Jubilee - Yorkshire

Huddersfield Railway Station

The Queen was greeted by crowds outside Huddersfield Station as she attended ‘The People’s Prom’ concert in St George's Square on 24 May 2007.

The station’s foundation stone was laid by Josh Fitzwilliam, the Lord Lieutenant, on 9 October 1846, when a public holiday was declared and church bells were rung from dawn till dusk. It was partly opened for the commencement of services in August 1847, but not completed until October 1850.

The grandeur of the station is the result of its being built at the joint expense of the Huddersfield and Manchester Railway and Canal Company and the Manchester and Leeds Railway. It is Grade I listed, the highest level of protection a building can have, the same as Buckingham Palace.

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The Piece Hall, Halifax

The Queen visited Halifax to unveil a plaque at The Piece Hall, a former market place for local weavers, which is now a thriving business centre for small traders specialising in creative arts on 27 April 2004 .

The earliest documented reference to a new Piece Hall in Halifax was a hand bill dated 19 March 1774. Work began on the Piece Hall in 1775, and the Hall was officially opened on 1 January 1779, business commencing the following day.

The hall was intended for 'the purpose of depositing and exposing to sale the WORSTED and WOOLLEN GOODS manufactured in this town and neighbourhood'. The word 'piece' referred to the pieces of cloth which were sold.

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Dewsbury Town Hall

The Queen visited Dewsbury Town Hall on 27 October 1954, two years after she became Queen, and she is pictured with the Mayor of Dewsbury, Councillor Ernest Harrison.

Dewsbury Town Hall was built between 1888-9 and includes a magistrate's court, a former police station.

This grand Victorian building is in the centre of Dewsbury and has spectacular ornate rooms including a 700-seat concert hall also used for conferences, weddings and other events.

The town hall was also visited by King George V and Queen Mary in 1912, and they visited again in 1918 to praise the people of Dewsbury for their efforts in the First World War.

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Bradford City Hall

The Queen, accompanied by Prince Phillip arrived at City Hall in Bradford, on Thursday 24 May 2007. She toured the planned site for ‘A Park at the Heart’, which was to be a major redevelopment of the centre of Bradford.

City Hall was originally the Town Hall. It is based on a competition winning design of 1869 by the architects Lockwood and Mawson. Work started in 1870 and cost £100,000, around £8,322,100 in today’s money. It was opened on September 1873 by Lord Mayor Thomson.

The clock tower was inspired by the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence, Italy. The tower has thirteen bells, one of which weighs seventeen tons!

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Shree Lakshmi Narayan Temple, Bradford

The Queen and Prince Philip visited a new Hindu Temple in Bradford on 24 May 2007. It is a mark of respect to remove your shoes before entering a Hindu Temple and the Queen removed hers and wore slippers.

It was the very first time the Queen had inaugurated a worship hall of any Hindu Temple, in the UK or abroad, and she was presented with a garland as a mark of honour. The temple is the first place of Hindu worship to be purpose-built in the north of England. The temple was built on land bought from Bradford Council in 1974 with funds raised by the Hindu Cultural Society of Bradford’s members.

Swami Ji Maharaj, a Hindu religious leader, advised the society on the deities and shrines for the temple. He also suggested Shree Lakshmi Narayan as the main deity, hence the temple is named Shree Lakshmi Narayan Temple.

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City Varieties Music Hall, Leeds

The Queen visited Leeds City Varieties Music Hall on 19   July 2012, during her Diamond Jubilee tour, to unveil a plaque.

The music hall opened on 7 June 1865 as 'Thornton's New Music Hall and Fashionable Lounge'. It was created by Charles Thornton, landlord of the Swan Inn which was built in 1762. He rebuilt the inn’s singing room and altered the Swan Street entrance to provide the main access to theatre and bar/dining room.

Thornton leased the building to John Stansfield in 1876; an insurance map shows the 'Theatre of Varieties' with bar and dining room extending across the old inn and a brew house and stable beneath the stage. In 1893 it became the City Varieties and it is now a Grade II* listed building.

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Harrogate Theatre

The Queen visited Harrogate Theatre on 10 December 1998. She met the cast members of the Aladdin pantomime being performed at the theatre. The Queen later visited a local toffee factory during her tour of the area.

The theatre, originally known as the Grand Opera House was built around 1900 and was refurbished in 1972. The first performance held there was to raise funds for soldiers fighting in the Boer War. Performances and pantomimes have been playing theatre for over a hundred years.

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Yorkshire Museum, York

On 5 April 2012, the Queen visited York to attend the Royal Maundy Service at York Minster. She later visited the Yorkshire Museum and is pictured looking at a row of stone statues.

The Yorkshire Museum opened in 1830 in the grounds of York’s Abbey, St Mary’s, and was one of the first purpose-built museums in the country. It is built on the remains of some of the abbey’s buildings, and these can still be seen in the basement of the museum. The land was given by the royal grant of King George IV in 1828.

The museum’s collections include treasures from York’s Roman, Viking and medieval past and there is also a nationally significant natural science collection.

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Beverley Minster

The Queen attended a service for Rural Life at Beverley Minster on the 12 July 2002.

The site of Beverly Minster has been used for Christian worship for over 1300 years, and it is thought to be where the 8th century Bishop John of York founded a monastery known as Inderawuda. Bishop John of Beverley’s tomb, at the site, was visited by pilgrims and in 1037 he was made saint.

Construction of the current minster began in 1190, but an earlier stone Sanctuary Chair from the Saxon era and a Norman font remain to this day. The building continued to be developed over the centuries and in 2021 a grant for replacing the lead on the 14th century east end of the nave roof was provided by the Church of England and Historic England, from the Culture Recovery Fund.

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Ferens Art Gallery, Hull

The Queen visited Hull on 5 March 2009, where she met people at The Ferens Arty Gallery who had been affected by flooding in the area.

The Ferens Art Gallery opened in 1927 with funds donated by Thomas Ferens. It is an impressive Grade II listed building with a single-storey central block portico with two pillars at the centre. The gallery was extended and restored in 1991. It closed for further refurbishment in 2015 and was re-opened on 8 February 2017 by Charles, Prince of Wales and Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, in the year Hull was City of Culture.

As part of the City of Culture programme the Turner Prize was also hosted at the gallery in the same year. The gallery holds a magnificent collection of paintings and sculptures, including European Old Masters and modern and contemporary British Art, as well as children’s gallery.

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Scarborough Open Air Theatre

Scarborough’s Open Air Theatre, in Northstead Manor Gardens, was built in the early 1930s by the Scarborough Corporation. It was opened by the Lord Mayor of London in 1932, and audiences flocked to see the theatre's first ever open-air production, ‘Merrie England’.

The theatre underwent major redevelopment work more than 70 years later, and the Queen and Prince Philip officially opened the newly refurbished theatre on the 20 May 2010.

The restored theatre is the largest open-air theatre in Europe, with a capacity of more than 6500, and has hosted many world-famous music stars including Kylie, Little Mix and Lewis Capaldi. The lake on which it sits also has it's original water chute. It is the third-oldest water chute in Britain, one of only three such rides surviving from before the Second World War, and one of the oldest surviving water-based rides in the world.

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Allam Medical Building, University of Hull

The Queen visited Hull on 16 July 2017, to commemorate its year as City of Culture. During her visit she officially opened the £28 million Allam Medical Building at the University of Hull.

She was taken on a tour of the new facilities and met with the tutors and students studying at the campus. She also visited the operating theatre and watched a training session on a robotic mannequin patient.

The following year the Allam Building won a prestigious award from The Guardian’s University Awards programme in the category of ‘Building that Inspire.’ The building also won a Chartered Institute of Building: Committed to Construction in Humber & West Yorkshire award.

This new building sits alongside the university’s original buildings, such as those shown on the aerial photograph, many of which are Listed Buildings.

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Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy, Hull

The Queen visited Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy factory in Hull as part of her visit to commemorate Hull as City of Culture on 16 November 2017. She was taken on a tour of the factory where the huge 75m wind turbine blades are made.

She also met with some school pupils who had been involved in a Green Power project. The project’s aims were to inspire and encourage young people from age 9 to 25 years into taking up engineering as a career by engaging them in a project to build and race electric powered cars.

The factory opened in 2016 and is the largest offshore wind manufacturing facility in the UK and there are plans to expand it by more than 41,000 square metres to enable the manufacture of next-generation wind blades.

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Doncaster Racecourse

The Queen visited Doncaster Racecourse on the 1 September 1953, just a year after she became Queen, to watch the St Leger Day races. She also attended the St Leger Day Festival in 1955, where she watched the favourite horse, Meld, win from the Royal Box.

Horse racing has taken place in the area for centuries, and it is a huge part of the history and heritage of Doncaster. There are records of race meetings that go back to the 16 ^th  century, and a 1595 map shows a racecourse at Town Moor.

The St Leger Festival, founded in 1776 by Colonel Anthony St. Leger, is the highlight of Doncaster’s year and is one of the oldest horse racing events in the world.

The racecourse Doncaster is pear-shaped track of around mile (3.1 km) and is mostly flat. In recent years it has seen extensive £3 million redevelopment with a variety of luxury suites and restaurants.

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Great Yorkshire Show

The Queen visited the Great Yorkshire show in Harrogate on 10 July 2008 to mark its 150th anniversary. The Queen was accompanied by Prince Philip, and they were shown many different events including riding demonstrations, a champion cattle parade and were escorted through the muddy cattle ring by the Chief Cattle Steward.

The Great Yorkshire Show is run by the Yorkshire Agricultural Society which was founded in 1837. The first show was held in 1838 to exhibit animal stock and farming equipment. The show was held in different places in Yorkshire every year until 1950, when the YAS bought a permanent site for it at Hook Oval in Harrogate for £16,500.

Between 1940 and 1948 the show was cancelled due to the Second World War. The show has also been cancelled due to an outbreak of Foot and Mouth disease amongst cattle, once due to severe wet weather and because of Covid-19.

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Beverley Racecourse

The Queen visited Beverley racecourse and met with the jockeys  racing in the Champagne Victor Queen's Golden Jubilee handicap stakes, before watching the race on 12 July 2002.

Horse racing is a significant part of the history and heritage of the historic market town of Beverly and has been documented as far back as 300 years ago. The racecourse first opened in 169 and in 1752 the Jockey Club was founded to establish rules for racing. The rules were soon adopted by racecourses across the country, and the Jockey Club became the official governing body for horse racing in Britain, formalising the presence of the racecourse in Beverly.

The first grandstand was built in 1767 for £1000 and in 1968 a £90,000 stand was opened in Tattersalls enclosure. During the Second World War the racecourse was used as an airbase, and the sloping Westwood track was used as a runway for the aeroplanes.

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Ripon Cathedral

The Queen visited Ripon Cathedral on 4 April 1985 to hand out Maundy Money to local pensioners. They each received an amount of money equal to the Queen’s age – 59p.

The earliest church on the site was a Scottish monastery, re-organised by St Wilfrid along Benedictine lines in c660. Between 660 and 106 it was re-founded as a College of secular canons under the patronage of the Archbishop of York.

It was at the same time a parish church, which it remained after the College was dissolved in 1547. In 1604 the College was re-founded by James I. It was dissolved during the Commonwealth but re-founded again in 1660. In 1836 Ripon became a diocese and the parish church became a cathedral, which it remains today.

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Wakefield Cathedral

The Queen visited Wakefield Cathedral on 24 March 2005 to hand out Maundy Money to local pensioners. The cathedral is built on the site of an earlier Saxon church and the Doomsday book tells us there was a church here in 1086.

In around 1090 a new Norman church was built. This was rebuilt several times, notably in 1329 and 1469. The next major restoration of the church was in 1858-74 by Sir George Gilbert Scott. This restored version of the church was designed to look late medieval in appearance.

In 1888 the Diocese of Wakefield was created and what had been a parish church was made a cathedral. In March 2016, after another restoration, a 10 foot Saxon cross was put up in front of the cathedral.

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Barnsley Court House Station

The Queen arrived at Barnsley Station on 27 October 1954 to begin her two-day visit to the Yorkshire coal fields and heavy woollen industry districts.

At the time of the Queen’s visit the Court House Building, built in 1861 for the local judiciary, was the station building. It was converted to use as a railway station building in 1870 and remained as such until 1962. It later became, and still remains, a pub.

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(Ex) RAF Finningley

The Queen and Prince Edward shield their ears during a display at ‘The Queen’s Silver Jubilee Air Show’ at RAF Finningley on 29 July 1977.

The first air display at Finningley was held in September 1945. For two decades RAF Finningley was home to the Battle of Britain Air Display which was the largest one-day air show event in the country. These displays, which attracted huge crowds, showed off the aircraft and skills of the military and were eventually shown on TV.

RAF Finningley was closed in 1996, as part of cuts in defence spending. The airfield however re-opened in 2005, it is now called Doncaster Sheffield Airport (DSA).

Find out more about  Doncaster Sheffield Airport .

The Humber Bridge

The Humber Bridge was officially opened by the Queen on 17 July 1981. The bridge took eight years to build and over a thousand people worked on its construction, which cost ninety-one million pounds.

When it was first built it was the world’s longest single-span suspension bridge and it remains the longest in the UK. People had campaigned for a bridge for over a hundred years as the Humber Estuary was a barrier to trade and transport.

The bridge is a total of 2,200 metres (1.4 miles) long, the towers are 155.5 metres (510 feet) tall, and the wire used in the bridge would wrap around the moon more than six times. It is estimated that more than ten million vehicles cross the bridge every year. In 2017 is was protected as a Grade I listed building.

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RAF Driffield

The Queen walked from her Viking aircraft, accompanied by the Lord Lieutemant of hull and the East Riding, Lord Middleton on the first visit of her reign to the east riding of Yorkshire on 6 August 1954.

RAF Driffield was opened in 1918 under the name of RAF Eastburn and closed in 1920. In 1935 a new airfield was built, initially training bomber crews. On 15 August 1940 there was a German air raid on the airfield. Casualties included the first fatality in the Women's Royal Air Force.

In 1977 the site was turned over to the British Army for use as a driving school and was renamed Alamein Barracks. It returned to the RAF in 1992 and in 1996 became part of the Defence Training Estate.

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