Keighley in the context of "Simon Beaufoy"

A loom is a device used to weave cloth and tapestry. The basic purpose of any loom is to hold the warp threads under tension to facilitate the interweaving of the weft threads. The precise shape of the loom and its mechanics may vary, but the basic function is the same.

John Rupert Firth OBE (17 June 1890 in Keighley, Yorkshire – 14 December 1960 in Lindfield, West Sussex), commonly known as J. R. Firth, was an English linguist and a leading figure in British linguistics during the 1950s.

Geo. Hattersley was a textile machinery manufacturer from Keighley, West Yorkshire in England, founded in 1789 and responsible for the Hattersley Standard Loom and other types of looms.

A Dandy loom was a hand loom, that automatically ratcheted the take-up beam. Each time the weaver moved the sley to beat-up the weft, a rachet and pawl mechanism advanced the cloth roller. In 1802 William Ratcliffe of Stockport patented a Dandy loom with a cast-iron frame. It was this type of Dandy loom that was used in the small dandy loom shops.

Bradford (/ˈbrædfərd/ ), also known as the City of Bradford, is a metropolitan borough in West Yorkshire, England. It is named after its largest settlement, Bradford, but covers a larger area which includes the towns and villages of Keighley, Shipley, Bingley, Ilkley, Haworth, Silsden, Queensbury, Thornton and Denholme. Bradford has a population of 528,155, making it the fourth-most populous metropolitan district and the ninth-most populous local authority district in England. It forms part of the West Yorkshire Urban Area conurbation which in 2011 had a population of 1,777,934, and the city is part of the Leeds-Bradford Larger Urban Zone (LUZ), which, with a population of 2,393,300, is the fourth largest in the United Kingdom after London, Birmingham and Manchester.

The city is situated on the edge of the Pennines, and is bounded to the east by the City of Leeds, the south by the Metropolitan Borough of Kirklees and the south west by the Metropolitan Borough of Calderdale. The Pendle borough of Lancashire lies to the west whilst the unitary authority of North Yorkshire lie to the north west and north east of the city. Bradford is the 4th largest metropolitan district in the country, and the contiguous urban area to the north which includes the towns of Shipley and Bingley is heavily populated. The spa town of Ilkley lies further north, whilst the town of Keighley lies to the west. Roughly two thirds of the district is rural, with an environment varying from moorlands in the north and west, to valleys and floodplains formed by the river systems that flow throughout the district. More than half of Bradford's land is green open space, stretching over part of the Airedale and Wharfedale Valleys, across the hills and the Pennine moorland between. The Yorkshire Dales and the Peak District are both in close proximity.

In the United Kingdom, a tied house is a public house required to buy at least some of its beer from a particular brewery or pub company. That is in contrast to a free house, which is able to choose the beers it stocks freely.

A report for the UK government described the tied pub system as "one of the most inter‐woven industrial relationships you can identify in the UK, with multiple streams of payments running in both directions, from the pub tenant to the pubco and vice versa, generally negotiated on a pub‐by‐pub basis."

Haworth (UK: /ˈhaʊ.ərθ/ HOW-ərth, also /ˈhɔːərθ/ HAW-ərth, US: /ˈhɔːwərθ/ HAW-wərth) is a village in West Yorkshire, England, in the Pennines 3 miles (5 km) south-west of Keighley, 8 miles (13 km) north of Halifax, 10 miles (16 km) west of Bradford and 10 miles (16 km) east of Colne in Lancashire. The surrounding areas include Oakworth and Oxenhope. Nearby villages include Cross Roads, Stanbury and Lumbfoot.

Haworth is a tourist destination known for its association with the Brontë sisters and the preserved heritage Keighley and Worth Valley Railway.

The Hattersley loom was developed by George Hattersley and Sons of Keighley, West Yorkshire, England. The company had been started by Richard Hattersley after 1784, with his son, George Hattersley, later entering the business alongside him. The company developed a number of innovative looms, of which the Hattersley Standard Loom – developed in 1921 – was a great success.

Airedale is a valley, or dale, in North Yorkshire and West Yorkshire, England. It is named after the River Aire, which flows through it. The upper valley, from Malham Cove to Airton, is known as Malhamdale, named after the village of Malham. At Airton the valley widens and becomes Airedale proper. The river flows past Skipton on to Keighley, Bingley, Shipley, and Leeds.

Airedale, in conjunction with the Ribble Valley, provides low-altitude passes from Yorkshire to Lancashire through the Aire Gap. It is therefore an important transport route and was a strategically important area historically.