England Guide
Yorkshire
Saltaire
Opening time: 1853 Gallery: daily 10am–5.30/6pm
Price: Free; film screenings £6.95
Address: 3 miles out of Bradford (train from Bradford Forster Square, or bus #679)
Telephone: 0870/701 0200
Website: www.saltsmill.org.uk
A model industrial village built between 1851 and 1876 by the industrialist Sir Titus Salt, Saltaire (still lived in today) was designed around Salt's Mill, the biggest factory in the world – larger than St Paul's Cathedral in London – when it opened in 1853. It was surrounded by schools, hospitals, parks, almshouses and around 850 homes, yet for all Salt's philanthropic vigour the scheme was highly paternalistic: of the village's 22 streets, for example, all – bar Victoria and Albert streets – were named after members of his family. Salt's Mill remains the fulcrum of the village, the focus of which is the 1853 Gallery, three floors given over to the world's largest retrospective collection of the works of Bradford-born David Hockney.