Get Outside with Bradford 2025

Carmel Smickersgill, Tours & Activities Editor

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Get Outside with Bradford 2025

Until 31 December 2025

Always double check opening hours with the venue before making a special visit.

Get Outside with Bradford 2025: An image of a large man made pool with fountains in front of a historic building with a clock tower
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Bradford 2025 – UK City of Culture is in full swing, with cultural happenings blooming all over the city and the wider district. Below are just some of the ways in which you can experience the larger-scale public commissions. These site-specific works, most of which are free, are designed for the outdoors and show how world-class talent and local perspectives can combine to create remarkable experiences for everyone.

Step into the moorland above the city with the newly commissioned visual artworks that form Wild Uplands, a collection of site-specific pieces from internationally renowned artists. You can explore these while listening to Earth & Sky, a sound walk created by Opera North, combining new music, field recordings and the works of Bradford-born Frederick Delius. You can also watch the city transform with BD Walls, an ever-growing open-air gallery of new large-scale street art.

For performance with a difference, seek out The Railway Children, a spectacular production that blends theatrical magic with Yorkshire’s railway heritage. Step into the world of the Waterbury children as you board a real steam train and set off down the Keighley and Worth Valley Railway, before experiencing a fresh staging of the show in a specially built auditorium.

To get between all these outdoor happenings, check out the walking trails of Bradford on Foot, 25 curated routes showing off the best of the city and surrounding area.

Get outside with Bradford 2025. Scroll down to find out more.

Our top picks

BD Walls in Bradford

BD Walls, Until 31 December 2025, Free entry - Visit now

Street art takes centre stage in BD Walls, with vibrant murals transforming the city of Bradford into an open-air cultural gallery.

BD Walls
Courtesy of Bradford 2025 - UK City of Culture. Image credit: David Lindsay

Where to go near Get Outside with Bradford 2025

Manchester
Food hall
Kargo MKT

Mighty food hall in Salford Quays, with around twenty street food vendors, serving a huge range of cuisines.

Asap Coffee Interior/ Counter
Manchester
Café or Coffee Shop
ASAP Coffee

If you’re looking for quality coffee and a decadent brunch in a setting that nails the Northern Quarter brief, you’d struggle to do better than ASAP Coffee.

Interior of George St Chapel
Manchester
Event venue
George Street Chapel

This beautifully restored former Independent Methodist Chapel in the heart of Oldham is as much a creative hub as a heritage landmark.

Chinatown
Restaurant
Pho Cue

Family-run Vietnamese restaurant in Chinatown. Prepare to queue for Pho Cue.

Come to Swithens Farm for a great family day out in Leeds. Our farm has plenty to offer whatever age you are!Swithens Farm is a working farm. For many years now Ian and his wife Angela have built a following that they welcome in all year around. We now have a farm shop, café, playbarn and petting farm. When we first opened we only had the usual farm animals – cows, pigs, sheep, chickens and it was free entry. We now have llamas, alpacas, meerkats, rabbits, guinea pigs, donkeys and a pony.On the working farm, we breed our own cows, pigs and sheep and we sell the meat through the farm shop and the café. If you buy a sausage sandwich from the café the sausage will be from the butcher who has made the sausage by hand using our own pork. We also produce our own free-range eggs.
Leeds
Swithens Farm

Swithens Farm is a working farm. For many years now Ian and his wife Angela have built a following that they welcome in all year around.

Peak District
Restaurant
The Chequers Inn

The Chequers Inn is a 16th century, family-run, traditional country inn with an impressive dining space. The Peak District at its best.

Testbed Main Space
Leeds
Event venue
TESTBED

TESTBED is a newly renovated 10,000 sq foot event venue in Leeds that offers endless possibilities for creating unique and inspiring experiences.

Manchester
Restaurant
Salt & Pepper

Chinese inspired British food in the centre of Manchester, backed up by plenty of well-deserved local hype.

What's on: Festivals

Culture Guides

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Poet Helen Mort.
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One to add to your TBR pile, our latest round-up is a bumper edition and features some amazing events in Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds and beyond...

A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night
Cinema in the North

It's busy month across the cinemas of the north as Halloween programming leads into two of the region's biggest film festivals.

A white mattress is burning in a black rocky landscape.
Exhibitions in the North

In galleries around the North this autumn, you'll find tactile sculptures, Treasures with a capital 'T' and plant magic.

Music in the North

From New York’s experimental underground to the most exciting sounds coming from local scenes, we're lining up a noisy autumn of gigs.