The People, Heritage & Place project was designed to support management and development of Saltaire World Heritage Site, encouraging public engagement with planning needs for the site, raising awareness for newcomers to the city, stimulating tourism for the Bradford district, and enhancing education resources. Community involvement is fostered through close collaboration with local schools, community-interest groups, businesses, and residents as part of the development of a digital 3D representation of Saltaire. Work developing the model will increase knowledge of the site and will allow people to help to record the condition of parts of the site.
The model will add to ‘Virtual Bradford’ an open-access ‘digital twin’ for the City of Bradford established as a collaboration between the University of Bradford and Bradford Council with EU-funding through the SCORE programme. It will help to link the newly created Saltaire Active Travel Neighbourhood with Bradford City Centre along level access routes that include the cycle greenway that follows in part the route of the former Bradford spur of the Leeds-Liverpool Canal. Elements of this have been captured as part of research funded by the AHRC Heritage Consortium.
The People, Heritage & Place project is led by Professor Andrew Wilson, with Professor Chris Gaffney, Tom Sparrow, Dr Karina Croucher and Dr Adrian Evans. The project was funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) as part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) investment in nine projects across different parts of the UK to support cultural regeneration and boost regional economies. The investment forms part of the AHRC Place Programme which is led by Professor Rebecca Madgin at the University of Glasgow and uses arts and humanities research to inform policy decisions and help enrich lives in every part of the UK.
Saltaire was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2001 as a model industrial village in recognition for its international influence on town planning. Sited in the Aire Valley, the village takes its name from Sir Titus Salt who relocated his business manufacturing fine woollen fabrics made from cashmere and alpaca from the Goitside area of Bradford to Salts Mill. To serve his workers he appointed Bradford architects Lockwood and Mawson to build a village of more than 800 houses, including a Congregationalist church (the grade 1 listed United Reformed Church), hospital, shops, schools, park and Victoria Hall.
The intact nature of the historic fabric of Saltaire and its contextual landscape setting (adjacent to the Leeds-Liverpool Canal, River Aire, Midland Railway, Shipley Glen and Hirst Wood), continue to serve as a valuable testbed for the Visualising Heritage team’s approaches to digital documentation, visualisation and dissemination.
Visualisations from mobile mapping captured around the canal, click here to view in more detail
Click the image above to view part of the canal in 3D
Marking the 100th anniversary of Bradford Canal closure (Read More)