West Yorkshire

Introducing West Yorkshire

Think West Yorkshire and you’ll probably come up with textiles. You’re not far wrong, for that tough and unforgiving industry drove the county’s economy and defined much of the landscape for centuries. But that’s all in the past, and West Yorkshire’s other identity – the softer, prettier one – has seen the transformation of a once hard-bitten area into quite the picture postcard. They may have gone a little soft round these parts, but don’t say it out loud, for it wouldn’t do in this no-nonsense, down-to-earth part of the world to suggest that West Yorkshire folk didn’t eat nails for breakfast.

Leeds and Bradford are the perfect case in point. Two adjoining cities so big that they’ve virtually become one, yet each maintains a distinct identity. Bradford is a tough old place, industrious and not overly concerned with how it looks, whereas its near neighbour can’t get enough of the mirror and works overtime to ensure that it’s as gorgeous as it can be for the world to enjoy.

Beyond the cities, West Yorkshire is all about a landscape of bleak moorland separated by deep valleys dotted with old mill towns and villages. The relics of the wool and cloth industries are still in evidence, in the rows of weavers’ cottages and workers’ houses built along ridges overlooking the towering chimneys of the mills in the valleys – landscapes so vividly described by the Brontë sisters, West Yorkshire’s most renowned literary export and biggest tourist draw.

Last updated: Feb 17, 2009