Industrial heritage reimagined
Across West Yorkshire the industrial past and cultural present are one and the same. It’s why artists, poets, writers, film-makers, chefs, TV companies, musicians and makers make their home and work here.
Size matters
When visitors walk through the gates of Halifax’s Piece Hall – the only remaining Georgian cloth hall in the world – the scale still surprises. The vast, neo-classical square is now bordered by independent shops, with regular markets and exhibitions taking place, and was named Inspirational Venue of the Year for the headline summer concerts held in its courtyard. Newest kid on the venue block, Tileyard North (Wakefield), also welcomes big music names to its Grade II listed square for its summer concert series.
An industrial legacy
The UNESCO World Heritage Site of Saltaire is a remarkably intact 19th-century industrial village. Built for the workers of Sir Titus Salt’s mill, it remains a major destination in its own right with 93 listed buildings across the model village’s original footprint – it’s easy to spend a day here. The village includes the Mill (at time of building – 1853- the largest industrial factory building in the world), 850 original stone worker homes, public buildings and Grade II listed Roberts Park. The vast mill now houses galleries, cafés and one of the largest collections of David Hockney’s work — the artist born just up the road in Bradford — alongside the UK’s only Peace Museum.
Museum visits
West Yorkshires past is bought to life in some of the regions museums that specialise in Industrial Heritage. Leeds Industrial Museum was once Armley Mills, and sits next to the Leeds Bradford Canal. It is the home to working locomotives, a working mule loom, and a cinema celebrating Leeds's film making past. Bradford’s industrial heritage to life through working textile machinery, towering steam engines, and the stories of the people who powered the mills at Bradford Industrial Museum. Explore the restored mill-owner’s house and the terrace of workers’ cottages to see the stark contrast between upstairs and downstairs life in the 19th century, then discover Bradford-built vehicles and the inventions that shaped the city.
Brontë country
Haworth village, known worldwide as the former home and resting place of (some of) the Brontës – now the Brontë Parsonage Museum, is also possibly one of the most Instagrammed spots in the region, with views down the cobbles of Main Street or from the wild and windy moors at Top Withens, worth capturing year-round. For further literary pilgrimage – the historic hilltop village of Heptonstall is where visitors will find the grave of poet Sylvia Plath.
Landmark mills
Halifax doesn’t stop at The Piece Hall. Nearby, Dean Clough is a huge mill complex that has been reborn as a cluster of galleries, studios and cafés inside its Victorian brickwork.
Over in Farsley (West Leeds) Sunnybank Mills houses independent makers and workshops and now provides the backdrop for BBC’s Great British Sewing Bee — a fitting afterlife for a former textile mill while Leeds Corn Exchange, the former grain merchants building with its iconic domed glass roof has been THE place for independent shopping, food & drink in Leeds since 1864.
Further exploration
Standedge Tunnel at Marsden remains the longest, highest and deepest canal tunnel in the UK, carrying the Huddersfield Narrow Canal beneath the Pennines and offering boat trips into the tunnel for visitors. In Halifax, Wainhouse Tower — considered the tallest folly in the world — reopened to climbers in March 2026, its 369 steps leading to sweeping views across Calderdale.