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Wake up call – fine art, great food, and fascinating local history await Fiona Whitty on a break in Wakefield, West Yorkshire, where she walked on the cobbled streets and visited a craft distillery
Gary Ford has come a long way since conjuring up home brew and wine in his garage… he’s now the brains behind a craft distillery that celebrates the unsung slice of Yorkshire he now calls home.
His Forged Spirits is helping to prove that there’s so much more to Wakefield than Wakey Wines – the off-licence that became a social media hit after its video clips went viral. Nowadays Gary’s ditched the garage and moved into Tileyard North, a converted 18th century mill in the city centre where he makes his organic gin, vodka from prime Yorkshire wheat and rum which is Bonsucro certified, meaning its sugarcane base is sourced responsibly. Alongside wife Victoria, he’s also opened up the cool Distillery Bar right next door.
During a two-night trip to Wakefield, which lies a stone’s throw from Leeds, my mate Vanessa and I swung by the Forged Gin School, where Gary coached us into producing our very own bottles of our favourite tipple. Forged’s own gin bottles are particularly eye-catching. Elaborately art-deco in style, they’re designed to capture Wakefield’s mining, textiles and manufacturing heritage – with tiny intricate label designs including a hammer, anvil and coal.
For our own gin Gary encouraged us to smell and taste different botanicals and pick up to eight to add to the standard juniper, which every gin must contain, and the coriander and root he recommended. Then we distilled our selection in a neutral grain spirit in individual 2.4 litre copper stills before bottling it up for home. Mine included almond and apricot while Vanessa opted for grapefruit and rose – but we’ll have to wait a month before trying to allow the botanicals to fully bed in.
As a fascinating insight into the skill and thought behind every bottle it was top notch. (Gin School £95pp, forgedspirits.com )
Wakefield is a fantastic short break destination with plenty to do. Once a bustling centre for coal mining and textiles, today the West Yorkshire city sees cobbled streets and reclaimed factory buildings rubbing shoulders with stunning modern architecture.
Our base for two nights was Waterton Park Hotel, based in nearby Walton village on a sprawling country house estate with an illustrious history. Intriguingly there are two hotel buildings – Walton Hall, a stunning Georgian mansion situated on its own island amid a lake, and a modern alternative.
In the early 1800s the Hall’s former resident was Charles Waterton, a forward-thinking naturist who campaigned to preserve wildlife habitats in the face of the industrial revolution. He turned his home into a natural history museum and surrounded the ancestral estate with a 9ft wall to keep wildlife in and poachers out, creating the world’s first nature reserve.
Our huge deluxe twin room in the modern part was grand with two double oak-framed beds and a sleek claret velvet sofa. In the new Grand Café, breakfast had mains like smoked salmon and scrambled egg alongside a self-serve buffet while an evening meal of miso glazed sea bass and braised beef shin kept up the decadent feel.
Strolling over a foot bridge to the old Hall, we were also treated to a taste of the serenity that Waterton nurtured during a twilight session in the hotel spa. Wakefield is carving itself out to be the UK’s sculpture capital. World renowned sculptors Barbara Hepworth and Henry Moore were both born there and the city is naturally keen to shout about it.
The striking Hepworth Wakefield, opened in 2011, shows off some of their most mesmerising works alongside those of other modern artists. (£14, hepworthwakefield.org )
But the real cracker for us was the Yorkshire Sculpture Park. The largest in Europe, it’s an Aladdin’s Cave of art with around 90 works dotted around the 500-acre Bretton Hall estate. Memorable bits for us included Damien Hirst’s 33ft tall statue of a pregnant woman and a multi-coloured Buddha by fashion-model-turned artist Niki de Saint Phalle. (from £9.50, ysp.org.uk)
Later we visited Blacker Hall Farm shop to ogle freshly-made pies and cakes and home-reared meat. The huge cookies, brownies laden with Rolos and its renowned pulled pork sandwiches were seriously good. ( blackerhallfarmshop.co.uk )
Now is a great time to sample Wakefield’s cultural and culinary side too with the opening just last month of a new venue called Wakefield Exchange, or WX for short. As well as hosting events, exhibitions, talks and live music, it’s home to a café, bar and Mexican restaurant.
We’d arrived in the city via a smooth and stress-free two-hour LNER service from London, which runs every half an hour. If you fancy upgrading to first class you’ll tuck into complimentary brunch bacon rolls from Taste Tradition rare breed specialists, one of the many small local suppliers LNER use along their routes.
Once we arrived Wakefield Museum proved to be a solid starting point, outlining its progress from a booming wool trade centre. (free entry, wakefield.gov.uk ) Last up on our trip was the National Coal Mining Museum in nearby Overton. The centrepiece is a tour of an old mine, led by a former miner.
After donning hard hats and offloading our phones to eliminate fire risks we journeyed 460ft underground in one of the original lift shafts that workers themselves used.
It gave us an eerie taste of the dark and cramped conditions miners once suffered. (entry free, underground tours £7.50pp, ncm.org.uk )
Book the holiday
- LNER offers one-way fares from London King’s Cross to Wakefield Westgate starting at £23.60 standard, £58.60 first class. lner.co.uk
- Direct trains also run from cities including Leeds, Birmingham, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen, Plymouth, Bristol, Newcastle and Sheffield.
- Rooms at the Waterton Park Hotel in Wakefield start at £158 a night with breakfast. watertonparkhotel.co.uk
- More info at experiencewakefield.co.uk
