Bradford-based painter Scott Buchanan Barden, who specialises in buildings and street scenes, currently has an exhibition of his pictures in Ilkley.

He lives in Great Horton, and has been painting areas of the district close to his heart to preserve their images for future generations.

Earlier this year his paintings of places in Thornton, Clayton and Great Horton were shown at Thornton’s South Square Gallery.

“Part of my intention is to capture scenes of Bradford that may not be here for much longer, such as Great Horton Methodist Church cemetery, just behind my house,” he said at the time.

“As with much of Bradford which is being pulled down, I felt the need to capture this for posterity in my paintings. It’s the only way I know how to capture these places as they are.”

No surprise, then, to learn that he feels that Bradford’s architecture and cultural inheritances are much maligned by both outsiders as well as people who live here.

“Bradford has a wealth of Regency, Victorian, Edwardian, Art Deco and other styles of architecture that have been much neglected and overlooked. The people of Bradford should be proud of its heritage, which is as great, and often greater, than many other places.

“My recent art is not a mission to change such perceptions, but simply a very personal response to what I see around me every day.

“By taking a bird’s eye view as opposed to a street-level vista, I am able to capture the merry madcap homogeneity of what I believe makes this place tick and what makes it the community it is,” he added.

He started putting paint on paper when he was three. At the age of 16, inspired by the movie Zulu, he built a plasticine model of Rorke’s Drift – the place in Natal province where, on January 22, 1879, 139 British troops beat off an attack by 4,500 Zulus, winning 11 Victoria Crosses.

Scott’s aim was to make a spoof stop-motion animation film. The Battle of Waterloo inspired another attempt. For this he commandeered use of the family’s kitchen table for about four months.

While at Cardiff College of Art, he built a larger scale model.

He said: “I wanted to ridicule the ritual of men going off to war in glamorous regalia just to kill each other. My aim was to create life-size sets that looked like paintings.”

Scott’s paintings are on show at Green and Bousfield vegetarian cafe, Leeds Road, Ilkley, until the end of January.