Opening Times
Monday: Closed; Tuesday - Friday: 10am-4pm; Saturday - Sunday: 11am-4pm
Facilities
Also nearby
Ogden Water Country Park & Nature Reserve (www.ogdenwater.org.uk) SATNAV: HX2 8YA) Halifax 3 miles. Brontë Country, with Haworth Parsonage, about 7 miles away by car.
Toilets available (no disabled access toilets)
Parking available
'Romany' was a well-known naturalist and radio broadcaster, famous for his Out With Romany programmes.
He was also the Revd G Bramwell Evens, a Wesleyan Methodist minister, born in Hull in 1884. In 1921 he bought a 'vardo' (a gypsy living wagon) at Brough Hill Fair, Cumbria, and it became the 'base camp' for his many adventures in real-life as well as in his books and broadcasts.
Evens served in circuits in Huddersfield (1926–29) and Halifax (1929–39), both towns not far from Bradford, before ill-health forced him to give up his
ministry. He died in Wilmslow, Cheshire, in 1943, having moved there four years earlier to be near the BBC's Manchester studios.
The vardo remained in a memorial garden in Wilmslow until 2012, when it was moved, following major restoration, to its present secure, indoor location. The living wagon is on full-time display in the stables opposite the main museum building, but occasionally this shed is closed in extreme weather conditions, eg a heavy snowfall, to protect the objects. More recently, there is an ongoing consultation process to determine if the vardo should return to the Wilmslow site.
There is more information about the Revd G Bramwell Evans via The Romany Society website.
Bradford Industrial Museum
Moorside Mills, Moorside Road Eccleshill, Bradford, BD2 3HP