Latest news with #SaltsMill
BBC News
09-08-2025
- General
- BBC News
Bradford Peace Museum sees 40,000 visitors in first year after move
More than 40,000 people have visited the Bradford Peace Museum in the past year, following its relocation from the city marks a year since the venue moved to a new site in the Grade II listed Salts Mill in Saltaire, near museum's highest number of annual visitors when it was formerly based in Piece Hall Yard was 3,000.Áine McKenny, the site's marketing and communications manager, said the move had given the museum a "whole new lease of life". Ms McKenny said the museum was now welcoming an average of 250 people a day - compared to just five daily visitors at the old site."It's just given the museum a whole new lease of life, to be able to show off more of our amazing 16,000 object collection," she said. A National Lottery heritage grant of about £245,000 and an additional £150,000 from Bradford 2025 City of Culture helped fund the museum's the increase in visitors has created an unexpected problem, Ms McKenny said. "More visitors means that more people know about us, so we've had more donation enquiries than we've ever had before," she said."We've actually had to pause accessioning new objects into the collection because we've had so many people wanting to trust us with their objects."We've had to enrol 12 new collection volunteers specifically for the task, to help us accession those objects into our collection." The museum has exhibits such as roof tiles salvaged from Hiroshima and Nagasaki after the atomic bombings, and wire fencing from the Greenham Common peace camp. To mark one year since the relocation, the museum plans to hold a "peace picnic" in Roberts Park in Saltaire on next major exhibition will be in September when the museum's extensive collection of peace pin badges will go on to highlights from West Yorkshire on BBC Sounds, catch up with the latest episode of Look North.
Yahoo
08-08-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Museum's record was once 3,000 visitors in a year - now it's on track to hit over 40k
A BRADFORD museum has seen a huge rise in visitor numbers since it moved location a year ago. During its years in an upper floor space in Bradford city centre, The Peace Museum attracted a maximum of 3,000 visitors a year. The unique museum moved to Salts Mill in Saltaire last summer and is now on track to hit the 40,000 mark. A Peace Picnic will be held in Saltaire on Saturday to mark the anniversary of the move. The only museum of its kind in the UK, The Peace Museum used to be based at Piece Hall Yard in Bradford. But in 2019 it was decided the space, only accessible by a 60-step staircase and with an awkward layout, was no longer suitable. There was also very little space to store or display the museum's large collection, which includes numerous large banners. In 2020, museum trustees launched a CrowdFunder campaign to support plans to move to a bigger and more suitable premises. After the fundraising proved to be a success, it was announced that the museum would move into unused space in Salts Mill in the heart of the World Heritage Site of Saltaire. In 2023, The Peace Museum received a National Lottery Heritage Fund grant of £245,651 towards the move and also was awarded £150,000 from Bradford 2025's Cultural Capital Fund. The move included transporting the museum's 16,000-object collection to new stores. The Peace Museum (Image: T&A) The Peace Museum reopened in August 2024, with a newly developed permanent exhibition, education facilities and a shop in its new space. A statement from the museum said: 'The move has had an incredibly positive impact onto The Peace Museum's work and engagement. 'Opening in these new premises created many more opportunities for visitors, researchers, and community groups to explore the diverse range of stories told by the collection. 'The Peace Museum is on course to hit 40,000 visitors on its anniversary weekend. 'This is a massive increase in comparison to its previous site in Piece Hall Yard, where the busiest year on record was 3,000 visitors. 'This increase in visitors means that more people than ever before are engaging with this important collection and the histories of peace campaigns. 'This has also led to an increase in people seeking to donate their objects to the museum's collection. The museum has recently welcomed 12 new collection volunteers to help accession the backlog of new donations.' Saturday's Peace Picnic runs from 11am until 2pm in Roberts Park. There will also be family activities in the museum.
BBC News
23-05-2025
- Entertainment
- BBC News
Bradford City top flight photos on display to celebrate promotion
Photographs taken while Bradford City were last in the top tier of English football have gone on display to celebrate the club's recent social documentary photographer Ian Beesley added the images to his exhibition at Salts Mill in Saltaire after the club secured League One status. He took the black and white photos while he was artist in residence for the club after they gained promotion to the FA Carling Premiership in 1999. For two seasons, the lifelong supporter took pictures of fans as they watched their team compete against the best football sides in the country. Discussing his time as club artist in residence, the 71-year-old from Bradford said: "I was given an access all areas pass, I thought I'd landed my dream job."How wrong I was - I found the transition from fan to photographer, spectator to observer, unbearably difficult."He added: "I really didn't enjoy the experience." After two seasons in the top flight, Bradford City were relegated and he handed in his pass and returned to the stands - where he has "stayed put" ever was with his daughter Fay at Valley Parade earlier this month when a last-gasp winner ended the Bantams' six-year stay in League Two. "Every couple of months we put a new section in to keep the exhibition current," Beesley said. "Ever since it looked like the Bantams might be going up I've been planning to add these images to the walls at Salts Mill."I refused to jinx it by installing them too early, being a football fan I'm always a bit pessimistic."The Life Goes On exhibition at Salts Mill runs until 31 December. Listen to highlights from West Yorkshire on BBC Sounds, catch up with the latest episode of Look North.
BBC News
17-05-2025
- Entertainment
- BBC News
Saltaire: New artwork takes over three floors of Bradford mill
The top floor of a Victorian mill has been transformed into an art installation by a renowned American artist for Bradford work by Ann Hamilton at Salts Mill in Saltaire is inspired by the city's textile heritage and includes wool fabrics made by local firms H Dawson and William artwork also includes a specially created composition including music by children from local schools, community groups and award winning whistler and vocalist Emily Hamilton said she began the project by responding to the "space and feel" of the mill. She said: "One makes work to be outside oneself. It begins by responding to the space and the feel of entering the welcome and the beauty as you enter Salts Mill."You have to imagine that the space was once filled with the deafening roar of machinery. Now it's filled with this lyrical revolving sound that hits the wall and returns with the light." The work, called We Will Sing, spans three rooms in the top floor of the mill, with hanging fabrics, visual images, sound and film. The installation is Hamilton's largest solo UK installation to date and includes a specially made film created by Bradford-based filmmaker Ali piece includes wool made in Salts Mill by H Dawson, and textiles from William Halstead, which operates at nearby Stanley Hamilton said she had used the fabric as a reminder of the mill's historic said: "The way it hangs on the architecture uses the structure, comes down, is knotted and tethered by a stone with a hook in it."That is a reference to the first warp weighted loom, so it's not literally a loom but it's an origin form for one of the processes that would have taken place in that room."Hamilton said the music - which includes compositions from students at Heaton St Barnabas Primary School and Titus Salt School - was the first "touch" viewers would experience in the installation. She said: "The deep structure of all this work is tactility and sound is vibration and is the first form of touch. "So you have a material centre, which is felt and cloth and paper, and things you can touch, but we're first affected by a quality of touch we experience through sound and music." Joe Dawson, CEO of H Dawson Wool, said he felt "privileged" to have worked with Ms Hamilton on the said: "She's a real force of nature. What's been lovely about working with Ann is her desire to link the raw material and the origins of the fibre all the way through to the presentation that she's made, this incredible project."We have a more recent history of looking backwards with misty eyes about the past, but wool is an incredibly clever fibre."It's probably a fibre of the moment, it's a sustainable, natural, biodegradable, renewable fibre and so it means we can be looking forward, from a historic setting, to create something valuable for the modern consumer."We Will Sing opened on 3 May and runs until 2 November. Listen to highlights from West Yorkshire on BBC Sounds, catch up with the latest episode of Look North.
BBC News
14-03-2025
- Entertainment
- BBC News
Chandwell YouTuber adds cathedral to his model town
A YouTuber who built a model town from paper and cardboard has completed a scale replica of Bradford Cathedral to celebrate the area's City of Culture Scott, an IT consultant, began constructing "Chandwell" during lockdown and uploads videos documenting his progress as the town buildings are inspired by landmarks from across the Bradford district and the cathedral is the latest Scott, 47, said he was "very proud" of Bradford's architecture. Chandwell was originally a model railway layout created during the spring 2020 lockdown as a way to pass the time with his two sons, who are now teenagers, and stepdaughter."When I actually started building it and I started to need some buildings to make the town into a town, I started making them out of card based upon buildings in and around Bradford and West Yorkshire."It quickly became something that I realised I was quite good at and really enjoyed, so it became less about a model railway, more and more about the town of Chandwell."He added that when his YouTube channel - simply named Chandwell - started amassing more subscribers, a running joke began that the town was rundown. "It's a glum kind of place, so we wanted to do something to essentially give back a little bit to Bradford because, you know, Chandwell was very down at heel," he forward, Mr Scott has more plans to give his more than 17,000 subscribers a flavour of what Bradford is added: "I'm looking forward to making some of the grand Bradford mills, probably possibly Salts Mill or Manningham - or some combination to get that kind of look. "Also maybe some somewhere like Little Germany, as there are some beautiful buildings there."The railway section is based on Bradford Interchange and the town also includes Shipley's clock tower and the Midland Hotel in the city is even a replica of Shipley nightclub Fluid and Mr Scott, who lives in Burley-in-Wharfedale, said it was based on how the area would have looked in progress of Bradford Cathedral can followed on Mr Scott's YouTube to highlights from West Yorkshire on BBC Sounds, catch up with the latest episode of Look North or tell us a story you think we should be covering here.
