Located on the River Aire and the Leeds and Liverpool Canal, Shipley is directly north of the city of Bradford.

[6] Shipley appears to have first been settled in the late Bronze Age[5] and is mentioned in the Domesday Book of 1086, in the form Scipelei(a).

In the 12th century, 'Adam, son of Peter', an early Lord of the Manor, granted grazing and iron ore mining rights to the monks of Rievaulx Abbey.

The family had interests in Halifax and moved there in the early 18th century, retaining their Shipley estates until the last male heir died in 1745.

[10] By the 19th century the Rawson estates and those of the Fields, another prominent land-owning family, had become the property of the Earl of Rosse[11] who had extensive holdings in Heaton.

His legacy has endured in the name of a public house on the main Bradford to Keighley road, and Rossefield School in Heaton.

Titus Salt's Saltaire is an example of a model village, and Hargreaves had cottages built for his workers around the town centre and his mill.

The redevelopment removed several historic buildings – Shipley Old Hall (1593), at the junction of Kirkgate and Manor Lane[25] and of which a few fragments of roof drainage and a roof truss survive in Crowgill Park (formerly Crowghyll Park),[26] Shipley Hall (1734), which stood at the junction of Market Street and Otley Road became the headquarters of Windhill Cooperative Society[25] and possibly Hudson Fold House (1629).

[27] Of the major Victorian town centre buildings, only the Old Bradford Bank (now Barclays) and Sun Hotel remain.

Croft House (1729), a stone built farmhouse which was converted to a school and then subsequently used as the Labour Party headquarters, was a casualty of this development.

[35] The town was bounded to the north by the River Aire, to the east by Bradford Beck, with Cottingley and Heaton lying beyond its western and southern boundaries.

[38] Shipley Town Hall was built in 1932, as part of a scheme to relieve high unemployment during the Great Depression and was opened by the Earl of Harewood.

[46] Shipley is dominantly residential in character serving as a commuter suburb of larger urban employment centres in Bradford and Leeds.

Manufacturing activity includes information technology specialist ARRIS located in the Salts Mill complex.

Marlin Windows, HC Slingsby and the offices of the Bradford Health Authority also feature among the larger employers in the town.

A pedestrian precinct with some shops and leisure businesses links Asda and its multi-storey free car park with Market Square.

The town's secondary commercial centre, Gordon Terrace, part of the historic Saltaire Village development, features independent food and fashion retailers, as well as numerous restaurants and cafes.

The village of Saltaire located in Shipley is a UNESCO designated World Heritage Site incorporating the Victorian era Salts Mill and associated residential district.

Located by the River Aire and Leeds and Liverpool Canal the model village was planned by industrialist Sir Titus Salt as a processing facility for alpaca woollen cloth and as residential accommodation for his workforce.

Salts Mill is no longer used for textile production, but now contains the 1853 Gallery, housing many works by the artist David Hockney, a variety of shops, restaurants and local businesses, including Pace Micro Technology (now Arris).

Salts Mill is accessed via the nearby Saltaire railway station and together with the stone built terraced houses, ornate Victorian era civic buildings and Roberts Park, draws significant numbers of tourists to the area.

It has long been a popular beauty spot, and in 1895 the Shipley Glen Tramway was built to carry visitors up to the top.

[48] A larger recreation area with playing fields, allotments, woods, and a private golf club is situated on the hill at Northcliffe.

Industrial businesses with a presence in Shipley include Denso Marsten, Manor Coatings, Produmax, Teledyne and HC Slingsby.

[59] The first place of worship in Shipley was the Bethel Baptist Chapel in 1758, it was rebuilt in 1836 and demolished in the early 1970s and only part of the graveyard survives.

The first Anglican church was the Gothic St Paul's on Kirkgate, consecrated by Edward Harcourt, Archbishop of York in 1826.

[61] It was built at a cost of £7,687.19s.3d, a gift of the nation under the Million Act,[62] on land donated by John Wilmer Field, from the Shipley land-owning family.

The Guiseley branch opened on 4 December 1876 and in the same year completion of the Settle-Carlisle Line put Shipley on the London to Scotland route.

The intersection of these lines led to the main road junction of Fox's Corner being given the alternative name of Cobweb Square.

[28] The legacy of trams is the terminal building on Saltaire Roundabout, now a public house named Salt Bar & Kitchen.