Roundhay Park in the 1980s: The five year fight for a sit down and a cup of tea

A cafe which had catered for generations of families and day trippers ended its life as firewood. The Lakeside Cafe was demolished in October 1981 and its remains burnt at the Park’s annual bonfire and firework display in the November of the same year. The wooden building was a venue for dance before the war and had provided refreshment for thousands since then. Yet it would take more than five years for its replacement to be built and opened owing to prolonged negotiations between Leeds City Council and caterers Giplin Craven. The delays left Elizabeth Nash, chair of Leeds City Council’s Leisure Services, boiling mad. “It’s a ridiculous situation,” she told the YEP in March 1985. “Here we have a park which attracts visitors from all over the world and there is no where for them to sit down and enjoy a cup of tea. The council is trying to provide decent refreshment facilities at all the major parks in the city but at Roundhay Park you have to walk all the way to Canal Gardens for a drink.” The new Lakeside Cafe was eventually opened in June 1987. The main photo and this story is one of 16 which make up this gallery of memories charting life around Roundhay Park in the 1980s. Many of the photos featured have never been seen before having being digitised from the Yorkshire Evening Post archive for the first time. READ MORE: Rare photos take you back to Roundhay Park in the 1950s LOVE LEEDS? LOVE NOSTALGIA? Join Leeds Retro on facebook YEP RETRO NEWSLETTER: Sign up for our free monthly email digest of Leeds nostalgia