The West Riding of Yorkshire was the largest of England’s historic counties, and this volume covers its northern half from the outskirts of York to the borders of Cumbria. It is an area full of contrasts, from the cities of Leeds, with proud civic buildings by Cuthbert Brodrick, and Bradford, with its fine Victorian wool ¬warehouses, to the model industrial settlement at Saltaire and the hinterland of tight-knit mill-towns and villages pushing into the Pennines. To the north-west are the sparsely populated Yorkshire Dales – Ruskin’s ‘truly wonderful country’ – admired by tourists since the eighteenth century. On the gentler eastern margins of the Pennines, running into the Vale of York, are the pre-eminent Cistercian site of Fountains Abbey, the nearby cathedral town of Ripon and the spa town of Harrogate, and the magnificent designed landscapes of Bramham Park and Studley Royal.
A second volume covering Halifax, Wakefield and the southern half of the West Riding is now in preparation.
