Leeds Bonfire and Fireworks Display Roundhay Park

Spectacular Bonfire and Fireworks Display

Tens of thousands of people are expected to journey to Roundhay Park , Leeds to enjoy the spectacular bonfire and fireworks event.
The Annual Event is held in the Park on Guy Fawkes Night.

The Programme

Friday 5th Nov 2010 Annual Firework Display and Bonfire

Bonfire – Fire lighting at 7.30 pm

Fireworks: Firework Display with music from 8pm

Celebration of Gunpowder Plot Failure

In 1605 Guy Fawkes and his group of terrorist, Thomas Wintour and Robert Catesby, hatched a dastardly plan to kill King James 1. The plan was to kill the King in an attempt to rid the country of its Protestant rulers and restore the Catholic faith.

The plotters secured the lease to a cellar beneath the House of Lords, and Fawkes was placed in charge of the gunpowder (bomb) they had stockpiled there.

The plot was foiled when an anonymous letter was sent to the police by an informer. The authorities promptly searched Westminster Palace during the early hours of 5 November, and found Fawkes guarding the explosives.

Guy Fawkes 13 April 1570 – 31 January 1606

Guy Fawkes (born in York) and a group of co-conspirators
were charged with attempting to blow up King James 1 and the Houses of Parliament in what has become known as the Gunpowder Plot.

Over the next few days, Fawkes was questioned and tortured, and eventually he broke. Immediately before his execution on 31 January, Fawkes jumped from the scaffold where he was to be hanged and broke his neck, thus avoiding the agony of the drawing and quartering that was to follow.

The Guy

Every year since then, November the 5th, has become the date for celebrating this notorious treasonous Gunpowder Plot failure by letting off fireworks and burning an effigy of ‘Guy’ on a bonfire.

The tradition started in 1606, but surprisingly until 1806, the effigy burnt was not, in fact Fawkes but Pope Paul V !, who after the Gunpowder Plot refused to allow Catholics to take the oath of allegiance to the Crown.

Admission

Admission to the Roundhay Park bonfire and firework display is FREE, no tickets required!

Travel

Roundhay Park is on the 2 and 12 circular bus route.
Buses number 12 (Blue Line) take the most direct route via Oakwood.
Buses on route number 2 (Red Line) go a longer way via Moortown Corner.
Bus Routes 2, 12 Roundhay Park or Moortown depart from New Market St., New Briggate in Leeds City Centre Daytime every 10 minutes.


Extra buses are allocated when there is a major event on in Roundhay Park

Event sponsored by Leeds City Council.


Bonfires at the other venues

Middleton Park, East End, Springhead, Bramley and Woodhouse Moor parks – are lit at 7pm, followed by firework displays at 7.30pm.

The Bonfire and Fireworks displays attract more than 80,000 visitors from all over the Yorkshire region.