Black Dyke Mills: The towering Yorkshire mills with a link to The Beatles' Yellow Submarine

The mills were founded by John Foster (1798-1879), son of a Bradford colliery owner, whose early enterprise of buying yarn and paying handloom weavers to turn it into finished cloth was successful enough to begin building Black Dyke Mills in 1835.

A paternal employer like the better-known Sir Titus Salt at Saltaire, Foster provided houses and shops for his workers as well as leisure facilities like a park, concert hall and library.

At the 1851 Great Exhibition held in London to showcase international industry, the mills won first prize for alpaca and mohair fabrics and the gold medal for yarns.

His most famous legacy was the founding of The John Foster & Son Black Dyke Mills Band, later shortened to the Black Dyke Band.

Foster himself was a French horn player who had joined an early brass and reed band at Queensbury before the mills were built.

In 1855 he decided to form a band consisting mainly of his workers, and provided outfits made from the mill’s own cloth.

It has become one of the world’s best-known brass bands, and in 1968 was signed by The Beatles’ new enterprise, Apple Records.

Paul McCartney supervised the recording of one of his compositions, Thingumybob, at Victoria Hall in Saltaire, which was released as a single with the band’s performance of Yellow Submarine on the B side.

Still rehearsing in its original band room, Black Dyke have made numerous TV appearances, won the World Brass Band Championship once, the European Championships 13 times and British Championships 23 times.

The mills now accommodate individual business units.