An Unexpected Creative Reset at Bradford Industrial Museum

It’s the Easter holidays and I’m juggling work with entertaining a 7 year old, while the weather is doing its usual April thing… non stop showers.

I needed an indoor plan this weekend as a little treat for my girl, who has been an absolute superstar. She’s handled me popping out for work and even doing her bedtime routine like a champ while I finish projects. Honestly, she’s kept everything on track.

I had a vague memory of visiting the Bradford Industrial Museum with my mum and grandma when I was about her age, and I loved it. So I thought we’d head out for an hour or two, dodge the rain, and revisit it. It’s only 15 minutes away… why I hadn’t been back before now, I’ve no idea.

And honestly… why haven’t I been back? It’s amazing.

Just as I remembered, it’s tucked away in the middle of a housing estate. The newer houses threw me off a bit when sat nav Sally announced we’d arrived, but then I spotted the beautiful clock tower standing behind them.

It was showing 12 o’clock, but a quick check told me it was only 11:30. Turns out, the clock tower was erected in 1919 as a war memorial and officially opened at 12… so it wasn’t wrong at all.

Free entry. Free parking. What’s the catch?

Just a donation box at the entrance, no pressure at all. We of course popped something in, especially with the amount of craft supplies available… and trust me, there’s plenty.

Inside the brilliant Moorside Mill, you’re taken straight back through Bradford’s industrial past. Rooms filled with textile machinery, steam power, engineering innovations, motor vehicles… and printing.

Now this is where I came alive a bit.

Printing with ink blocks, drying racks, presses… it was a joy. I tried to play it cool, casually asking Amy for my phone back to take a few photos, only to find she’d already taken loads (very zoomed in ones, of course). I still took some of my own.

It brought back so many memories of screen printing at school, college and university. Blocking out misprints, paint blotches and the chaos… or as I’d probably call it now, the process. The time it took to layer each colour… slow, but worth it.

It also took me back to meeting the brilliant Laura Burgess at Polestar Group. I was working on the Black Book directories at the time and we’d go in to review print work, talk deadlines and have a laugh. Mainly about how I used to push those deadlines for the advertisers… sorry Laura. I genuinely miss those chats.

The company later moved everything digital and those printed books stopped, but there’s something about print that just sticks with you.

It even made me think of being a kid, meeting my grandma after work at Kays Catalogues. My sister and I would stand watching the Telegraph and Argus print runs through the glass at their old site near the town hall, completely fascinated.

At one point I thought… thank god I don’t have to screen print every day. How would you even estimate timelines? It’s madness. But the quality… nothing beats it.

Then completely out of nowhere, I had a flashback to university. Buying my first iMac G3 and somehow transporting it from Leeds to Carlisle in a Ford Fiesta that probably cost less than the computer itself.

It weighed a ton. I remember dragging it from the car, pushing it along the carpet, then realising my room was in the attic… not my finest planning moment. It lived on the floor for a while before I could afford a desk. I was working at M&S at the time so had to wait for payday after blowing most of my student loan on the Mac. Worth it though, I loved that thing.

(Funny, I remember getting it up the stairs, but not getting it back down… I’m guessing my dad handled that bit.)

What was meant to be a quick 1 or 2 hour trip turned into four. It was me eventually saying, “Right, we really need to go now.”

Amy absolutely loved it. The weaving, the Coat of Culture, the old trams, buses, cars and buildings. It’s such a hands on, interactive place for kids.

We even joined in with the Easter egg trail… spotting little toy rats, practising weaving and doing some colouring.

If you’re still figuring out what to do over the Easter holidays, I’d highly recommend a visit. It’s open on weekends and during school holidays. Not too busy, just a steady flow of people.

It’s one of those places that reminds you of what was, and makes you appreciate what we have now and what we’ve lost along the way. Keeping places like this alive, and making them interactive for the next generation, really means something.