Grand designs for historic pub once run by a Leeds United legend

The Commercial on Sweet Street in Holbeck was once owned and run by the late great Peter Lorimer after his retirement in 1987.

The boozer, which was also first headquarters of the Aslef railway union, closed in 2018 and has since been the target of arsonists.

Fast forward to 2025 and the historic pub is proving a talking point again thanks to a mural covering two elevations of the building.

It is the work of Yorkshire-based Kid Acne who is a leading light in the international street art movement.

He has exhibited large-scale artworks across the globe for over twenty years, from Rome and Los Angeles to Beijing and Paris. His work has headlined campaigns for some of the world's leading brands, including Prada, Levi's and Mercedes-Benz.

Kid Acne said: “The mural covers two elevations of The Commercial Inn. The building has a lot of obstacles, which I tried to feed into the composition breakdown to make a lot of those things disappear. When I’m painting on a big scale like this mural, I really try to keep that energy and rawness of the original sketch – that’s the hardest bit.”

“The piece marks a tide change for the area – the start of something new and different. All these northern cities, like Leeds, Manchester and Sheffield, are just an hour apart, and there’s a network of artists across them all. For me, projects like this really help to bridge that gap a little more.”

The artwork depicts Kid Acne’s signature ‘spirit animal’ characters, and the words ‘Positive energy activates constant elevation’ run across the mural, which the street artist hopes will resonate with the audience.

Kid Acne, whose real name is Ed Bradbury, added: “These characters go back to mid-90s. Stylistically, they come from my drawings as a kid, and the headdresses are inspired by Maurice Sendak’s ‘Where The Wild Things Are’. The kids in animal costumes are a way to show different emotions and different temperaments. Each individual character is the size of one of my regular pieces that I paint, so to have that many in a row on the side of The Commercial Inn is really cool. It’s like an army of different personalities from different walks of life.”

Kid Acne’s mural will occupy the northeast corner of the site and the façade of The Commercial for around two years and is part of a major development of the area.

Sweetfields will become a 1.3 million sq ft neighbourhood incorporating over 1,350 new homes and 160,000 sq ft of Grade A office and commercial space, set around a new public square. PLATFORM_ and its investment partner Housing Growth Partnership broke ground on Phase 1 of this new destination in 2024.

It’s tenth development for developer PLATFORM_ and its first mixed-use neighbourhood.

Jean-Marc Vandevivere, CEO at PLATFORM_, said: “Sweetfields is an exciting new development that will transform the local area, and we’re pleased to be working with a world-renowned, Yorkshire-based artist to help bring life back to The Commercial Inn, on what will be such a significant aspect of the site. Close collaboration with Kid Acne and Leeds City Council has enabled us to deliver something iconic to enliven the area while we develop Sweetfields.”