Darren Scotland, a designer and illustrator based in Cross Gates, has been drawing some of the places in his neighbourhood. One look at his work and we had to find out more. Here’s what he told us:
It wasn’t really conceived as a collection. The Assembly was the first one. After drawing a lot of homes, I wanted to try my hand at something a bit different. So I drew it and gave them a framed copy.
Since then, I’ve added 11 more local businesses — some commissioned, others gifted.
There was no grand plan really, but somewhere along the line I realised I was actually starting to document the area.
Now there are 12 – a florist, barber shop, chip shop, an optician, a jeweller, bars and restaurants. Some are relatively new; some have been here for decades. Together, they’ve become a little picture of a community.
One of them is no longer here. That feels increasingly poignant.
These are ordinary buildings in the sense that thousands of people probably pass them every week without giving them much thought. But they’re also the backdrop to an enormous number of people’s lives.
That’s really what Ace of Place has become about. Not buildings for the sake of buildings. Places that matter.
Why I draw places
Ace of Place actually started with my own house.
We bought a ‘fixer-upper’, so five years into our renovation, I drew the place to celebrate us finally getting it done!
Friends saw it hanging in our hallway and started asking if I could draw theirs.
Then people I didn’t know started asking.
Before too long, I had a little thing going, and it became clear that people weren’t really asking me to draw the ‘fancy’ places. It was much more about the memories and feelings attached to the buildings than the buildings themselves.
And I think that’s why I’ve been so interested in capturing the places around Cross Gates.
These are the places where we make memories, experience milestones and live our lives.
How the collection happened
We moved to Cross Gates back in 2013. We had no connection to the place really, but over time we’ve built a life here, and I now run Ace of Place from a little studio at the bottom of my garden.
I’ve drawn places all over the country, but this is home now.
The collection has grown one at a time, with no grand plan at the start.
Early on, it was just places I thought would be cool to draw. Over time, I’ve been able to get the community more involved.
Once I have a subject — whether it’s commissioned or just somewhere I’ve picked to draw — I’ll speak to the owners, try to learn a bit about them, what’s important to them and where to pay the most attention.
I’ll then take some shots to work from, draw it from scratch, show them a proof, make any adjustments, send it to print, frame it and drop it off for them.
That’s normally my favourite part; seeing their faces when they see it in print is always a real moment. The work often becomes a prompt for stories, and spending a bit of time with them and hearing some of those feels like a real privilege.
The Stories Behind the Twelve Places
The Assembly (pictured above)
The first one I drew. After previously living across town in places like Horsforth and Chapel Allerton, The Assembly felt like the sort of place that could have comfortably sat in either.
AoP was still very much a side hustle at the time, and Matt is such a welcoming guy that I just thought I’d draw it for him as a bit of a challenge — and to try something other than a house!
The Plant Collection
The Plant Collection followed. Again, it was somewhere I actually used — I’d go for coffee with my little boy and his mate on their days off from nursery. Fee and Tom are both such lovely people, so it felt like another obvious one to draw.
This one has taken on a significance I couldn’t have anticipated at the time, because The Plant Collection has since closed. So now the portrait captures something that isn’t there anymore, which makes it feel a bit more significant.
I’m not pretending I’m creating some comprehensive historical archive of Cross Gates — I’m just a bloke drawing places I like — but it was probably the first time I realised the drawings were doing something else, too. They were capturing these places at a moment in time.
Businesses change, shopfronts change and sometimes places you assume will always be there, suddenly aren’t.
Dee’s Barbers
Dee’s came next. She’s a playground buddy and it’s where I take my son for his haircut — she’s so good with him. I also figured it would be a great place for lots of people to sit and stare at my work for a bit, too!
Dee’s is exactly the sort of building I love drawing: not some celebrated piece of architecture, but somewhere instantly recognisable to the people who pass it all the time. And I think that’s important. A place doesn’t have to be architecturally significant to mean something to people.
The Style Council
This was a commissioned piece by Paul. I was kinda worried I might not be ‘cool’ enough for his place — he’s cutting footballers’ hair and his barber shop is full of music and football memorabilia. So it was very cool that he asked me to draw it. I still see the portrait occasionally popping up on my feed now, which is awesome.
One of the things I really enjoy about drawing these businesses is how different they all are. The signage, colours, windows and all the little details give each place its own personality.
I’m not trying to redesign or idealise them. I want somebody who knows the place to look at the finished portrait and immediately think, ‘Yep, that’s it.’ That’s the thing that matters.
HIT Coffee
Their café is part of Cross Gates train station, and the area is currently in the middle of some major infrastructure changes. The train line is being electrified, so last year the bridge over to the station was demolished and rebuilt. It put the station out of action for several weeks at a time and made simply getting to HIT massively more difficult.
I’d seen them posting in local Facebook groups, reminding everyone that they were very much still open for business and encouraging people to keep coming. I popped in for the odd coffee myself, of course, but I just thought: I’ll draw them a portrait to say, ‘Hey, I see you. Hang in there.’
I made a bit more of this one on socials too because I figured a bit of extra visibility could only be a good thing. The community seemed to really get behind them, and it was awesome to see so many people showing their support. If I’m ever jumping on a train, I’ll always make time to pop in.
Arts & Flowers
After HIT, I decided to jump on the local Facebook group again — this time to ask in advance, ‘Where should I draw next?’ The response was overwhelming: ‘Arts & Flowers!’ It was a florist I’d used on the odd occasion but never thought too deeply about.
Turns out they have an amazing story, too. They’ve been on the high street for more than 50 years. Kirstie’s dad started the business almost on a whim, and now she runs it alongside her daughter Leah — three generations!
They have a new place literally being built down the road, with space for the florist and a small café. It sounds incredible, but it also means the current shop will soon disappear.
What better way to celebrate the end of an era than to give them a portrait of it — mossy gutters included!
Oceans
What I love about this one is how it demonstrates the connectivity of the community. I’d been posting about Arts & Flowers on socials and, literally on my way home from dropping off their print, I nipped into Oceans for a scallop butty — it was late in the afternoon and I was famished!
George, the owner, clocked me and asked, ‘Hey, are you that guy that draws places? Could you draw this place for me?’
Oceans is somewhere I’ve loved since we first landed in Cross Gates. Fish and chips eaten straight from the wrapping on the floor during the early days of our renovation, and now a go-to on a Friday night, when neither of us can be bothered to cook!
What looks relatively simple at first glance was actually one of the more complex drawings I’ve done. The masonry around the windows and below the roofline is beautiful, and there’s plenty going on with the extended frontage, too.
We ended up going pretty big with the print — 50 × 50cm — to make sure all that detail was visible. Seeing the work at that scale was probably the first time I thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be cool to see all of these together, at this size?’
Spectacular Eyewear
Another commission that came off the back of the Arts & Flowers piece. What’s lovely about this one is that it was actually commissioned by Richard, who lived in the flat above, as a gift for the owners, Rachel and Dave.
The building itself is deceptively interesting. There’s the big purple fascia, the symmetry of the windows, the tiled frontage and loads of little details you probably wouldn’t notice unless you really stopped and looked.
That’s one of the things I love about drawing places. I look at buildings in a way I never did before. And when you show the finished portrait back to people who know the place, they often start looking at it differently too. That’s a lovely part of the process.
OUT-OUT
Another popular choice on the group page. This place popped up a few years ago and it’s a great little bar. Again, I didn’t know much about it before doing the drawing but meeting Chris, hearing about him getting it set up and realising the giant mural on the wall is actually autobiographical was so cool.
Pintxos Naki
Pintxos Naki has been part of the Cross Gates scene for years with his place over the road, La Cantina, and I’ve got to know him a bit through one of our neighbours.
I know how much went into getting Pintxos off the ground. It was literally years in the making, with planning, objections and delay after delay. When it finally opened, it brought something a bit different to the area, and watching it find its feet has been amazing. We love eating there.
I’ve never wanted this to become a nostalgic exercise where everything old is automatically good and everything new somehow matters less.
Places are constantly being made.
Head Office
Claire got in touch, and it was pretty obvious, pretty quickly, that Head Office was exactly the kind of place Ace of Place was built for. A proper hub of the community and a business Claire had run for 12 years, after buying it from her mentor.
The relationships she’s built with her customers inside those walls were really what we were celebrating. When I popped in to drop the finished piece off, seeing her proudly showing it to whoever happened to be in the salon at the time was just awesome.
Uttley’s
The latest piece, and one of the best stories.
Again, I asked the local Facebook group: ‘Tell me about a place that makes Cross Gates feel like home.’ The response for Uttley’s was almost unanimous. Turns out, they’ve been there for 90 years! It’s one of those places that, for most of us, has just kinda ‘always existed’.
I nipped in to introduce myself and the project and was lucky enough to meet the owner, Stephen, and his sister, Linda.
Stephen’s in his 60s now and has worked there since he was 14. His dad passed the business down to him, having inherited it himself from his mentor, Mr Uttley — whose name still carries forward today.
Again, it’s a pretty ordinary building at first glance. But spend a minute looking at the window, the signage and all those little details and you start to get a glimpse of the years of history in there. I love that.
There’s something wonderful about a business surviving for that length of time while the world around it changes. And there’s something equally wonderful about discovering how much affection people have for a place simply by asking the question.
It felt like the right portrait to bring the collection to twelve.
Bringing the collection together
There was and is no great plan, but seeing all twelve together has changed how I feel about them.
Individually, they’re drawings of businesses.
Together, they’re something else.
I think they start to tell a story about the community — the lives that have been lived in these buildings and how those places shape what an area feels like. Not the story. There are far too many places missing for that, and I’m not claiming these twelve businesses are somehow the definitive Cross Gates dozen.
But they do tell us something. There are people pouring their heart and soul into these places, building businesses and becoming part of the community around them. That’s just dead nice to celebrate and share with people.
Putting them all together physically somewhere in Cross Gates would be awesome. Seeing the collection at scale would be incredible for me but, more importantly, giving people locally the chance to see it and add their own stories would be really special.
Because ultimately, the interesting bit isn’t what I think about these places. It’s what they mean to everybody else.
And there are definitely more places still to draw.
About Ace of Place
Ace of Place is my illustration studio, based in Cross Gates, Leeds.
I draw bold, graphic portraits of places that matter to people — homes, shops, cafés, businesses and everything in between.
Most of my work is commissioned, whether it’s someone celebrating a much-loved family home, marking a move or milestone, or a business wanting to capture a place they’ve poured everything into.
Every portrait is drawn from scratch from reference photographs, before being printed as a fine-art giclée print and, if needed, framed by me in my studio.
Links and contact for Darren Scotland
Ace of Place Website here.
Instagram here.
Facebook here.
Tel: 07967 129802
Email: [email protected]
Photography by Darren Scotland.
Editor’s note: Has Darren prompted you to think about a particular building? I found myself realising there are some, along the years, that I wish I’d captured in images they deserve for the memories we made within their walls.
