Alpacas, Victorian-themed tram rides, a working canal boat and textile dyeing workshops will bring Saltaire’s past into the present this weekend, when the village celebrates its status as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

More than 20 organisations are putting the two-day event together, bringing Saltaire’s history alive with song, poetry, exhibitions, even knitting.

When Sir Titus Salt built his mill and an ambitious infrastructure on the banks of the River Aire in 1851 it was to provide employment, housing and recreation for his army of labourers. Today Saltaire ranks alongside the Great Wall of China and the Taj Mahal as a site of global significance recognised by UNESCO in 2001.

The 2013 Saltaire World Heritage Weekend, taking place tomorrow and Sunday marks UNESCO’s International Day for Monuments and Sites with a range of events, from alpaca-painting to revealing the workings of Victoria Hall’s historic Wurlitzer organ.

Tomorrow the Cinema Organ Society will be playing popular tunes on the Wurlitzer and showing visitors its “mysterious under-stage workings”.

Saltaire’s textile heritage is celebrated in the Salt Building, where Bradford Museums Young Ambassadors will be running a textile corsages workshop, using cloth which was woven at the Bradford Industrial Museum. Visitors will have chance to try felt-making and knitting using hand-dyed wool and take a look at natural dyes used in Victorian times, and the plants that produced them.

In Roberts Park a parade of alpacas will pay tribute to the wool that built Saltaire, with visitors invited to make and decorate their own alpaca, helped by artist Lou Sumray.

From around 1740 horse-drawn boats transported goods to and from Saltaire, and the heritage weekend explores the role of the Leeds and Liverpool Canal in its industrial past.

Moored at the Victoria Road canal bridge will be canal boat Kennet, which visited Saltaire last autumn re-tracing a 200-year-old trade route transporting wool to Liverpool by canal. Activities on board the Kennet include talks on canals, boats and barges by the Canal and River Trust Explorers, and there will be a demonstration of how to harness a horse to a barge.

Saltaire’s international links are explored in two talks; ‘Polish Threads’, focusing on connections between Salts Mill and Poland in the 19th and 20th centuries, and ‘The Other Town That The Salts Built’, looking at David King and Dave Shaw’s journey to Dayton, Tennessee, where Titus Salt Junior established mining, railroad services and workers’ housing in the 1870s.

And Crespi d’Adda: The Italian Connection is a photographic display highlighting parallels between Saltaire and an Italian workers village, and fellow World Heritage Site.

Volunteers at Shipley Glen Tramway will be dressed in Victorian costume over the weekend, in tribute to entrepreneur Sam Wilson who built the tramway in 1895. Visitors can ride for free if they can produce pre-decimal coins used for the fares in 1895 – 1d up and 1/2d down.

Saltaire’s United Reformed Church archives will be thrown open, with baptism and marriage registers on display, and Shipley College’s Saltaire Archive Exhibition features posters and artefacts from the past. There are exhibitions of UK World Heritage Sites, and Titus Salt School will showcase the work of its UNESCO Youth Summit, aimed at preserving the village’s history.

Local historian Tish Lawson will talk about William Fry, secretary to the Governors of the Salt schools from 1873 until the 1900s.

Visitors will be invited to take a journey into Saltaire’s past through song and poetry, with Eddie Lawler and Andrew Mitchell. And, for a spectacular view of the village, there’s a six-mile circular walk up Hope Hill.

World Heritage Weekends traditionally attract hundreds of people to Saltaire. Other activities include a shops trail, Morris dancing and a concert by the Broken Hearts Club band at Caroline Social Club.

Organiser Rob Martin from Saltaire Learning said: “Something that’s always really popular is the Wurlitzer Organ. The idea is to have it playing and have tours under it. It’s fascinating - under the stage you can see all the little cymbals and bits of strings working.”

He added: “Some of the exhibitions are new, one of the things that hasn’t been done before is the songs and poetry. Andrew Mitchell wrote some poems about Saltaire some time back and he’s re-publishing them in a book.”

  • For more about the weekend visit saltairevillage.info.