Bingley is a West Yorkshire town full of contradictions- a place where the old is jostled by the new. Where farmlands run all the way up to factory walls and railway sidings, and where the mullion windows of Tudor times can be found close to sash windows of neo-Georgian semi-detached suburbia. For all its efforts to harness itself to the twenty first century an old atmosphere still occasionally peeps through with hints of the town's proud past and ancient heritage- a well worn bridge over the river at Beckfoot, the seclusion of its ancient parish church in Old Main Street and the elegant style of its town hall amidst the sylvan beauty of a parkland described by John Wesley as 'a little paradise'. In spite of its rugged industrial exterior Bingley has always had a reputation for tranquility; Victorians knew it as 'the Throstle Nest of Old England'. |
