In April, 2011 Bradford theatre company Freedom Studios staged a play at disused Drummond Mill based on the stories of people who worked there.

Called The Mill - City of Dreams, it was performed as a promenade production, with the audience following the cast around the vast building. The mill was re-opened especially for the production, exploring stories of people who migrated to Bradford to work in mills.

Part-funded by Bradford Council and the Heritage Lottery Fund, it was part of Imove, a programme programme leading up to the London 2012 Olympic Games.

Here, Emma Clayton recalls watching The Mill - City of Dreams.

There was something incredibly moving about standing in a vast space that once shook with the throbbing machinery playing a leading role in the world's textile production.

This was the heart of Worstedoplis, where a huge workforce of men and women from across the world came to find work and a new life.

Sprawled across seven acres in Manningham, Drummond Mill was one of the region's largest employers and a pioneer of worsted coating. Thousands of mill workers poured through its great iron gates; generations of families worked there and marriages started life there.

The Mill - City of Dreams was the vision of writer/director Madani Younis, and Freedom Studios spent 18 months collating interviews with former millworkers.

Parking at the foot of the enormous mill tower, I walked across the cobbles to the entrance, following 150 years of footsteps. Inside, the smell of wool grease lingered in the air.

The lights lowered and the only sound was the jangling of a bunch of keys as 'Frank the caretaker' appeared and talked of his 40 years at the mill, since starting as a jobber lad aged 14.

"Come with me, " he said and, like ghosts of his memories, we shuffled behind him towards the deafening noise of busy looms.

We were introduced to three post-war migrant millworkers; a displaced Ukrainian man ripped from his family and sent to labour camps, a young Italian woman with limited English but a willingness to get her hands dirty, and an ambitious Pakistani engineering student, wondering how he could combine shifts with his studies, and still find time to sleep.

Their compelling stories shone a human light on the diverse workforce, and their struggle to find work, settle into an alien environment and retain their cultural identity.

We followed the actors across several floors, filled with workers' chatter and assorted artefacts salvaged from the mill. As we snaked along a corridor, the awesome scale of the property became apparent; endless rows of offices still intact, looking as though their workers had just left for the day.

The set was created almost entirely from objects found in Drummond Mill, including lengths of cloth for the costumes.

In the vast weaving shed, colourful threads were draped from beams as the three workers, now in their middle years with decades of mill life behind them, shared dreams and memories. Their words hung in the air, as the wind howled outside.

It was a fascinating, moving journey through a remarkable building where the city's industrial history and cultural heritage oozed through thick stone walls.