Sitting within the Victorian walls of Moorside Mills in Eccleshill, the Bradford Industrial Museum traces its origins to a worsted spinning factory built by John Moore in 1875. The mill grew steadily into a medium-sized operation employing around 100 people, converting from steam power to electricity in the early 20th century. Bradford Council purchased the building in 1970, and it opened as a museum on 14 December 1974. Entry remains free of charge.
The Story of Moorside Mills
Clifford and Arnold Wilson bought the mill in 1908 and installed a mill engine constructed by Cole, Marchent and Morley in 1910. During the First World War, heavy demand for worsted cloth used in military uniforms prompted significant expansion, including two additional floors and a clock tower erected in 1919 as a war memorial. Ownership passed to W & J Whitehead in 1929, and their ring spinning machine is still on display in the spinning gallery today. Alongside the main mill, visitors will find a Horse Emporium in the old canteen block and a shop within the mill itself.
What to See Inside
The ground floor galleries cover two broad themes. The motive power gallery holds machinery from the 19th-century Industrial Revolution, including waterwheels, steam engines, oil engines, and gas engines, alongside an engineer’s workshop display. A millstone from Castlefields corn mill near Bingley, carved from local millstone grit, illustrates how grain was ground into flour. The standout exhibit here is the Linton engine, a uniflow steam engine rescued from Linton Mill and among the last Bradford-made steam engines ever built. The transport gallery is largely occupied by vehicles with direct Bradford connections: cars and light commercial vans produced by the Jowett company, Scott motorbikes, and Baines bicycles. A Wallis and Steevens Advance type steam roller, number 7986, built in 1928 and formerly owned by Bradford City Council roads department, still carries the council crest on its water tanks. The largest single exhibit is a locomotive called Nellie, named after Nellie Crane, the vicar’s wife. Nellie is an 0-4-0 saddle tank industrial locomotive, one of two built by Hudswell Clarke in Leeds in 1922 for the Esholt sewage works. She measures roughly 23 by 8 by 11 feet, weighs 28 tons, operates her boiler at 160 psi, and carries 700 gallons of water in her saddle tank. The museum specialises in keeping its printing and textile machinery in working condition, with regular public demonstrations throughout the year.