CATEGORY · RAINY DAY APPROVED

Galleries & Exhibitions in Leeds

Leeds does galleries without much fuss about it. Kirkstall Abbey, just a couple of miles out, is more ruin than gallery but the café makes up for it once small legs are done exploring. In Bradford, Cartwright Hall is free to wander and sits right by a park and boating lake for afterwards. Out at Saltaire, Salts Mill fills a huge old Victorian mill with free art, shops and Hockney's paintings as the main event. For toddlers, Leeds Industrial Museum at Armley Mills runs drop-in play and seasonal crafts among the old machinery, and it is a couple of miles from the centre. Older kids get more from The Hepworth Wakefield, where under-18s go free and there is proper art making, from the Art Pod to building sessions in the garden. If you want free and indoors, Cartwright Hall and Salts Mill both fit, while Sunny Bank Mills in Pudsey adds hands-on craft workshops and a Saturday mill tour for the history-minded. Leeds Discovery Centre, meanwhile, is worth booking ahead for a look behind the scenes at the museum store.

✓ 7 places★ 3 upcoming events✦ 4 free to visit