BRADFORD is well known as a place of huge diversity - a melting pot of people from different religions, backgrounds and cultures.

And nowhere is this more evident than the the Bradford Faith Trail, where five different places of worship are visited in the hope of fostering understanding and respect between people of different faiths.

The popular trail is held on the first Saturday of every month between March and October in the Leeds Road area and takes in St Peter's Roman Catholic Church; the Abu Bakar Masjid; the Shree Lakshmi Narayan Hindu Temple and the Guru Gobind Singh Gurdwara before coming to a close at Bradford Cathedral.

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The trail - and the positive impact it is having -was recently celebrated through an event at Bradford City Hall.

Maggie Myers, Director of Education and Visitors at Bradford Cathedral, said: "It's an amazing thing. You go to these five places of worship, on the same road, and you see these five different communities that are just thriving in the same area within a mile of each other, and five separate faith communities, but actually all part of the one Bradford community. They've all got their doors open, you're welcome, you get food, you get hospitality, you get explanations about the different faiths.

"It's just what we need in our world to break down those barriers to make people more aware of each other and to realise we have so much in common, even with our differences, but we're all side by side with each other, we're all part of the same community."

She added: "It's such a great way of really just getting the confidence to go inside another place of worship. Confidence and understanding - those things are really important.While you're walking between places of worship, you're talking to people that you would never have talked to before."

Deepak Sharma, from the Shree Lakshmi Narayan Hindu Temple, said the trail helps to take away the fear of 'are they different?', particularly through the "unique" Leeds Road, where many different faiths are represented.

He said: "There's a buzz when people do it, because people really want to come down and where they might have been shy - how do I actually go into a mosque? How do I walk into a church? How do I go into the temple? They actually have an opportunity to have an open invite."

Search Bradford Faith Trail on Facebook for further details or visit the Bradford Cathedral website. The next event will be held on Saturday, June 1, between 10am and 3.30pm, with a free vegetarian lunch served at the Gurdwara.