How BLF and The Historic Towns Trust Brought Bradford’s Past to Life

Bradford Literature Festival (BLF) teamed up with UK Historic Towns Trust (HTT) to launch a new Historical Map of Bradford: Wool Capital of the World during BLF 2025. The map gives a fresh look at how Bradford grew from a small village into a mighty industrial powerhouse. The exhibit and events sparked real pride and curiosity among audiences, with copies of the map flying off the shelves throughout the festival.

The Historic Towns Trust create unique historical maps and atlases charting the development of towns and cities across England, Scotland and Wales. Local community members, historians, geographers, archaeologists, and organisations all feed into each map’s development, empowering and inspiring future generations to understand, appreciate and preserve urban heritage.

Using an early Ordnance Survey map as its foundation, An Historical Map of Bradford covers three conservation areas of Bradford: the city centre, Manningham and Little Germany. The map shows how Bradford grew rapidly from a modest medieval village and small market town into a leading manufacturing centre during the Industrial Revolution. Lost buildings, industrial sites, cemeteries, and sites of interest are displayed alongside illustrations explaining the complex development of the city.

The launch event was hosted in Bradford City Hall, where the striking gothic setting offered an ideal backdrop for celebrating Bradford’s history. Audiences heard from Ian Roberts, local archaeologist and project lead, Giles Darkes, HTT’s Cartographic Editor and expert mapmaker, and Jerry Brotton, Bradford-born historian and author of Four Points of the Compass.

BLF’s heritage talk delved further into the research process, revealing fascinating discoveries made along the way. Audiences discovered how historic and contemporary features blend together revealing Bradford’s rich narrative, and showcasing its rapid rise during the wool and cotton boom. Visitors to BLF 2025 were invited to view the map exhibition on display at City Hall, giving them chance to take in the smaller details.

The map itself received a fantastic response from festival audiences, ranking number one in book sales at Waterstones Festival Hub pop-up bookshop.

Martin Wills, Development Manager at The Historic Towns Trust, said of the project, “We partnered with the Bradford Literature Festival for two events during the festival. The events were a great success and working with the BLF team was excellent! They helped us with a great deal of the advertising, logistics, organisation and staffing of the events and were helpful and friendly throughout – even sourcing last minute items like a lectern.

Through the partnership we were able to reach a much bigger audience with our work and further build an interest and buzz about our Historical Map of Bradford: Wool Capital of the World publication that was available at the festival shop. The whole experience was fantastic and through the partnership we were able to deliver the most successful events we have had in recent years”.

Lizzy Newman, Senior Creative Producer at BLF, said, “Partnering with The Historic Towns Trust on the launch of this remarkable map of Bradford has been a real pleasure. The project brings the city’s story to life, offering new insight into its growth and its rise as a global centre of industry. Working together on the launch, the heritage talk and the accompanying exhibition was a true highlight of the festival for me. The response from audiences at BLF 2025, and their enthusiasm for exploring Bradford’s rich heritage, was wonderful to see.“