Leek – North Staffordshire Heritage

Can You Help Give Leek’s Nicholson Institute a New Image?

Leek’s Nicholson Institute is looking for people who live in the Staffordshire Moorlands to help shape its future.

If you are enthusiastic about local museums, heritage and culture, this is your chance to help make the Nicholson Museum more vibrant and inclusive.

Since May 2025, volunteers have been meeting to explore how the museum can be given a new image.

Four subgroups have been formed. These are Visitor Experience & Museum Operations, Content Development & Programming, Fundraising & Income Generation and Marketing & Audience Development.

New subgroups are being created to focus on education and the museum shop.

More volunteers are needed to join all these subgroups.

John Louis Petit – A Staffordshire Artist

“When I started working at Buxton Museum and Art Gallery, I was given a tour of the stores and instantly spotted watercolours by the same artist, the Rev. John Louis Petit.”

Lost Painter in the Peak

Memory Lane – Leek Woolworths

Woolworths stores were located on the High Street in towns and cities throughout North Staffordshire and South Cheshire. Affectionately known as “Woolies,” they were like an Aladdin’s Cave and carried a wide range of stock at reasonable prices.

Woolies Buildings - Then and Now

13 Market Place, Leek, Staffs ST13 5AA

Woolworths opened in Leek in 1931 in a former hotel. You can see it in the below photo from the 1990s. If you are wondering what is going on it this photo, it’s the Leek Fire Brigade attempting a Guinness book of records event. They had to cut a car up and pass each piece through a tyre in the quickest time.

Leek Woolworths 1990s