Media library

Volunteer Stephen Crabtree uses a microscope to study the slides at the Leeds Discovery Centre. Stored in small, wooden trays, the collection is thousands strong and is being painstakingly reviewed as part of a volunteer project.

Stored in small, wooden trays, the microscope slides collection is thousands strong and is being painstakingly reviewed as part of a volunteer project.

Lizzie Gothorp, Leeds Museums and Galleries’ project placement with the microscope slide containing a crumb of ancient Egyptian bread that was found in a mummy’s tomb in Thebes.

Lizzie Gothorp, Leeds Museums and Galleries’ project placement with the microscope slide containing a crumb of ancient Egyptian bread that was found in a mummy’s tomb in Thebes.

Lizzie Gothorp, Leeds Museums and Galleries’ project placement with the microscope slide containing a crumb of ancient Egyptian bread that was found in a mummy’s tomb in Thebes.

A slide containing a Victorian copy of The Times, miniaturised so that all 12,500 words can only be read with the aid of extreme magnification.

Specimens of microscopic sea creatures found during one of history’s most renowned and influential scientific voyages are also among the amazing array of slides. The HMS Challenger left Sheerness on the north Kent coast in 1872, embarking on an unprecedented mission to circumnavigate the globe and comprehensively explore the deep seas for the first time. Examples found in the Leeds collection today include small disc-like fossils called orbitolites which were gathered 18 fathoms down off the coast of Fiji.

The collection also includes slides containing spiders and insects from around the world, carefully preserved more than a century ago.

The morsel of ancient Egyptian bread alongside slides containing spiders and insects from around the world, carefully preserved more than a century ago.

An image showing plans for the Middlecross extra care housing scheme in Armley, Leeds.

An image showing plans for the Middlecross extra care housing scheme in Armley, Leeds.