2025 at Bradford Cathedral
We look forward to welcoming you to Bradford Cathedral in 2025 as we celebrate our city as the UK City of Culture. In this special year of culture, here at the cathedral we are producing three seasons of events – ‘Creativity Under Pressure’, ‘Weaving Stories’, and ‘Global Connections’, tapping into the wealth of creativity, history, and connections we have here in Bradford.
Scroll down to explore these seasons and view or book into our upcoming events, and look out for more to be announced soon.
Creativity Under Pressure
January – April
Key Events
8th January – 16th April (not 19th February)
Organ Recital Season
Music event
The season is themed around Music in Times of War.
26th Mar – William Campbell (Bradford)
2nd Apr – Victoria Ulriksen (Norway)
9th Apr – Alex Binns (Derby Cathedral)
16th Apr – Lee Ward (Fulneck School)
Thursday 3rd – Saturday 5th April
Gideon: a play with music
Play
Gideon Klein was a bright and brilliant young composer murdered by the Nazis.
For him, music was his lifeline and his resistance; for his doting sister, it could be his hubris. In an age of unfolding atrocity, what do you do when the music of personal solace can be used as a tool of your oppression? Amid hate, war, and propaganda, should your music play on no matter what the cost?
Gideon challenges audiences to engage deeply with history, find hidden hope, and draw strength from art as we confront upheaval in our own world. It is a co-production between Bradford Cathedral, Bradford Reformed Synagogue and Modalways CIC.
Weaving Stories
May – September
As part of our major project for City of Culture 2025, we will be helping people to explore the rich heritage of Bradford through the historic threads of the wool trade that go back to our foundations 1,400 years ago and bind our global city together. We will host demonstrations, offer tours around our many links with the wool trade and present art exhibitions on the theme of our woolen history. To accompany this we will be placing a large loom in the Cathedral and inviting everyone to add a piece of wool to a large tapestry that will hang in the Cathedral after 2025. This legacy tapestry will represent the countless stories of people’s connection to Bradford.
We invite you to immerse yourself in a season of creativity, heritage, and community. This summer’s Weaving Stories programme offers a wealth of opportunities to explore, reflect, and participate in something truly special.
From the powerful visual storytelling of The Knitting Pilgrim, a unique blend of theatre, craft, and spirituality, to Woven Lives, a luminous artwork celebrating the rich cultural tapestry of our city, this season is packed with inspiring moments. Music lovers can experience the haunting beauty of Echoes of Eternity, an evening of choral and orchestral music, while those with a passion for craft can take part in Crafting the Cathedral: a hands-on exploration of textiles and tradition.
Alongside these highlights, our Wednesday@One Organ Recitals, guided heritage tours, and thought-provoking talks provide even more ways to engage with Bradford Cathedral as a place of beauty, history, and hospitality. We look forward to welcoming you, whether to add your own thread to the story or simply to enjoy the richness of what this season has to offer.
The Very Revd Andy Bowerman,
Dean of Bradford
Key Events
Monday 5th May – Monday 15th Sep
Launch event: Saturday 10th May at 3pm
Weaving Stories
Exhibition
Weaving Stories is an exciting art and heritage project led by Bradford Cathedral as part of our contribution to the UK City of Culture 2025, with funding from the National Lottery Heritage Fund.
Through a loom installation in the Cathedral, we will invite local communities to co-create a breathtaking new tapestry, weaving together the rich, shared stories of Bradford’s wool trade—a heritage deeply embedded in the city’s diverse, global communities. The loom will be accompanied by a special ‘sound tapestry’: a recorded collection of voices and stories.
This project is about more than preserving history; it’s about bringing people together. By taking part, you will help safeguard an at-risk heritage craft, learn new skills, and build lasting connections with one of Bradford’s most significant cultural spaces.
The completed tapestry will then go on display in the Cathedral after a launch event on St. Blaise Day, Tuesday 3rd February 2026.
Monday 5th May
Tours of Bradford Cathedral
Tours
As part of Bradford 2025 activities, we are offering a series of tours of Bradford Cathedral during the course of this year. If you have always wanted to learn more about this beautiful building, its history and its treasures, this is your opportunity! There is no other location in Bradford where you can learn about a history stretching back almost 1,400 years, and tour a beautiful medieval building with Saxon fragments, Victorian and 20th century extensions, stunning Morris & Co. and other stained glass and many historic and contemporary features.
Wednesday 7th May – Wednesday 9th July
Wednesday@One Organ Recitals
Live music
The season is themed around Bradfordian Organ Music – music from composers with a connection to the City and District.
This season’s organists:
7th May – Robert Poyser (Beverley Minster)
14th May – Jeffrey Makinson (Lincoln Cathedral)
4th June – William Campbell (Bradford Cathedral)
11th June – Tom Winpenny (Freelance Organist)
18th June – Milkica Radovanovic
25th June – Alex Berry (Great St. Mary’s, Cambridge)
2nd July – Polina Sosnina (Brasenose College, Oxford)
9th July – Graham Thorpe (Bradford Cathedral)
Wednesday 7th May
The Knitting Pilgrim
Event
15 years of knitting. 90 pounds of yarn. One man’s artistic and spiritual journey. A one-man multidisciplinary show that combines personal storytelling, image projection, and three huge hand-knitted panels called “Stitched Glass.”
Saturday 10th May
Ecclesiastical Textiles Tours
Tours
Bradford Cathedral is fortunate enough to have in its collection a number of beautiful, intricate and historically significant ecclesiastical textiles.
Join us as we tour the Cathedral, seeing these stunning textiles in situ – some of which are rarely on display.
Monday 12th May – Friday 20th June
Launch event: Thursday 15th May
Airedale Stitchers – Our Bradford
Exhibition
This textiles exhibition will see forty works hanging from the pillars in the Cathedral, each capturing a place or feeling from the Bradford District, and styled in one of many different types of stitches.
Monday 26th May
Morris & Co. Stained Glass Window Tour
Tours
The famous Victorian artist and designer William Morris founded Morris & Co. and, along with renowned figures such as Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Edward Burne-Jones and Ford Madox Brown, created many pieces of stunning stained glass, some early examples of which are on display in four locations in Bradford Cathedral. The stained glass also includes a figure, recently discovered to have been designed by William De Morgan.
Monday 5th June
Tours of Bradford Cathedral
Tours
As part of Bradford 2025 activities, we are offering a series of tours of Bradford Cathedral during the course of this year. If you have always wanted to learn more about this beautiful building, its history and its treasures, this is your opportunity! There is no other location in Bradford where you can learn about a history stretching back almost 1,400 years, and tour a beautiful medieval building with Saxon fragments, Victorian and 20th century extensions, stunning Morris & Co. and other stained glass and many historic and contemporary features.
Thursday 12th June
Ecclesiastical Textiles Tours
Tours
Join us as we tour the Cathedral, seeing these stunning textiles in situ – some of which are rarely on display.
Bradford Cathedral is fortunate enough to have in its collection a number of beautiful, intricate and historically significant ecclesiastical textiles. These include altar frontals and other textiles designed by Morris & Co., the Leek Embroidery Society, Bradfordian artist Ernest Sichel and renowned Bradfordian embroiderer, Louisa Pesel, who designed an altar frontal that was worked on by shell-shocked soldiers during World War One. There are also contemporary textiles designed by Polly Meynell. Join us as we tour the Cathedral, seeing these stunning textiles in situ- some of which are rarely on display- and hearing the fascinating stories behind them.
Mon 30th June – Sat 23rd August
Launch event: Saturday 5th July at 4:30pm
Knit The Stripes
Exhibition
Knit the Stripes was created by the community art project Craft for Climate. The installation involved local crafters knitting individual scarves displaying the annual average temperature data and, when assembled, charting the history of Bradford’s changing climate from 1853 to 2023.
Saturday 5th July @ 7:30pm
Re:Imagine Faith Conversations
Talk
Baroness Sayeeda Warsi in conversation, will explore the shifting and contested landscape of interfaith relations in the 21st century. How is this playing out in places like Bradford and what can we, as City of Culture, learn from our good and more challenging experiences of the past?
Tuesday 8th July – Monday 1st September
Woven Lives
Exhibition
Woven lives is a beautiful and powerful artwork which talks of the lives and stories of the people of Bradford. The woven coloured glass and symbols, lit from within, show how light and dark times are all part of the story of community and connection.
Friday 11th July
Ecclesiastical Textiles Tours
Tours
Join us as we tour the Cathedral, seeing these stunning textiles in situ – some of which are rarely on display.
Bradford Cathedral is fortunate enough to have in its collection a number of beautiful, intricate and historically significant ecclesiastical textiles. These include altar frontals and other textiles designed by Morris & Co., the Leek Embroidery Society, Bradfordian artist Ernest Sichel and renowned Bradfordian embroiderer, Louisa Pesel, who designed an altar frontal that was worked on by shell-shocked soldiers during World War One. There are also contemporary textiles designed by Polly Meynell. Join us as we tour the Cathedral, seeing these stunning textiles in situ- some of which are rarely on display- and hearing the fascinating stories behind them.
Friday 11th and Saturday 12th July
Crafting the Cathedral
Event
In July, as part of our “Weaving Stories” project, funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund, we are holding two days of free events which will appeal to crafting groups, crafters, general members of the public and families.
Included in the activities over the two days will be opportunities to: watch demonstrations by stone carvers and the Bradford Guild of Weavers, Spinners and Dyers; try your hand at embroidery and basic weaving; view our current “Knit the Stripes” and “Woven Lives” exhibitions; see the Cathedral stitchers in action, and much much more.
As well as all these free events there will also be the opportunity to learn more about the textiles and other beautifully-crafted treasures of the Cathedral, by joining one of our ecclesiastical textiles’ or craft-centred tours of the Cathedral.
More details will follow soon.
Thursday 17th July
Morris & Co. Stained Glass Window Tours
Tours
The famous Victorian artist and designer William Morris founded Morris & Co. and, along with renowned figures such as Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Edward Burne-Jones and Ford Madox Brown, created many pieces of stunning stained glass, some early examples of which are on display in four locations in Bradford Cathedral. The stained glass also includes a figure, recently discovered to have been designed by William De Morgan.
Friday 31st July
Tours of Bradford Cathedral
Tours
As part of Bradford 2025 activities, we are offering a series of tours of Bradford Cathedral during the course of this year. If you have always wanted to learn more about this beautiful building, its history and its treasures, this is your opportunity! There is no other location in Bradford where you can learn about a history stretching back almost 1,400 years, and tour a beautiful medieval building with Saxon fragments, Victorian and 20th century extensions, stunning Morris & Co. and other stained glass and many historic and contemporary features.
Saturday 9th August
Morris & Co. Stained Glass Window Tours
Tours
The famous Victorian artist and designer William Morris founded Morris & Co. and, along with renowned figures such as Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Edward Burne-Jones and Ford Madox Brown, created many pieces of stunning stained glass, some early examples of which are on display in four locations in Bradford Cathedral. The stained glass also includes a figure, recently discovered to have been designed by William De Morgan.
Sunday 17th August
Visiting Choir: Hope Street Consort
Music
This week we welcome our latest visiting choir, the Hope Street Consort.
The Hope Street Consort is a Liverpool-based vocal ensemble, formed in October 2023, made up of musicians who sing in the choirs of both of the city’s cathedrals. Known for their flexibility in repertoire and clean sound, the consort has quickly gained recognition, earning a special commendation for their performance at their first competition, placing second at the Andrew Downes Performance Prize.
The group regularly performs recitals across the North of England and is scheduled to appear at the Prescot Festival in 2025, alongside other exciting engagements. The Hope Street Consort brings a fresh, dynamic sound to the Liverpool music scene.
Last year, they visited Bradford Cathedral, which was a great success. The consort are looking forward to returning as a visiting choir this summer, singing both Eucharist and Evensong on Sunday 17th August.
Saturday 13th September | 12noon – 3pm
Heritage Open Day
Open Day
At this year’s Heritage Open Day we will be focussing on some artistic works in the Cathedral created by women, including embroider designers May Morris and Louisa Pesel, and stained glass artist Moira Forsyth.
Other Events
May
Yorkshire Heritage Way: Ripon > Bradford Pilgrimage
4-day walk
A pilgrimage taking place from Ripon to Bradford Cathedral over four days.
Friday 16th May | 7:30pm
Art of Andalucia
Flamenco evening
“ART OF ANDALUCIA” is a captivating celebration of Daniel Martinez’s exceptional artistry in the world of flamenco. This unique concert offers a full immersion into the essence of flamenco, featuring a carefully curated selection of Daniel’s most celebrated works from his discography, including his award-winning production “Art of Believing” and his latest masterpiece, “Andalucia.”
Friday 23rd May | 3pm
Pilgrim Cello- Meditation on the Seven Last Words of Jesus
Live music
Poet and Cellist Kenneth Wilson is undertaking a 2,000 mile bicycle pilgrimage around all 42 English Anglican cathedrals, performing a Meditation on the Seven Last Words of Jesus.
The Meditation consists of JS Bach’s beautiful solo cello music, interspersed with poems of reflection on Jesus’s last words from the cross.
The performance lasts about 50 minutes. Entry is free, with a retiring collection.
Saturday 24th May | 11am
Cathedrals Cycle Relay 2025
Cycle ride
Join us for the launch event of this year’s Cathedrals Cycle Relay. Entry into the launch is free, but please click the link below to sign-up to cycle from Bradford to Wakefield for only £10, including a participation medal.
May
Yorkshire Heritage Way: Ripon > Bradford Pilgrimage
4-day walk
A pilgrimage taking place from Ripon to Bradford Cathedral over four days.
Friday 16th May | 7:30pm
Art of Andalucia
Flamenco evening
“ART OF ANDALUCIA” is a captivating celebration of Daniel Martinez’s exceptional artistry in the world of flamenco. This unique concert offers a full immersion into the essence of flamenco, featuring a carefully curated selection of Daniel’s most celebrated works from his discography, including his award-winning production “Art of Believing” and his latest masterpiece, “Andalucia.”
Friday 6th and Saturday 7th June
New Music Biennial
Music event
New Music Biennial is a three-day festival celebrating the best new music across all genres from the country’s most exciting composers – and in 2025, for the first time, it’s coming to Bradford. Produced by Bradford 2025.
Saturday 14th June | 6pm
Bradford Festival Choral Society: Echoes of Eternity – Music for Choir and Organ
Music event
A powerful celebration of choral grandeur, from Parry’s resplendent I Was Glad and Blest Pair of Sirens to Vierne’s magnificent Messe Solennelle, written for the spectacular surroundings of Notre Dame. The ancient Gregorian chant Ave maris stella meets Judith Weir’s vivid reimagining and Anna Thorvaldsdottir’s Heyr þú oss himnum á offers an otherworldly moment of contemplation.
Saturday 12th July | 7:30pm
Chordiality: Fauré Requiem
Music event
Join Bradford’s Chordiality Choir and the National Festival Orchestra for a summer evening of choral and orchestral classics featuring Gabriel Faure’s famous Requiem and much more.
Friday 18th July | 4pm
European Festival of Latvian Culture
Music event
A concert of Latvian music performed by talented young musicians from Latvia, the UK and Germany. Featured composers include Vasks, Renāte StivriŅa, Pavasars, Plakidis, and Alberts Jērums.
Friday 18th – Sunday 20th July
ACT Shakespeare: The Tempest
Outdoor Theatre
Years after being abandoned at sea in a leaky vessel, Prospera conjures a terrifying tempest against those who usurped her position as Duchess of Milan.
The Tempest explores love, loss, revenge and redemption in the magical environment of a mysterious island.
Global Connections
September – December
We are a diverse and distinct place where people have come from around the world and stayed. We welcome people from all nations to call our city home and this season of work will celebrate our international links. From globally significant artworks that engage in interfaith dialogue to young people making new links across cultural divides, we are engaging in big conversations with our global family.
Events in this season to be announced soon.
Discover More
Until Summer 2025
Cathedral Timeline
Discover more about our 1,400 years of history with our on-site temporary timeline, or view our online one today! The on-site timeline is viewable until Summer 2025.
March – October 2025
Bradford Faith Trail
Come and join the hundreds of visitors who will come this year from Bradford – and well beyond it – to participate in an “open door experience” at five of Bradford’s places of worship, from Leeds Road down to Bradford Cathedral
2025
The Model of Bradford Cathedral
Starting at our Heritage Open Day in Autumn 2024, Michael Scott is creating an n-gauge size model of Bradford Cathedral. You can watch his progress videos, which mix history with how-to!
2025
Tours
You can discover more about the Cathedral with our general tours, textile tours, or stained glass tours. For more information, or to book a tour, please e-mail education@bradfordcathedral.org
Visit Us:
Opening times
Monday – Saturday 10am – 4pm
Please see our what’s on calendar for any changes.
What to See?
Bradford Cathedral has been a site of Christian worship since the 7th century. Explore over 1000 years of history in the heart of Bradford. We also have a wealth of Morris & Co. stained glass, 18th Century monuments and a range of contemporary and historic textiles.