Keighley is a former mill town in West Yorkshire, now part of the Bradford Metropolitan District but still very much its own place. It sits at the confluence of the River Worth and the River Aire, on the edge of the moors that inspired the Brontës just a few miles up the road in Haworth.
The main draw for visitors is the Keighley and Worth Valley Railway, a preserved steam line that shares Keighley's main station and runs through the Worth Valley to Oxenhope, stopping at Haworth along the way. The railway featured in the 1970 film The Railway Children and remains a wonderful day out. At Ingrow station, the Museum of Rail Travel holds a fine collection of Victorian and Edwardian coaches.
Cliffe Castle Museum, housed in a Victorian millowner's mansion with a small arboretum in the grounds, has an eclectic collection ranging from natural history to local industrial heritage — and admission is free. A mile east of the centre, East Riddlesden Hall is a 17th-century National Trust manor house with one of the finest medieval tithe barns in northern England.
The town itself is honest rather than pretty — this is working Yorkshire, not picture-postcard England — but the surrounding countryside is beautiful, and Keighley makes a practical base for exploring Brontë country and the wider Airedale valley.