A TRAIL to mark the route of the hidden beck flowing through Bradford city centre is to be officially unveiled at a special event this weekend.

The final set of stone plaques was installed in the pavement last week in a project organised by the Friends of Bradford’s Becks group.

They will be taking over City Park on Sunday with an afternoon of activities and information, taking place on World Rivers Day.

As well as unveiling the full route of the beck trail, the winner of a recent competition to design a listening sculpture will also be revealed.

The event itself celebrates the completion of the beck trail in the city centre, and will be opened by the Lord Mayor of Bradford, Councillor Geoff Reid.

The trail marks out the course of the underground Bradford Beck from the Odeon to Lower Kirkgate with 15 plaques in the pavement. Each plaque carries a line from a winning poem about the beck by Jane Callaghan.

A guide to the trail will also be available and there will also be guided walks.

The event begins at 1pm and the Lord Mayor will announce the winner of the listening sculpture competition at 2.30pm.

The sculpture is designed to allow people passing by to hear the hidden beck beneath them by pressing their ears to speaking tubes in a sculpture sited on Tyrrel Street. The four finalists and their differing designs were unveiled last month.

In addition, there will be many other activities in City Park. The Wild Trout Trust will be giving people a chance to try their hand at fly fishing by practising in the mirror pool.

The Riverfly Partnership will be showing some of the bugs that live in the beck, and Yorkshire Wildlife Trust will be explaining about the native and alien plants that live alongside the beck.

The Environment Agency, Bradford Council and the JBA Trust will have working models of how rivers function. They will be explaining why flooding happens, and what the flood defence plans are for Bradford.

There will also be music, poetry and stories, with Eddie Lawler, the Bard of Saltaire, singing songs about water, while Steve Bottoms of Multi-Story-Water will be collecting people’s stories about the beck.

The recent anthology of poetry about the beck, which led to the winning poem carved on the stone markers throughout the trail, will be on sale and some of the poets will be reading their work.

In addition the Friends of Bradford’s Becks will lift one of the manholes covering the beck to allow people to see the underground river at Millergate, just outside the Sunbridge Wells tunnels and near the fourth plaque in the beck trail.

Barney Lerner, the Friends’ chairman, said “Leaflets about the free World Rivers Day event have been distributed to 90 schools, libraries, community centres and cafes. But if you haven’t got one, come on down anyway, find out more about the hidden river, and celebrate our trail and sculpture projects.”

l More information is available at marking bradfordbeck.org.