Bradford Industrial Museum








Original Victorian worsted spinning mill complex built in 1875, now used as a museum and heritage site, recreating working and social life in Bradford throughout the 19th and 20th century.
Venue Type:
Industrial heritage site, Transport heritage site, Museum, Heritage site
Additional info
Unique textiles woven on site (wool and worsted suiting) available to purchase or commission.
The Worsted Collection at Bradford Industrial Museum is a Designated Collection of national importance.
This collection clearly demonstrates Bradford’s unique and internationally significant role in the worsted industry. Worsted played an important part in the industrialisation of England, and the development and mechanisation of the wool textile industry. Moorside Mills, the site of the museum and an original spinning mill, is full of machinery which once converted raw wool into the world's best worsted cloth. The collections illustrate the process of making worsted from fleece to completed clothing, including spinning, looms, and combing.
Collection details
Social History, Science and Technology, Music, Land Transport, Fine Art, Decorative and Applied Art, Costume and Textiles, Coins and Medals, Archives, Archaeology
Key artists and exhibits
- Designated Collection
Bradford Industrial Museum Permanent Collection
- 1 November 2014 — 1 November 2018 *on now
The museum site is a former Worsted Mill complete with mill manager’s house with Victorian décor and a terrace of back-to-back houses showing how mill workers lived at different times in history.
Inside the Mill itself are working displays of textile machinery, steam power, engineering, printing and motor vehicles, along with an exciting temporary exhibitions programme.
Suitable for
- Family friendly
Website
http://www.bradfordmuseums.org/venues/industrialmuseum/exhibitions.php

The Printing Gallery
- 1 November 2014 — 1 November 2018 *on now
A representation of a busy Victorian general printing office. All the machines are authentic and have been carefully restored to full working order by a team of dedicated volunteers. Compare this to the fully restored mid twentieth century printing office, again all the machines and fittings are authentic and have been restored to full working order. Each Wednesday throughout the year the volunteers are on hand to demonstrate and explain the craft of letterpress printing. Each visitor is given a souvenir bookmark, type set and printed on the premises.
Suitable for
- Family friendly
Website
http://www.bradfordmuseums.org/whatson/event_detail.php?ID=80

A Yorkshireman's Travels
- 12 September 2017 — 4 November 2018 *on now
Join our eccentric intrepid traveller, Enoch Pendergast, on his World Adventure. Explore the Victorian and Edwardian fascination with exploration and travel through images of faraway places and exotic objects. See never before displayed images from the Bradford Scientific Association lantern slide collection and objects from our Wold Cultures collection, sent back to the UK by Bradford explorers.
The exhibition looks at Bradford’s international role in the world and the influence of World Cultures on Bradford and its citizens. Bradford’s scientific societies aimed to inform and educate Bradford’s citizens about the world, through lectures and lantern slide shows, in a time when most people could not travel outside of the UK.
Come along and enjoy the show. It’ll be a ripping yarn!
Suitable for
- Family friendly
Website
http://www.bradfordmuseums.org/whats-on/a-yorkshiremans-travels
Bradford's Industrial Revolution
http://www.mylearning.org/overview.asp?journeyid=198
A resource for studying the Victorians, the Industrial Revolution, and the history of Bradford, featuring The Coat of Many Cultures
a large textile work of art inspired by Bradford's history and cultural diversity.
Publisher
- This resource was produced as part of the MLA-funded My Learning project.
Discovering Print at Bradford Industrial Museum
http://www.mylearning.org/overview.asp?journeyid=120
Examples of work of past and present printmakers with a glossary of techniques
Publisher
- This resource was produced as part of the MLA-funded My Learning project.
The Grand Trunk Road - Behind the Scenes
http://www.mylearning.org/overview.asp?journeyid=323
The Grand Trunk Road is one of the longest and most historic trade and military routes in the Indian subcontinent. The road is almost 1,500 miles long and runs from Calcutta in India, across Pakistan, all the way to Kabul in Afghanistan. This resource has brilliant audio and video clips and images recording a journey along the road.
Publisher
- This resource was produced as part of the MLA-funded My Learning project.
The Grand Trunk Road - Decorated Trucks in India and Pakistan
One of the most famous sights on the Grand Trunk Road in Pakistan is that of the country’s elaborately decorated trucks, buses and motorised rickshaws. This resource has brilliant video, audio and images about the workshops and their craftsmen that are dotted along the road where these trucks are repaired and decorated.
Publisher
- This resource was produced as part of the MLA-funded My Learning project.
The Grand Trunk Road - Recording Oral History Interviews
http://www.mylearning.org/overview.asp?journeyid=383
Oral history is the recording of people's memories of their own lives. This resource has audio stories of the British Raj, the 1947 Partition of India, and the migration from the subcontinent to British towns and cities - in people's own words.
Publisher
- This resource was produced as part of the MLA-funded My Learning project.
Thornbury Primary's Creative Curriculum and the Grand Trunk Road
http://www.mylearning.org/overview.asp?journeyid=380
A resource based on exhibitions about the Grand Trunk Road of India and Pakistan showing how exhibitions can be used to support a whole school creative curriculum.
Publisher
- This resource was produced as part of the MLA-funded My Learning project.
Getting there
Signposted from Bradford Ring Road and Harrogate Road (A658). Bus 645 from Market Street or Hall Ings. All buses stop at Moorside Road. On the museum site there is free car parking and disabled car parking.
For help in planning your journey by public transport, please visit www.wymetro.com
Bradford Industrial Museum
Moorside Road
Eccleshill
Bradford
West Yorkshire
BD2 3HP
England
Website
neil.hinchliffe@bradford.gov.uk
Telephone
01274 435900
Fax
01274 636362
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