‘Keen prices, quality goods, friendly service’. Words on the caption of a photo from the Yorkshire Evening Post archive describing what shoppers could expect at Kirkgate Market in the 1970s. It was a decade which proved to be turbulent and traumatic for traders at Europe’s largest covered market. Fire devastated the retail gem in the middle of the decade while a strike at the end of the 1970s meant locked gates. These photos showcase the ups and downs of life at Kirkgate Market during the decade and bring into focus the news stories making the news and how traders bounced back from the brink of despair. Many of the images featured have never been seen before having being digitised from the archive for the first time. READ MORE: Lost city centre landmarks - The Leeds Skywalk LOVE LEEDS? LOVE NOSTALGIA? Join Leeds Retro on facebook YEP RETRO NEWSLETTER: Sign up for our free monthly email digest of Leeds nostalgia
19. Kirkgate Market in the 1970s
Shoopers choose prime fish in the new fish market in November 1976. | YPN Photo: YPN
20. Kirkgate Market in the 1970s
Plenty to attract shoppers at the new fish market in December 1976. | YPN Photo: YPN
21. Kirkgate Market in the 1970s
Frowns on the faces of 250 traders changed to smiles in January 1976 as they heard that a temporary market was not to be built on a car park in New York Street. | YPN Photo: YPN
22. Kirkgate Market in the 1979s
Angry traders demonstrate outside when it was closed in January 1979 because of the National Union of Public Employees' Strike. | YPN Photo: YPN
23. Kirkgate Market in the 1970s
Locked out stallholders protest outside Kirkgate Market in January 1979. | YPN Photo: YPN
24. Enjoyed this gallery?
Share your memories of Kirkgate Market in the 1970s with Andrew Hutchinson via email at: [email protected] or tweet him - @AndyHutchYPN | YPN Photo: YPN