bradford

Bollywood Carmen Live in Bradford

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Bollywood Carmen Live in Bradford

Last night Christine and I joined a few friends to be in the audience for Bollywood Carmen Live, a Bollywood-themed retelling of Bizet’s opera Carmen by BBC Three. It was broadcast live from Bradford city centre, in front of City Hall and in the adjacent City Park.

We managed to find a spot right in front of the main stage, where we got to see most of the dancing; a big screen behind us then showed the other bits (well, most of them). Admittedly the only person in it that I recognised was Meera Syal. It was great fun though. I didn’t take any photos during the broadcast but managed to snap the photo above about an hour beforehand.

Hopefully the show will show off the good side of Bradford – City Park is brilliant and still new to a lot of people. It’s also fitting that the BBC should choose to celebrate 100 years of Bollywood films in Bradford, which is the world’s first designated UNESCO City of Film.

It’s repeated on BBC Three tonight, and it’s also on the BBC iPlayer. You may be able to spot me in the audience.

Disclosure: My employer, the University of Bradford, was a partner in the production.

A day out in Saltaire

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Salts Mill

On Friday both Christine and I had the day off work, and as it was a warm, sunny day, we went to visit the Victorian model village of Saltaire. I probably end up here at least once a year for some reason or other.Mostly to visit Salts Mill – home of many of David Hockney‘s paintings and photographs, as well as some quirky shops. But the village itself is worthy of a stroll around. Saltaire was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2001, and despite being built by Sir Titus Salt, an avid follower of the temperance movement, it now has several nice bars to spend time in.

There’s also Roberts Park, on the other side of the River Aire from the village, which is one of my favourite parks. A major restoration project was completed three years ago and the park now boasts a nice café. When the weather is like it was on Friday, it makes for a great place to sit with a cold drink.In a rare example of organisation, I’ve already uploaded the photos that I took to Flickr for your perusal. At some point, I’ll get around to uploading the rest of the photos from Paris as well…

Save the National Media Museum

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National Media Museum
Photo by National Media Museum, CC licensed.

It’s not often that I ask you, dear readers of this blog, to sign a petition. But please can you take a few seconds of your time to sign a petition to Save the National Media Museum in Bradford.

The museum, along with the National Railway Museum in York, and the Museum of Science and Industry (MOSI) in Manchester, are threatened with closure. Their parent company, Science Museum Group, cannot afford to run all three in addition to the Science Museum in London, due to cuts in funding from central government. It is therefore said that one of these will have to go.

I really, really hope that none of them close. As a child, I loved going to visit them and have also been recently as an adult, and enjoyed them all. Putting the museums against each other in a fight for survival is therefore not helpful.

But, I’m particularly keen for the National Media Museum to stay open. It’s the one big visitor attraction in Bradford city centre, with a strong reputation. Closing it would be an absolute disaster for a city which has fallen on hard times over recent years. Racial tension fuelled riots in the summer of 2001. In 2003, demolition work started on a new shopping centre, to be built by Westfield, but ten years on and there’s just a big hole in the ground. Meanwhile the recession has caused many of Bradford’s other shops to close, leaving even bigger gaps in the city centre.

Last year’s opening of the City Park, with its excellent mirror pool and fountains (a magnet for kids on hot sunny afternoons), was a big step in the right direction and shows that the city does have positive momentum. And, hopefully, work will start on our long-awaited shopping centre this year. But all the good work could be undone if the National Media Museum closes. Because people will stop coming to Bradford, and then more local shops and business will go under. It’s a horrible thing to even contemplate.

So please, sign the petition. And if you’re free tomorrow (Saturday), why not visit the museum? There’ll be a mass ‘visit’ of the museum at around 12pm. It’s free to get in, and it’ll show the powers that be that this museum is important, not just to Bradford but for the country as a whole. It is, after all, part of our national collection.

Moving out of the city

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Hillside above Todmorden

Next month will see Christine and I move in together. Furthermore, it’ll see me moving out of Bradford, which has been my adopted home city for over 8 years (bar a few gaps).

Right now, we’re looking at moving to Sowerby Bridge, a market town in Calderdale which is around 20 minutes away from Bradford by train. It’s quite a nice little town – it’s in the Calder Valley which is quite picturesque and almost all the buildings are stone-built. We haven’t yet settled on a specific house or apartment but we have some viewings over the next couple of weeks.

Compared with Bradford, Sowerby Bridge is very different. Bradford’s population is around 300,000 – Sowerby Bridge is home to around 10,000 people. I’ll also need to start commuting to work, unlike now where it’s within walking distance; that being said, I don’t expect to have to travel more than an hour each way in total, provided the trains behave themselves.

There’s also the issue of broadband internet. Generally the UK is good at providing fast broadband in cities, and I believe Virgin Media is due to roll out its 100 Mbps service in Bradford shortly, but out in more rural areas the speeds available drop quite a bit. The SamKnows Broadband Checker tells me that ADSL Max is available, and I can expect speeds of up to 6 Mbps, but that I’ll have to go with either TalkTalk, BT, or another ISP that has a package through OpenReach Wholesale. There’s no cable either, so no Virgin Media.

Yeah, I know. Trust me to focus on internet availability.

Still, I’m looking forward to a change of scenery. As much as I like Bradford, it would be nice to move somewhere a bit quieter, but still within easy reach of Leeds, Bradford and Manchester – in fact, Manchester and Leeds would be roughly the same distance away.

Bradford Mela 2010

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Avenue

Yesterday I visited the Bradford Mela, an annual festival celebrating Asian culture. It’s held in Peel Park, which is close to where I’m currently living, and having missed it in previous years I decided to pop along.

Peel Park is quite large and the Bradford Mela takes over most of it. As well as a stage, ‘village green’ area and a central avenue, there are several rows of stalls from local and national businesses. You would need at least an hour to just walk around everything.

Despite having an Asian focus, the Mela has become a truly multicultural event and this is reflected both in the organisations present at the event but also the people there – it gave an almost perfect cross-section of Bradford’s population. No one race or background was under or over-represented.

We spent a few hours there and really enjoyed it. It’s on again today until 8pm – otherwise you’ll have to wait until next year.

When 2 become 1 – Bradford stations prologue

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In my ‘Bradford – a tale of two stations‘ post a few weeks ago I mentioned that many plans had been made to connect the city’s two stations together over the years but nothing had come of it.

The latest set of plans have been published by a couple of local businessmen. It would create a new station called ‘Bradford Central’ which would be on the bridge carrying the tracks through the city. This would be linked to the existing bus station at Bradford Interchange but it’s probable that the two railway stations would close under the plans.

The proposed station certainly looks good in the artist drawings, and very little demolition would be necessary – just the Royal Mail depot at Forster Court (which has been earmarked for eventual demolition anyway as far as I am aware). It would take some land from the Westfield development but would have the advantage that the site would be very close to the station – therefore increasing footfall in the proposed shops. There’s even a chance that Westfield would help fund it, as they did in London when their White City shopping centre opened recently; this saw a new railway station, new Tube station and another Tube station extensively refurbished with Westfield putting up a lot of the money.

The projected cost of the scheme would be £100m, which is a lot of money. We’ve just come out of a recession and the massive public fund deficit means that money from central government is probably not going to be very forthcoming.

The design of the station would make any potential expansion difficult – it provides 4 platforms but this is less than the 7 that the two existing stations provide between them. Of course, should the platforms at Bradford Interchange remain open for terminating services then potential capacity problems would be alleviated somewhat. However, adding extra platforms to the new station would be very difficult due to its elevated state, and the probably lack of land to expand into.

Despite all this, I really, really hope that this comes to fruition. The current station at Interchange looks very dark and tired, and needs replacing. Enabling through services, rather than having trains reverse, would make routing trains through Bradford more attractive. And it may be the catalyst that gets the Westfield development back on track and would give people more reason to visit the city. But it’s early days and we’ve been in this situation many times before – I’m not getting my hopes up.

Bradford – a tale of two stations

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A sign outside Bradford Interchange saying 'trains this way'

One of the things often said about Bradford is this:

Bradford has two train stations – but you have to change at Leeds to go anywhere!

While that’s not strictly true, as Bradford does have regular direct services to York, Manchester, Preston, and, from later this month, London, to go to many places outside the north of England it’s necessary to change at Leeds or Manchester. Bradford may have two stations, but both are quite small and only serve regional trains and commuter services – apart from the aforementioned London service starting in 3 weeks time, there are no inter-city services.

It wasn’t supposed to be this way.

First stations

Bradford’s first station was opened in 1846 by the Leeds and Bradford Railway Company, and was a line from Leeds Wellington Street (now Leeds City station) via the Aire Valley and Shipley. Until then, Bradford’s closest station was Brighouse, which was then known as ‘Brighouse for Bradford’, opened in 1840. The station was located off Kirkgate, to the north of the city centre.

In 1850, the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway built another station, known as Bradford Exchange, to the south of the city centre off Hall Ings.

In 1853, the rapidly-expanding Midland Railway took over the Leeds and Bradford Railway, and the first Bradford station was re-built.

Yet another station, Bradford Adolphus Street, was added in 1854, by the Leeds, Bradford and Halifax Junction Railway. This station was short-lived; it was the furthest from the city centre and closed to passengers in 1867; services were diverted to Bradford Exchange. It remained as a goods station until the 1960s, when it was closed, and was demolished in the 1980s when the A650 Wakefield Road was widened.

Rebuilding

With Bradford Exchange taking on Bradford Adolphus Street’s passengers as well, it became necessary to expand the station in the 1880s and a new 10-platform station was built on the same site. Operationally the station acted as two separate stations; part for the Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway and the other for the Great Northern Railway, with separate booking offices.

Mirroring the trend, the Midland Railway’s Bradford station was rebuilt in the 1890s with 6 platforms, and this included the building of a goods station and a hotel, which survives today as the Midland Hotel. From around this time, the station was known as ‘Bradford Market Street’ to differentiate it from the Exchange station. Bradford now had 2 large stations, with 16 platforms between the two.

In the 1900s Midland Railway had completed its Midland Main Line between London and Leeds, and the Settle-Carlisle Line between Leeds and Carlisle, however, it didn’t own the tracks to Leeds and trains were required to reverse. It therefore had an ambitious plan for a new line via its Bradford Market Street station, involving a long tunnel through the city. Trains would therefore be able to operate directly from London to Scotland, via Bradford.

Unfortunately, this never happened; the first world war broke out and this caused the end of the age of prosperity for the railways. In 1923, the multitude of small railway companies were forcibly grouped into four large companies; after the second world war became nationalisation and the creation of the British Railways Board. Around 1924 ‘Bradford Market Street’ became ‘Bradford Forster Square’.

Beeching

The Beeching Cuts of the 1960s hit Bradford quite hard. Many local services were cut, and the Wharfedale Line to Ilkley was proposed for closure. Thankfully, it was saved through local council subsidies. The cuts meant that by 1973 Bradford Exchange was too big; there were not enough services to justify having 10 platforms. A new station was built further away from the city centre, near Bridge Street, with just 4 platforms; this is the station which survives today. In 1983, a bus station was opened next to the railway station and it was renamed ‘Bradford Interchange’ to reflect its status as a multi-modal transport interchange.

In the early 1990s, Metro, West Yorkshire’s public transport executive, decided to fund the electrification of the Airedale and Wharfedale lines to promote passenger growth. In doing so, it was decided to close the existing station at Forster Square, which was also now too big for the small number of services still running and had become very run-down, and construct a new station taking over the ends of the platforms on the city centre side of the station.

Present day

Which brings us to the present day. Unlike 100 years ago, when Bradford had two large stations and direct trains all over the country, we now have two small stations with 3 and 4 platforms respectively. Had the Midland Railway’s grand plans gone ahead, Bradford would have been a key destination on the Midland Main Line, instead of Leeds. I have no doubt that the history of the twin Yorkshire cities would have been very different had that line been built.

But why does Bradford still have 2 stations? In other cities like Leeds, Sheffield and Birmingham, rationalisation in the 1960s saw smaller stations closed and routes combined to create large central stations. If you look at a map of Bradford, you’ll even see that the two stations roughly align with each other. Furthermore, there’s presently not a lot of buildings in between them, due to most of the land having been cleared for the mothballed Westfield shopping centre. Couldn’t they be connected up?

The plan has been mooted many times over the years, however, it’s not that simple. First of all, although the stations are on the same alignment, there is a considerable altitude difference; Bradford Interchange is several metres higher up than Bradford Forster Square which is at the very bottom of Bradforddale (the valley that links Bradford with the Aire Valley). Any railway line would have to be carried by bridge across the town, and with quite steep gradients. As well as Westfield, there are other building such as the new Magistrate’s Court which are planned for the land where the tracks would go. And despite being talked about for years, nobody has come up with any detailed designs, nor the money for such a line. And in any case, Bradford is not a strategic place on the railway network – all of the lines that serve it are purely regional or for local commuters. If it was to be built, it would cost a lot of money which probably wouldn’t provide much benefit, considering that Bradford is well away from the main lines. Its proximity to Leeds doesn’t help, either.

While train services to Bradford have improved somewhat over the past 20 years, I don’t expect to see any big plans for Bradford like we saw 100 years ago. I guess we’ll still be changing at Leeds for years to come.

Bradford – things to see and do as a tourist

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This post is a retort to the news that Bradford has been named as Britain’s worst tourist city in a poll by Travelodge, whose ‘Bradford’ hotel is actually closer to New Pudsey.

Having lived in Bradford for over 7 years I wholeheartedly disagree that Bradford is ‘dangerous, ugly and boring’ as the survey suggests. It’s no less dangerous than any other major UK city and while Bradford has its fair share of 1960s monstrosities in architecture, there are some fine examples of stone-built Victorian buildings which have been faithfully restored and look rather splendid, all over the city.

As for boring, there are plenty of attractions for tourists to visit:

1. In the city centre:

  • National Media Museum – this is the UK’s most visited museum outside of London, and has a wide range of galleries focussing on film, photography, television, radio and new media such as the internet. Its latest addition is an arcade games gallery, where you can play a range of 1980s arcade machines. It’s also home to Yorkshire’s only Imax cinema. Best of all, it’s free to go in (bar the cinemas and some special exhibitions). It was influential in Bradford’s successful bid to become the world’s first UNESCO City of Film, which launches this weekend.
  • Peace Museum – one of Bradford’s lesser-known gems, this has a fantastic collection of items and records. It’s open on Wednesday and Fridays, and for pre-booked groups.
  • Bradford Sculpture Trail – around the turn of the millennium, a series of sculptures were commissioned across the city. This trial takes you around 27 different sculptures and statues, including those of JB Priestley, the famous Bradford-born author.
  • Curry houses – Bradford has a huge range of curry houses across the city and any visit isn’t complete without visiting at least one. There’s the world famous Mumtaz, the student favourite Omar’s, Markaz on Centenary Square and many more. What’s more is that they’re all very affordable.
  • Bradford Cathedral – being one of Britain’s newer cities (the Royal Charter was granted in 1897) the cathedral is quite small compared to the likes of York, Lancaster and Lincoln, however, it’s still an old building with parts dating from the 15th century. It holds regular events and sits in an area of Bradford known as ‘Little Germany’, full of well-preserved and renovated Victorian buildings.
  • Alhambra Theatre – one of several venues in Bradford (there’s also St George’s Hall, Bradford Playhouse and the Theatre in the Mill), the interior of this theatre has been thoroughly restored and looks magnificent. It hosts many major shows throughout the year.
  • The Wool Exchange – once the centre of Bradford’s wool trade, this fantastic piece of 19th century architecture has been restored and now hosts probably the nicest-looking branch of Waterstones in the country. There’s also a Starbucks on the mezzanine level.
  • Bradford 1 Gallery and the Impressions Gallery – these two new art galleries are in Centenary Square and host a number of exhibitions.

2: In the suburbs

  • Bradford Industrial Museum – located in late 19th century mill, this working museum has various examples of mill machinery, as well as a horse-drawn tram, worker’s houses and a transport exhibition. Entry is free and it’s open 7 days a week.
  • Lister Park – open to the public since 1870, this large park includes a boating lake, café, adventure playground, gardens and is also home to the Cartwright Hall art gallery which has recently been host to an exhibition of work by David Hockney, who originally came from the Bradford area. It was named Britain’s Best Park in 2006.
  • Peel Park – across the valley from Lister Park, this opened in 1850 and now plays host to the annual Bradford Mela which is one of the biggest festivals of British Asian culture in the UK.
  • Undercliffe Cemetery – Bradford was at the heart of the UK wool industry and many of the great and good from Bradford’s past have been buried here with some very elaborate and decorative memorials.
  • Bolling Hall – a mansion house which now houses exhibitions showing the life and times of Bradford families over the past few hundred years. Like many of Bradford’s other museums, entry is free.

3: Further afield:

  • Saltaire – a UNESCO world heritage site, and home to Salt’s Mill, which houses a permanent exhibition of art by David Hockney and a range of specialist shops and restaurants.
  • Keighley & Worth Valley Railway – a working steam railway that takes you through the pretty Worth Valley. Connects with the main line at Keighley station.
  • Haworth – a hillside village with a great range of independent shops and fine public houses.

While I think this list is pretty exhaustive I’m sure there’s bits I’ve missed. But there’s certainly no shortage of things to see and do as a tourist in Bradford and it’s well worth spending a day or two to look around. There’s also the City Park which is under construction and will be open by next summer.

(See also another take on the article and an article in our local newspaper)

Transperience, Bradford’s forgotten transport museum

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A photo of the former auditorium at Transperience

At the weekend I wrote a new Wikipedia article about Transperience.

The Transperience Museum

Transperience was a museum that I was aware of when I was younger, and I remember seeing leaflets about it. But neither I, nor my parents, had never had the chance to visit it during the short time that it was open.

It was essentially an open-air museum of passenger transport. There were some transport simulators, as well as a working one kilometre tram line and a couple of trolleybuses. In addition, there was an auditorium and some workshops were its preserved vehicles were maintained.

The museum was built on the site of Low Moor station, south of Bradford. The station used to be at the junction of the Caldervale Line, between Bradford and Manchester, with the Spen Valley Line which ran through Cleckheaton, Heckmondwike and Liversedge. The station, and the whole Spen Valley Line, were closed in the 1960s, but the Caldervale Line thankfully remains. Otherwise, my regular trips to Blackpool would be far more difficult.

Closure

Despite being right next to junction 2 of the M606 and easy reach of the M62, and costing £11.5 million to build, the park closed in 1997. It had only been open for a little over 2 years. Unfortunately, it couldn’t attract enough visitors to be viable, and was £1 million in the red by the time it was taken over by administrators. The land was mostly sold off to a private developer and is now an industrial estate. The route of the tram line now forms the first part of the Spen Valley Greenway, a footpath and cycle route which follows the route of the Spen Valley Line. Some buildings, like the auditorium remain, but overgrown and derelict.

Interestingly, the site is likely to go full circle. Metro, the public body which manages passenger transport in West Yorkshire, has plans to re-open Low Moor station. Its location close to the M606 means it would make a good parkway station. Plus, it will allow residents of Low Moor and towns in the Spen Valley to catch the train without having to travel into central Bradford or Leeds. It’s likely that the few remaining relics of Transperience will be tarmacked over by the new station’s car park. The station is proposed for 2012, subject to planning permission and funding.

It’s a shame that I never had chance to visit Transperience, as it seemed like an interesting museum that suffered from poor marketing and a lack of focus. Thankfully, museums such as the Crich Tramway Village have succeeded where Transperience failed.

Update (Dec 2016): Work on the new Low Moor railway station is underway, with a likely opening date in 2017. Most of the Transperience infrastructure that remained by 2010 is still there, albeit still abandoned.

The header image for this post is Copyright Humphrey Bolton and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence