Bradford – Bradford Industrial Museum

And another post which is primarily just photos….. This is the Bradford Industrial Museum, which is of a substantial size and it’s also free of charge in common with other museums and galleries operated by the city council. There’s plenty to see, including a row of industrial cottages which were taken down brick by brick to be reassembled here and they are fitted out with interiors from over the last century.

The main museum, which has been open since 1974, is located in a former mill building, Moorside Mills, and there are an impressive amount of collections here. Unlike the National Science and Media Museum in the city, which seemed to be poorly curated and in desperate hunt for a purpose, this museum is beautifully curated and seems absolutely clear about what it is trying to do. There are collections of textile machinery, industrial machinery and also a transport section with trams, cars and trains.

To see everything here is likely to take a couple of hours and I can imagine that children would very much enjoy a visit. The staff were friendly and conversational, with one of them telling me about the history of modern Bradford and also listing his favourite pubs, information that always comes in useful to me. It might not be the most up-to-date of museums, but it’s clearly cared for and an example of what a heritage organisation should be doing. I would write more, but my blog backlog keeps growing and this will do for now, but there were plenty of individual exhibits that greatly interested me.