Day Trips from Manchester

In Brief. Bradford Museums and Galleries have a range of venues, including the Cartwright Hall Art Gallery and the Bolling Hall Museum and Library .  The former is an imposing Baroque building from the turn of the 20th Century, located in the rolling Lister Park, with several themed spaces including a David Hockney Gallery.  Bolling Hall seems much more like a country house, if we ignore the fact that it is no longer in the countryside, with a variety of interiors from different periods. Cartwright Hall and Mughal Gardens What's Here? The Cartwright Hall Art Gallery seems much smaller inside than outside, but perhaps that is just as well given the scale of the building. I was interested to see the David Hockney Exhibition, which is compact, but in being arranged chronologically provides an interesting review of the artist's evolving techniques and subjects. I particularly liked a video that captures the process of creating some of his iPad paintings. This complements the Dav...

In Brief. Saltaire is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, consisting of a huge former mill adjacent to a model village and park from Victorian times. The mill, known as Salts Mill, has been redeveloped to provide art and retail spaces, anchored by a substantial collection of David Hockney 's typically vibrant and accessible artworks. The mill also hosts a restaurant, a cafe and a variety of shops, with an emphasis on art and books, in sensitively repurposed spaces. The village and park are also worth a visit, though the mill is the centre of gravity. The chimney at Salts Mill What's Here? The intimidating scale of the mill is diluted on entry to the ground floor 1853 Gallery , which hosts the world's largest permanent collection of David Hockney's work. This all sounds quite serious, but it is a decidedly unpretentious space, which the artworks share with art supplies and books for sale on tables in the middle. The David Hockney works here include portraits and assorted repr...