Under the
iron roof.

Thornton's Arcade opened in 1877 — Leeds's oldest covered shopping arcade. Charles Thornton, the same showman who built the Varieties Music Hall round the corner, lined the passage with wrought-iron columns, a glass roof, and twenty-odd small shopfronts. It's Grade II listed now. Unit 20 is ours.

Five chairs. Five barbers — Jack, Jackie, Danny, Macca, Oggy. Studio Twelve opened here in 2022 because the arcade still does what Thornton meant it to do: catch the foot traffic between Briggate and the Headrow, give people a reason to step off the high street for fifteen minutes.

The work is modern Leeds — clean fades, scissor cuts, mid-length texture, a beard when you want one. No hot-towel theatre, no chrome pillar pole, no Brooklyn beard-bro pretence. Walk in, sit down, talk if you want to.

One thing that's quietly annoyed us for a while: most bookings come through Booksy, which charges a per-booking commission on top of a monthly fee. We've been raising prices £2 across the board to absorb it. This site is the start of routing more bookings direct.