Read my Wells travel logue here.

The twenty-eighth city on my list is the West Yorkshire city of Bradford which you’ll find almost two hundred miles north of London.

Bradford’s etymology is simple enough. Brad comes from broad and the ford is a crossing over the Bradford Beck river.

Truth be told Bradford, not Canterbury, should have been the first city I visited. However, its distance from London, as well as the considerable ticket price has always put me off. But it was finally time to bite the bullet and explore my penultimate Yorkshire city.

Unfortunately, Bradford doesn’t have the best reputation. Once upon a time, it had a thriving textile – more specifically wool industry – but like many Northern cities, it was hit hard by deindustrialisation. I say hit hard. Devastated more like. It is still trying to recover now. However, it was named the UK’s 2025 city of culture, so I was willing to withhold my judgement.

My journey to Bradford began at 10.03 where I caught the LNER service to later change at Leeds – cheaper than going direct you see. And, unlike Stoke, I had no problems making my connection and I arrived in Bradford at 12.48pm.

I have to admit my first impressions of Bradford were positive. The station had pretty flowers and there was a rather attractive town square.

As always my first stop would be the cathedral.

En route, I stopped in the local CEX and Waterstone’s, but both lacked the books/DVDs that I was looking for. There was also a surprising lack of charity shops – unlike in Worcester.

The disappointment continued when I discovered that I couldn’t enter the cathedral as a funeral was taking place. Very selfish of them I know. The cathedral was also rather unimpressive. More Chelmsford than St Alban’s. But do not fear dear reader, I resolved to return to the cathedral later on.

On my earlier wander, I spied a couple other churches. These would by next stop. It was like when I was too cheap to go to Winchester Cathedral, so I instead found free churches to enter. That would have been the idea here, but the churches were rather difficult to reach – least of all because of the hilly nature of Bradford. Seriously, it put Lincoln to shame. In Bradford, the town centre was at the bottom of the hill, but all the attractions were uphill. Oh, dear reader, it was a workout and a half. Like I had just done leg day at the gym and it seemed to be getting me no closer to the church.

But then I found a rather dingy dirt path full of broken glass, smashed televisions and broken walls which led me to All Saint’s Church. It was your standard run-of-the-mill church, but at least I could actually look round it. No funerals happening there.

By now it was two and I was faint from hunger, so it was time for lunch. Bradford is well-known for having a huge Pakistani population, so I was obliged to have a curry. I found a rather small, but charming Pakistani cafe called Des N Pardes. Here I ordered a paratha (flat bread,) a mango lassi and a Lahori channay (a chickpea dish) for £11.95. It was so good. The paratha was light and crispy and the mango lassi was one of the best possible ways to bring some much needed relief to my parched throat.

The cafe itself also played some Pakistani music and it had portraits of famous Pakistani figures. I asked the waiter about them and he was more than happy to explain that I was looking at Allama Iqbal – one of Pakistan’s most famous poets – who with Muhammad Jinnah was one of Pakistan’s founding fathers. The third picture was of former cricket captain, who led Pakistan to her only cricket world cup victory and former prime minster Imman Khan. As of 2023, he has been unfairly imprisoned. The waiter compared him to Nelson Mandela. But the waiter was so excited to explain all this to me; it was very cute. Definite highlight of the day.

Now it was 3pm and I decided to visit the nearby Science and Media museum. It was free to enter. You just needed to get a ticket online. It was impressive. The exhibits focussed on the development of media from the Lumiere brothers to smart phones. There were sections on John Logie Baird, Pot Black and Zoetropes. It also showed the contrast in recording cameras from the past to now. They used to be massive and now they can fit in your pocket. Crazy.

But it also focussed on other parts of entertainment and media. You could produce your own music or host your own radio show – I don’t think I was great at either.

They also had sections on famed media hoaxes like the Cottingley fairies or the Loch Ness monster. Finally, there was an exhibition on cinematic special effects.

My favourite part of the museum was an interactive exhibit where you could take part in no shortage of experiments from navigating your way through a mirror maze to seeing how you look in a thermal camera to how you look under a UV light. It was fantastic.

By now it was four and my thoughts turned to dinner tonight/lunch tomorrow. It was time for Too Good To Go, which I fulfilled at the local pret a manger. After I picked up my haul, I went to examine it at the cathedral. (I told you I would come back.) Alas, it had closed for the day. I had to inspect my haul outside.

For a fiver, I received two sandwiches, two yoghurt pots, two cookies, a croissant, a muffin and a chicken salad bowl. That would have cost me £15 otherwise. This had to be one of my best hauls yet – certainly better than Lichfield. Now it was half four and I still had two hours before my train home. It was time for me to find some nature. Google Maps told me for that Peel Park was twenty minutes away so I headed there.

What Google failed to tell me was that the park was twenty minutes away uphill. I became super hot and sweaty. I was also asking why I was putting ymself through this instead of going to the pub and having a pint or two before my train home. By the time I actually reached the park, I could used a nice cold beer.

But the park itself was very handsome. It had a little calisthenics area where I had a workout, as well as offering some spectacular views of the city. There was also a statue of Robert Peel who gave his name to the park. Peel also founded the modern-day police force in the mid-19th century. This is why we call them Bobbies today.

The park was much bigger than I thought, which I discovered by doing downhill, to see a picturesque lake. As I had gone downhill there was no way I was going back uphill, so I resolved to walk back to the city centre from there.

This meant navigating Bradford’s subways and busy backi roads. Ture, I saw some pretty cityscapes, but I also saw too much rubbish, which somewhat justified Bradford’s impoverished reputation. It was very sad to see.

I returned to the city centre at half five. As the TGTG bag gave me more food than I needed, I kept what I needed and gave out the rest to the homeless – which again, there was no shortage of. Seriously, they were all over the city. It was awful to see.

And on that bummer that concludes my day in Bradford. Bradford has a poor reputation for a reason. While there were good parts, there was also plenty of bad. Although it is definitely not the worse city I’ve visited – I don’t think anything will be as bad as Doncaster. At least in Bradford, I had that wholesome moment with the Pakistani waiter. And that was my day in Bradford – a day of science museums, too many social issues and the national poet of Pakistan. Next, I’ll be visiting my final city in Yorkshire. Ripon. You’re next!