These pages are designed to give you something of an overview of the Bradford District.

The City of Bradford is contained in a huge, natural, north-facing amphitheatre carved out in the ice age, rich in soft water and sandstone together with an extremely fortuitous combination of iron ore, coal and fireclay all in the same seam and in thicknesses which made them very easy to exploit commercially.  These then provided the raw materials for an industrial revolution that fuelled the growth of Bradford’s population from 13,000 in 1801, 104,400 in 1851, and to 280,000 by 1901 - a faster growth rate than Birmingham, Leeds, Liverpool or Manchester.  The population of the District is now very nearly half a million.

This amphitheatre opens out into Airedale, named, of course, after the river Aire which rises in the Yorkshire Dales and flows eastwards through the Bradford District and beyond towards the Humber estuary and the North Sea.  Between Skipton and the villages of South Craven (to the north) and Leeds (to the east), the river flows through Airedale between steep sided hills which occasionally broadens out into a wide, flat-bottomed valley.  Airedale includes the towns of Keighley, Bingley, Shipley and the village of Saltaire, a World Heritage Site.   Haworth, famous as the birthplace of the Bronte sisters, is situated high in the hills above Keighley.

The river Wharfe follows a similar parallel line to the Aire and, in general, forms the northern boundary of the District.  Wharfedale includes the elegant spa town of Ilkley and the smaller towns of Addingham and Burley.