Traditional barber · Kirkgate, Leeds

The chair is booked, the blade is stropped.

Hoyle & Sons has cut hair on Kirkgate since 1974 — hot towel shaves, skin fades and beard work, every razor stropped and a fresh blade for every customer.
Book the chairWalk-ins welcome
City & Guilds qualifiedSterilised between every chairKirkgate since 1974
TodayNext chair in 20 minutes
From the chair

Three cuts we’re known for

Every one of these is timed, priced and done the same way every time — no surprises when you sit down.

The Kirkgate Skin Fade

£24
Number 1 to skin · 25 minutes
A tight skin fade blended by hand with the clippers, not a guard swap — the blend is the whole job.
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The Traditional Wet Shave

£28
Hot towel · straight razor · 35 minutes
Three hot towels, a proper lather and a stropped blade. The shave your grandfather had, done properly.
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Beard Sculpt & Line-Up

£16
15 minutes · clipper and razor line
A defined edge and a shaped beard in one sitting, finished with the straight razor for a clean line.
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Build your cut

Pick your fade, see the price

Length, finish and beard work — three choices, a real price, and a preview of how tight the blend runs.
01How short?
02Which finish?
03Beard work?
Every finish includes a hot towel and a neck shave — nothing here is an upsell.

Fifty years on the same street

Walter Hoyle opened the shop on Kirkgate in 1974, the year Leeds market still had its old glass roof. His son Michael has run the chair since 1998 and Walter still comes in on Saturday mornings, mostly for the company. We’ve had three addresses on the same forty yards of street and never once moved off it.
What backs every chair

The standards, explained in English

Every barber says they’re qualified. Here is what ours actually means — each one checkable independently of us.

City & Guilds qualified

Michael and Priya hold City & Guilds Level 3 Barbering; Aiden holds Level 2 and is training toward his 3 — not an in-house certificate we printed ourselves.
What the qualification covers

A fresh blade, every time

Every straight razor takes a single-use disposable blade, changed for each customer and disposed of as sharps waste through a registered carrier — not wiped and reused.
Our hygiene routine

Patch tests, when it matters

Any beard dye is patch-tested 48 hours ahead, every time, exactly as the manufacturer’s instructions require — no exceptions for a regular whoever’s asked us to skip it.
Why we always test

Registered and insured

Public liability cover to £2m and registered with Leeds City Council under its Special Treatments licence, which covers close shaving with a razor — the paperwork most shops don’t show you.
See our certificate
What actually happens

Twenty-five minutes, start to finish

Nothing about a haircut needs to feel rushed or vague. This is the order every visit runs in.
  1. On arrival

    The consultation

    Thirty seconds on what you want and what grew out wrong last time — before a single clipper guard goes on.
  2. In the chair

    The cut

    Clippers first, scissors to blend, the straight razor for the line — the same order, every barber, every time.
  3. 10 minutes in

    The check-in

    A pause to check the length is right while there’s still time to change it, not after it’s too late.
  4. 20 minutes in

    The finish

    Hot towel, neck shave, a dust of talc — the part most places skip when they’re running behind.
  5. On the way out

    The mirror check

    A hand mirror, back and sides, before you’re out of the chair. If it’s wrong, it gets fixed there and then.
What the regulars say

Four customers, named with their permission — some of them Saturday regulars since long before we had a website.

DO
D. Okafor
Chapel Allerton

Told them "just tidy it up" and got asked four follow-up questions before a clipper came near me. First time a barber has ever asked what I actually meant by that.

RP
R. Pearson
Kirkgate Market trader

Twenty years I’ve had my Saturday morning slot with Walter, now with Michael. Same chair, same twelve minutes, same conversation about the cricket.

SW
S. Whitfield
Roundhay

Brought my son in for his first proper cut. Aiden had him laughing within a minute and the fade was better than mine.

MI
M. Iqbal
Chapeltown

The patch test for the beard dye felt like overkill until a mate of mine reacted badly to a dye somewhere else. Now I ask every place if they do one — most don’t.

Questions we actually get asked

Including the ones about the blade after your shave.

Both work. Walk-ins are taken in order behind whoever is already booked, and the board by the door shows the wait honestly rather than the "5 minutes" every shop seems to say. Saturdays are the one day we’d book ahead for.

Every straight razor here takes a single-use disposable blade, changed for each customer and never touched by anyone else’s skin. The used blade goes straight into a sharps bin, collected by a registered waste carrier — the same route a clinic uses, not the ordinary bin. Clippers, combs and scissors are wiped and sanitised between every chair, and towels are laundered at 60°C or above.

Because the dyes used in beard colouring carry the same allergy risk as any hair colourant, and a reaction can be serious. We test a small amount on your skin 48 hours before, exactly as the manufacturer’s instructions require. If you’ve had a dye service anywhere in the last six months we can usually work from that test, but a first visit always gets a fresh one.

Both. Michael and Priya hold City & Guilds Level 3 Barbering; Aiden holds Level 2 and is working toward his 3. All three are registered with the National Hairdressers’ Federation, which keeps a public directory you can check us against.

From about five upwards, yes — under-12s are £14 rather than the full £24 skin fade, and we’d rather you booked ahead for a first visit so we can give a slower chair to someone who might be nervous about it.

Both, plus contactless and Apple/Google Pay. No minimum card spend, and no card surcharge — the price on the board is the price on the card machine.

Kirkgate Market’s own car park is two minutes’ walk and is free after 6pm and on Sundays; on-street pay-and-display runs out at 6pm most days. Leeds train station is a nine-minute walk if you’re coming in that way.

Text or ring with as much notice as you can — there’s no fee for cancelling, we’d just rather know than have an empty chair. Persistent no-shows may be asked to pay when booking in future, which has happened exactly twice since 1974.

Get in the chair

Booked in five minutes, done in twenty-five.

Book online for a set time, or walk in and take your chances on a Saturday — most walk-ins are seen inside twenty minutes.
Book online0113 245 6620
Open six days a week · Last chair 30 minutes before close
Find us

Hoyle & Sons

  • 58 Kirkgate, Leeds LS1 6BY
  • 0113 245 6620
  • Tu-Fr 09:00-18:00, Sa 08:00-17:00, Su 09:00-13:00