot. The police were called to find the carpet under a sea of broken glass and the furniture smashed to matchwood. The band's gear was untouched.
Built in 1938, the pub closed its doors in July 2004 and is now one of the UK's largest ethnic supermarkets and online grocer which opened in 2007 as CC Continental Supermarket. [3] [4]
The patrons of Fforde Grene were an inspiration for Chumbawamba's classic "Tubthumping." [5]
The pub took its name from a director of Melbourne's Brewery (a forerunner of Tetleys) who could trace his ancestry back to a 13th-century relative called Richard del Fforde who lived in a house called Fford Grene. [6]
This venue was at the busy junction of Roundhay Road and Easterly Road A58 and Harehills Lane (B6159). This junction is still named the "Fforde Grene Junction"
The name of the pub was to lend itself to a tram stop on the proposed Leeds Supertram project. [7] This project was abandoned in 2004 owing to spiralling costs. [8]
In 2007 it opened to the public as CC Continental Supermarket, an ethnic retail supermarket, providing fresh meat, vegetables and world foods.
Scarcroft is a village and civil parish 6 miles (10 km) north east of Leeds city centre in the City of Leeds metropolitan borough, West Yorkshire, England. The village lies on the main A58 road between Leeds and Wetherby. It had a population of 1,153 increasing to 1,194 at the 2011 Census.
The A58 is a major road in Northern England running between Prescot, Merseyside and Wetherby, West Yorkshire.
Harehills is an inner-city area of east Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. It is about 1 mile (1.6 km) northeast of Leeds city centre. Harehills is between the A58 and the A64. It sits in the Gipton & Harehills ward of Leeds City Council and the Leeds East parliamentary constituency, between Burmantofts and Gipton, and adjacent to Chapeltown.
Chapeltown is a suburb of north-east Leeds, in West Yorkshire, England. It is part of the Leeds City Council Ward of Chapel Allerton. It is approximately one mile north of Leeds city centre.
Gipton is a suburb of east Leeds, West Yorkshire, England, between the A58 to the north and the A64 to the south.
The Leeds Carnival, also called the Leeds West Indian Carnival or the Chapeltown Carnival, is one of the longest running West Indian carnivals in Europe, having been going since 1967. The carnival is held in the Chapeltown and Harehills parts of Leeds every August bank holiday weekend. Attendance is estimated at 150,000.
The Leeds Supertram was a proposed light rail/tram system in Leeds and West Yorkshire in England. It would have been a three-line, 17-mile (27 km) system with 50 stations. It received provisional government approval in 2001, and was specifically for corridors ill-served by the existing heavy rail network. Supertram would have been 75% funded from the public sector, with final contracts for construction and a 27-year operating concession due to have been awarded in 2003. By 2004, disquiet about rising costs had caused the scheme to be scaled back, and it was finally cancelled in 2005 by the Transport Secretary, Alistair Darling.
The Otley Run is a pub crawl in Leeds, West Yorkshire. The popular route covers Far Headingley, Headingley and Hyde Park areas and commonly continues towards Leeds City Centre.
"Tubthumping" is a song released by British rock band Chumbawamba from their eighth studio album Tubthumper from 1997. It is the band's most successful single, peaking at number two on the UK Singles Chart. It topped the charts in Australia, Canada, Ireland, Italy, New Zealand and reached number six on the US Billboard Hot 100. At the 1998 Brit Awards, "Tubthumping" was nominated for the Brit Award for Best British Single. It sold 880,000 copies in the UK.
The New Penny is a gay pub in The Calls area of Leeds, West Yorkshire. It is reported to be the oldest continually running gay pub in the UK.
The Music in Leeds encompasses a variety of styles and genres, including rock, pop and electronic. While groups like Soft Cell, the Kaiser Chiefs, the Wedding Present, Utah Saints and the Bridewell Taxis have gained success in the mainstream, Gang of Four, the Sisters of Mercy, Chumbawamba and the Mission have helped to define genres like punk rock, gothic rock and post-punk.
Burley is an inner city area of Leeds, West Yorkshire, England, 1 mile (1.6 km) north-west of Leeds city centre, between the A65 Kirkstall Road at the south and Headingley at the north, in the Kirkstall ward.
The Brudenell Social Club is a live music venue and social club in Hyde Park, Leeds, England. While being a social enterprise, it retains the "community atmosphere of its origins as a working men's club". The club is split into three areas—a 400 capacity concert room, a bar area and games room section and a second 400 capacity concert area, known as the Community Room, which opened in 2017.
Lincoln Green is a mainly residential area of Leeds, West Yorkshire, England around Lincoln Green Road, and is adjacent to and southwest of St James's University Hospital. It falls within the Burmantofts and Richmond Hill ward of the City of Leeds Council. The area was given this name in 1954, at the start of major redevelopment by the City Council.
The Hyde Park Picture House is a cinema and Grade II listed building in the Hyde Park area of Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. Built by Thomas Winn & Sons, it opened on 7 November 1914. It features many original features, such as an ornate balcony and external box office, and is believed to be the only remaining gaslit cinema in the world. Following the installation of "comfier seating", the Picture House has a capacity of 275, down from around 587 on opening.
Ainsty is an area of Wetherby, West Yorkshire, England. Ainsty is in the north of Wetherby and runs as far as the border between North and West Yorkshire, to the north of this is Kirk Deighton.
Dunstan Bruce is a British musician and filmmaker who is best known for his work with Leeds-based anarcho-punk band Chumbawamba, of which he was a founding member. He grew up in the northern industrial town of Billingham.
LGBT culture in Leeds, England, involves an active community of people who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender/transsexual. A BBC News Online article published in 2012 stated that, while Leeds City Council has not published statistics relating to the number of LGBT residents, the figure can be estimated at 10% of the overall population, which currently suggests a total of at least 77,000. The tenth year of the Leeds Pride march and celebration, held in 2016, was attended by over 40,000 people.
The Holbeck in Leeds is one of the United Kingdom's oldest working men's clubs, and is thought to be the UK's oldest surviving working men's club.