WEST YORKSHIRE |
| Bradford Cathedral |
In centre of Bradford |
The parish church of St Peter was raised to cathedral
status in 1919. The story of the city is told in the carvings and monuments of its
cathedral. The provost's stall is surrounded by a carving of St Blaize, patron saint of
woolcombers, and a plaque nearby shows how the tower was hung with woolpacks to protect it
from Royalist cannon during Civil War sieges. Modern additions to the church include the
simple chapels of St Aiden and the Holy Spirit, with their embroidered altar fronts. |
| Bramham Park |
Off A1, 5 miles south of Wetherby |
This superb Queen Anne mansion stands in formal gardens
and across the park lie wooded grounds. The estate was conceived by Robert Benson at the
beginning of the 18th century, and has been preserved by nine generations of the family. A
fire destroyed much in 1828 and it took 78 years for the elegant masterpiece with two
wings linked to the main block by tall colonnades to be re-created. The house contains
fine furniture, porcelain, silver and paintings, and the old kitchen is now a museum and
photograph gallery. |
| Cliffe Castle Museum |
Off A629, 0.5 miles north-west of Keighley |
Having rebuilt and glorified his family home after a
gas explosion in 1874, Henry Butterfield changed its name from Cliffe Hall to Cliffe
Castle. The magnificent Victorian mansion has now been converted into a museum. The
displays tell the geological story and history of Airedale, and include the reconstructed
workshops of a hand-loom weaver, oat-bread maker and clog maker. There are also natural
history exhibits. |
| East Riddlesden Hall |
On A650, 1 mile north-east of Keighley |
James Murgatroyd, a rich clothier from Halifax, gave
his ornate Jacobean manor house in the Aire valley an unusual main entrance in the form of
a two-storey porch with a round window on the upper floor. The fish pond, which once
provided food for the monks of Bolton Abbey, survives beside the house. Inside, superb
17th century oak panelling and plasterwork grace the rooms, which contain fine pewter and
traditional Yorkshire oak furniture. There is a magnificent 120ft long medieval tithe
barn. |
| Harewood House |
On A61, 7 miles north of Leeds |
A palace rather than a house, Harewood offers more than
the regal splendour of its rich fabric and contents. To reach the house the visitor has to
run the gauntlet of a host of competing attractions. There is an Adventure Playground ,
while close by a Woodland Garden glows imperial purple and scarlet at rhododendron time. A
Bird Garden is arranged beside the lake and the Penguin Pond has a glass wall, through
which visitors can see the birds swimming underwater. In the Paradise Garden, small
tropical animals, birds and reptiles live in close approximations of their natural
habitats. Most of Harewood dates from the early 1770s, when building began at the order of
Edwin Lascelles, 1st Lord Harewood. Major additions were made in the 1850s by the 3rd Earl
of Harewood, and between the two World Wars by the 6th earl, who married the daughter of
King George V. |
| Heptonstall Old Grammar School |
Off A646, 1 mile north-west of Hebden Bridge |
The early 17th century school building is today a
museum telling the story of Heptonstall, with its stone houses that cling to a steep
hillside below Pennine moors. Display's explain Heptonstall's farming and crafts, and the
days when it was a major hand-loom weaving centre. |
| Kirkstall Abbey House Museum |
On A65, 3 miles west of Leeds |
The Great Gatehouse of Kirkstall Abbey, a Cistercian
house built between 1152 and 1182, was later converted into a fine dwelling known as Abbey
House. It now houses a museum which takes visitors back into another age, containing as it
does streets of 18th and 19th century cottages, workshops and shops. The museum also has
items from the abbey excavations, a large collection of costumes and accessories dating
from 1760 to the present, and a vast collection of toys. The Folk Galleries illustrate the
life of ordinary local people over the last century. The abbey church was completed in the
1160s and survives almost intact. The remainder of the buildings, however, fell into
disrepair after the Dissolution. |
| Leeds City Art Gallery |
The Headrow, Leeds |
Leeds Town Hall celebrates the soaring northern
prosperity and pride of achievement of the mid 19th century. Next door is the Art Gallery,
which is of national, and even world-wide, significance. In the adjoining City Museum
visitors are introduced to a large collection of stuffed animals mounted against realistic
backgrounds, a theme that is continued with life-sized models of peoples around the world
in appropriate costumes. |
| Lotherton Hall |
On B1217, 9 miles east of Leeds |
Some 200 species of birds from all over the world live
in the bird garden here at Lotherton Hall. Many of them are rare or endangered, and
Lotherton has a full conservation and breeding programme designed to re-introduce birds
into the wild. The Edwardian mansion is a treasure house of paintings, silver, Chinese
ceramics, porcelain, modern ceramics and furniture, including a magnificent bedroom suite
made of papier-mache in 1851. |
| Nostell Priory |
On A638, 6 miles south-east of Wakefield |
More than 100 pieces of work by Thomas Chippendale at
Nostell Priory form England's finest collection of the cabinet-maker's work. Chippendale
was commissioned in 1766 to furnish the house of Sir Rowland Winn, which had been built
near the site of the medieval priory. Robert Adam was commissioned to add the east wing
and decorate the interior. The house also contains fine paintings, silver and porcelain, a
set of Brussels tapestries and an 18th century doll's house. In the grounds are the 16th
century Wragby church, rose gardens, a lakeside walk and an adventure playground. |
| Oakwell Hall and Country Park |
Off A652, 5 miles south-east of Bradford |
Charlotte Bronte described this Elizabethan moated
manor house as 'Fieldhead', the home of Shirley Keeldar in 'Shirley'. The novelist knew
Oakwell in the 1840s and little has changed since then. The 15th century, timber-framed
house on the site was encased in stone in 1583. The manor is now restored and furnished in
the style of the 17th and 18th centuries. Formal gardens surround the house and beyond
lies an 87 acre country park which includes and arboretum and wildlife garden. The Bagshaw
Museum, in nearby Wilton Park, is housed in a Victorian Gothic mansion built in 1875. The
museum displays local history, natural history, Egyptology, ethnography and Oriental works
of art. |
| Red House Museum |
Oxford Road, Gomersal |
When William Taylor, a prosperous cloth merchant, built
this red-brick house in 1660 it must have been an extraordinary innovation in an area
where buildings were traditionally made of the local stone. Alterations produced the
Regency country residence where Charlotte Bronte often stayed. Red House is now fitted out
as it would have been in the 1820s. There are displays relating to the Luddite riots which
swept the West Riding in 1812. |
| Shibden Hall |
On A58, 1.5 miles east of Halifax |
This house owes its appearance largely to Anne Lister,
who inherited the property in 1826. The half-timbered 15th century gentleman's home had
been in her family since the 16th century. Now the Folk Museum of West Yorkshire, the main
rooms are furnished and equipped as they would have been in the 17th or 18th centuries,
and give the impression that the occupants have only just left. The 17th century Pennine
barn houses old farm tools and an array of horse-drawn vehicles. Other buildings around
the courtyard re-create a 19th century village centre. |
| Temple Newsam |
Off A63, 5 miles east of Leeds |
The Knights Templar owned this estate from the 12th to
early 14th centuries and gave it the first part of its name. The Newsam derives from the
Domesday survey of 1086, where buildings were recorded at Neuhusu - 'at the new houses'.
The present house, begun around 1500, is a Tudor and Jacobean mansion. It has a suite of
Georgian rooms and impressive collections of furniture, silver, porcelain and paintings.
Capability Brown landscaped the park in the 1760s. It now includes woodland and avenues,
spectacular gardens and a Home Farm with rare breeds of livestock. |
| Tolson Museum |
On A642, 1.5 miles east of Huddersfield |
Ravensknowle Hall - a mansion build around 1860 as a
more modest version of Osborne House, stands in lovely parkland. It was briefly the home
of Legh Tolson, a local textile-maker, who in 1919 gave it to the people of Huddersfield
as a museum to commemorate his two nephews killed in the First World War. It includes
natural history and folk life, textiles, toys and horse-drawn and vintage vehicles. |
