‘Uncovering the Bradford 1904 Exhibition’ aims to find archaeological remains of two of the exhibition’s main features: a concert hall and a Somali village. The main excavation of the Somali Village is taking w/c 7 July with the public invited to visit over the weekend:

On Saturday 12 July the team will be taking over Lister parkrun at 9am, will be digging until 16:00, with talks in the bandstand at 14:00, and tours throughout the day, 10.30 – 15:30.
On the Sunday 13 July, there will be an artist and brass band from 14:00-16:00.
The team will be digging and giving tours every day 10:30 – 15:30 (until 20th July) except Mondays, and except 17th July.
What was the 1904 Bradford Great Exhibition?

The exhibition housed two huge structures – an industrial hall, and a concert hall which included brass band performances. It also featured a water chute (similar to a log flume) at Lister Park’s lake, gravity railway, model hospital and a baby incubator unit, which people could visit.

It was a showpiece for the pioneering electricity in the city, with coloured lights around one of the park’s water fountains. After the exhibition closed in October 1904, the temporary buildings, including the concert hall, were removed and sold. Bradford-born novelist and playwright JB Priestley visited as a boy and later wrote about the exhibition.

More on the Somali village
A total of 57 men, women and children, originally from Somalia, were part of the exhibition. They lived on-site at Lister Park during the six-month festival, living in a constructed village.
During the exhibition members of the touring group made pottery, worked in ironmongery, gave demonstrations of spear throwing and traditional Somali dancing. A baby girl, given the middle name Yorkshire, was born and a woman died while in Bradford.