LGBT travelers seeking history, art and literature find rich rewards in northern England’s Yorkshire.

by Christopher Lisotta

Thanks to the popularity of the original British Queer as Folk series and the city’s own renaissance, Manchester has been the gay go-to English destination after London—a global queer capital if ever there was one. But for travelers to the U.K. looking for something slightly off the usual beaten path that still gives them a great gay experience, Yorkshire is the place to be.

Pudding jokes and rainy moors aside, Yorkshire encompasses a large swath of northeast England, boasting a diversity of tourist choices, from national parks and ancient castles to cutting-edge shopping. On a pan-European trip last summer, I spent time in West Yorkshire and areas surrounding the region’s largest city, Leeds. Approximately a two-hour train trip from London and just over an hour’s train trip from Manchester, Leeds, with a population of about 750,000, is “probably not as big a scene as Manchester, but in terms of life as such, it’s quite a vibrant city,” explained Raymond, the spokesman for the social group Leeds Gay Community, and a Yorkshire native.

With more than 80,000 university students in town, Leeds skews a little younger in terms of population, which may explain the city’s visible gay community and a nightlife that includes a half dozen or so gay bars. Chief among them is Queen’s Court, which identifies itself as “the heart of gay Leeds village.” Located in a traditional stone and brick courtyard just a few blocks from the city’s main train station, Queen’s Court also boasts the Loft, a Monday, Friday and Saturday dance club. My old friend, Bryony, with whom I taught English when we both lived in Japan more than a decade ago, acted as a tour guide during my trip, and brought me to Queen’s Court for a few after-work pints on a warm weekday evening along with a sizeable number of young, stylishly dressed gay men and lesbians. Bryony lives in Huddersfield, a satellite town about 20 minutes from Leeds known as the birthplace of former Prime Minister Harold Wilson, and perhaps more notably to American audiences, Patrick Stewart of Star Trek: The Next Generation fame.

Huddersfield served as a great jumping-off point for some of Yorkshire’s cultural landmarks, including Bradford, which was a 25-minute car ride away through the rolling green hills that are better known as the Yorkshire moors. The home of the National Media Museum and the Bradford Industrial Museum, Bradford also takes pride in Salts Mill, a converted wool factory that now houses four art galleries featuring more than 400 works by gay favorite David Hockney, a Bradford native. Salts Mill is worth the trip alone, since the yellow sandstone, Italianate mill is a Victorian-era architectural masterpiece. There’s a cute little café on site, but for the real Bradford experience, go for something more spicy. Named the Curry Capital of 2004, Bradford boasts a plethora of South Asian restaurants, including the exceptional Mumtaz.

From Bradford we traveled eight miles by car to Haworth and the Brontë Parsonage, the home of authors Charlotte, Emily and Anne Brontë. The relatively modest museum inside the home (5.50 pounds, or about $11 admission) gives a sense of what it must have been like to live there in the Brontës’ time. Just down the stone steps from the parsonage is Bradford’s village center, a picture perfect Yorkshire hamlet that is still home to the Black Bull, a pub where the Brontë sisters’ artist brother, Branwell, was a frequent patron. Unfortunately, Branwell also frequented the druggist across the lane, where he was a regular consumer of the opium-derived concoction laudanum, a chief culprit in his early death at 31. We drank a pint at the Black Bull to Branwell’s memory, since the gift store that now inhabits the drug store sold nothing stronger than peppermint sticks.

The jewel in Yorkshire’s crown is York, the famed walled city that is pretty much a great place to get an understanding of British history in an afternoon. Founded by the Romans, invaded by the Vikings and a strategic location during the English Civil War and World War II, the city boasts York Minster, a cathedral that rivals Westminster Abbey itself. With numerous museums, sites and attractions, it more than paid to get a York Pass (21 pounds, or about $40), which provided free or greatly reduced admission to 30 attractions. Although it wasn’t included in the price of my pass, I opted to take the five-pound tour from YorkWalk. My tour guide took us along for a walk on the city’s walls, which were first built by the Romans 1,800 years ago and expanded by the Danes 600 years later, before they were rebuilt from the 12th to 14th centuries. Besides the Roman Bath Museum and the Jorvik Viking Centre, save time to walk the Shambles, considered Europe’s best-preserved medieval street. Once York’s butcher market, the Shambles is now all high-end retail, with jewelers and gift shops replacing chops and cuts.

Great lunch and dinner places abound in the walled city, but save time for tea at Betty’s Café, a York staple since the 1930s. After World War II broke out, Betty’s basement became a haunt for the American and Canadian servicemen who were based at nearby air fields. Along a hallway airmen carved their names in mirrors, which still stand today as a tribute to the many who never returned from their missions. Gay-friendly lodgings are in abundance, but some possibilities include the York House B&B and Barbican House.

All too soon I was on the train for Manchester’s international airport. I had no idea Yorkshire would have such a hold on me. Cricketer Len Hutton has a saying about a cricket team that I think best captures my experience: “The flesh may be of the South, but the bone is of the North, and the backbone is Yorkshire.”

The Details

Leeds:
Queen’s Court
www.queens-court.co.uk

Bradford:
Mumtaz restaurant
www.mumtaz.co.uk

Salts Mill
www.saltsmill.org/uk

Haworth:
Brontë Parsonage
www.bronte.org.uk

York:
Barbican House
www.barbicanhouse.co.uk

Betty’s Café
www.bettys.co.uk

York House B&B
www.yorkhouseyork.com

York Pass
www.yorkpass.com

YorkWalk
www.yorkwalk.netfirms.com

Yorkshire Tourist Board
www.yorkshire.com