Back to my old Uni

I studied Textile Chemistry at Leeds, and needing to do some desk research into the properties of a polymer I wanted to use in a new product, I returned the other day. Being an 'old boy' the cheerful librarians were happy to let me still use all the libraries, and even borrow books if I wished. 

The main landmark building, the Parkinson building is just the same as it was, but a few new buildings threw me, so I got lost wandering around.

Leeds was once a huge centre for the wool industry, so the Textile Department stands right in the middle of the university. It came first, and the university came after :

I couldn't resist having a poke around, and the smell in the corridors hadn't changed. Some of the labs have now been turned into design studios, and a lot of the textile machinery had gone, but they still had the same space where they used to extrude fibres :

It was enjoyable walking around and seeing the clever students creating new knitted designs on V-bed machines or screen-printing in the print room.  I learnt to print in this room too, and still have a few of my prints hidden away in a drawer.

I'm sure the levitating lady wasn't there when I was a student. However as a nice touch she's floating over a garden planted with plants people used to extract dyestuffs from, such as madder, foxgloves, marigolds, etc :

My desk research only took an hour or two, while wandering round my old Uni and seeing how it's changed took much longer...