Forget London - these three English cities deserve a spot on your bucket list

London hogs the limelight, but England has loads of other cities that merit a visit. Away from the more obvious alternatives, you'll find urban gems that are relatively off the beaten track for Australian travellers but offer rewards aplenty, from spine-tingling history and contemporary culture to inviting pubs and glorious rural escapes. This trio, in particular, is worth a look.

Way before Manchester and Liverpool ruled the roost in England's north-west, Chester was on everyone's lips. Or rather Deva Victrix, as it was known. Settled by the Romans, this was a bustling trading port until well into the Middle Ages when its harbour to the Irish Sea silted up. Despite other setbacks over the centuries - Viking invasions, Tudor-era plagues, English Civil War bombardments - Chester has largely remained a pretty and prosperous city, its highly walkable core laced with Roman relics, medieval cobbled lanes, and elegant Georgian and Victorian architecture.

You can take in chapters of Chester's storied past on themed tours led by characters dressed as Roman soldiers or Edwardian ladies. Or stroll along the 3.2-kilometre circuit of city walls, which were started nearly 2000 years ago and are the most intact in all of England. You'll overlook everything from vibrant shopping streets and a Norman cathedral to tree-lined parks and tranquil waterways. At various points, you can drop down stairs for river cruises or kayaking trips, waterfront picnics, pub lunches on canalside terraces or retail therapy in the Rows, two-tiered, timber-framed galleried arcades that contain boutiques, plus restaurants and tea rooms.

If you know your English cities, Chester is more York and Cambridge than your Birminghams or Bristols. It's an easy day trip from Liverpool or Manchester - both under an hour away by rail - but it's worth staying a night or two. Base yourself at The Grosvenor, a refined hotel by the Victorian-era Eastgate Clock - one of England's most lauded time-pieces after Big Ben - or at Abode, a modern rotunda hotel above Chester's near 500-year-old racecourse. Nicknamed the "Roodee", it stages horse racing between the northern spring and autumn, with the multi-race May festival a big crowd-puller. You could also have a day out at Chester Zoo, which is home to more than 37,000 animals, including Sumatran tigers, and African lions and elephants. chester.com

Steel, snooker and Sean Bean. Three things this south Yorkshire city is often associated with. Once a powerhouse of steel production, Sheffield hosts the annual World Snooker Championship at its Crucible Theatre (April 19-May 5 this year), while Bean, star of Game of Thrones, is the city's most famous acting export. He's a die-hard supporter of Sheffield United, "The Blades" which, like cross-city soccer rivals Sheffield Wednesday, was founded in the 1800s and competes in the Championship, the division below the English Premier League.

Live sport is a Sheffield forte, but this is also an arty, musical and surprisingly leafy place (it's marketed as the "Outdoor City", with a third of it nestling within the Peak District National Park, a haven for hikers, cyclists, rock climbers and road trippers). You'll find bucolic retreats throughout the city - such as the sweet-scented Botanic Gardens - but many Sheffield streets and attractions have an industrial tinge. The Millennium Gallery showcases decorative metalwork crafted here, from brooches and bed frames to teapots and silver spoons, while the new Cambridge Street Collective, Europe's largest purpose-built food hall, sports a weathered steel facade and serves everything from Yorkshire classics to the flavours of Penang and Palestine.

Wander over to Kelham Island, a man-made island where carpentry workshops, furniture showrooms and saw makers stand beside repurposed foundries and warehouses. Trendy neighbourhood haunts include Kelham Arcade, which sells baked goodies, bespoke fashions and handicrafts, and the Fat Cat, a real ale pub with a mural of Jarvis Cocker, frontman of Sheffield pop-rockers Pulp, above its beer garden.

Sheffielders are spoilt for live music venues. Check the listings at the Yellow Arch Studios, where another local band, Arctic Monkeys, used to rehearse, and the Leadmill, a converted flour mill close to Sheffield's train station. High above the tracks, you'll spot the Park Hill Estate, a heritage-listed sprawl of Brutalist flats that have had a colourful makeover since The Full Monty was shot there in the 1990s. welcometosheffield.co.uk

Long overshadowed by west Yorkshire next-door neighbour Leeds, Bradford is often portrayed - by the British press especially - as blighted and beleaguered, a far cry from the thriving place dubbed "Woolopolis" during its Victorian manufacturing heyday. But the city has heaps going for it - especially this year when it's flaunting its inspiring, creative side as the 2025 UK City of Culture.

Immersive art exhibitions and concerts, street theatre conjured by the Bradford-born magician Steven "Dynamo" Frayne, and inventive tributes to David Hockney and the Bronte sisters - who all grew up in the area - are among the highlights of the year-long calendar of events. Many are taking place in and around the handsome landmarks bankrolled by the 19th-century wool boom, including a contender for England's most magnificent city hall - a neo-gothic beauty by a fountain-studded plaza - and arguably the country's most photogenic bookstore, a branch of Waterstones housed in a Venetian-style former wool exchange.

Bradford is ace for lovers of spicy cuisine. Home to a large South Asian population - earlier generations migrated to work in the textile industry - the city is a regular winner of the "Curry Capital of Britain" title.

The National Science and Media Museum, which has reopened after a $12 million revamp and celebrates Bradford's status as the first-ever UNESCO City of Film (Sydney was the second). The museum's vast collection includes antique cameras, the world's earliest colour moving pictures and posters of flicks and TV shows shot locally. Scenes for Downton Abbey and Peaky Blinders were filmed in Little Germany, a city-centre enclave named after the German wool merchants who funded grand warehouses here.

Production crews also adore the rugged, walker-friendly moors and valleys on Bradford's outskirts. Buses and trains bring you to alluring towns and villages like Haworth, where the Brontes lived and wrote; Hebden Bridge, erstwhile stomping grounds of poets Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath; and Saltaire, a World Heritage site based around an Italianate-style mill and a model workers' village built by the Victorian industrialist, Titus Salt. Sprinkling Saltaire now are eateries, studios and galleries with more than 400 pieces of art by that man David Hockney. visitbradford.com