The picture above shows the current condition of one of Bradford's historic pubs.
The Cock & Bottle, on Barkerend Road, is shut. It has not been open for business for some time.
Sure, trade is being squeezed in many parts of the licensed trade and for many reasons. Competition from other forms of entertainment, a trend towards drinking at home and high pricing policies all round - made worse by a Chancellor and a Treasury which refuse to listen to reason and harmonise duty with the rest of the EU as they have agreed to.
For every difficulty seen by one party, an opportunity is perceived by another. There have been several pub closures during the last few years. But this has always happened. Some worn-out houses have needed to be replaced. Some dives have needed to be cleaned up. A few new places have opened.
But the Cock & Bottle has got so much potential to add to its history and to its splendid interior that it must not be allowed to die.
If Enterprise Inns cannot run it properly, they should get out of the business.
The front cover picture [above] is one of several which could have been used to illustrate a problem concerning the pub stock of Britain today.
Ever since the badly wrought Beer Orders came into effect a few years ago, the one-time big brewers have fallen over themselves to erect complex systems to circumvent the perfectly good requirements of that Bill. The intention was to give tenants and lessees a right to obtain a guest beer - a real ale - from a supplier other than the brewery which owned the pub. If a brewer had more than a certain number of houses, the regulation was to apply.
Now, nobody needed to sell any pubs; they just had to treat their licensee and their customers right. However, even to a person who is not given to thinking too much, the loophole was obvious. Sell most, or all, of your pubs to a brand-new pub-owning outfit. But first start this organisation up and make sure it runs to your specification. How?
Get some directors to retire early and have them run the new show. Yes, really.
Nobody was the least bit surprised when the new pub groups eagerly signed up for exclusive supply arrangements from the very brewers who had just sold the pubs.
There has been some movement over the years, of course. Groups have come and gone, merged, bought from each other and generally behaved in a way which has, taken overall, being more that a little detrimental to the interests of the average pub goer and beer enthusiast. So often now, property values and the search for a quick return govern the strategies of these organisations. They care nothing for the pub customer. They care nothing for the tenant or lease-holder. We should care nothing for them. They deserve only our contempt.
DB
The Cock & Bottle,
93 Barkerend Road, Bradford.
An inn was first licensed on or near the present site of the Cock & Bottle during 1747 and ale is said to have been brewed there at the time. Ownership of the house passed from James Clough to John Thornton in 1803. About the time of the building of Otley Road c.1820, the property appears to have been completely rebuilt. The Cock & Bottle name was first used for the premises in Baines & Parson's directory for 1822. After John Thornton's death in 1831 his wife, Ellen, carried on the trade and then, after her decease seven years later, their children. The 1841 census showed James, William and Betty Thornton living at the premises. James kept the inn, with William in business as a wheelwright and, by the next census, Betty had left, probably to marry. It seems both brothers remained bachelors and, upon James' death in 1860, ownership passed to his nephew, John Bower, a maltster. In the next couple of years, the pub was remodelled, resulting in its size being doubled.
To compete against the large number of beer houses in the town, some owners of fully licensed houses decided to create what were known locally as "dram shops" or "spirit vaults" in part of the premises. Using large plate glass windows, mirrors, gaslighting, brass, polished wood and pewter fitments produced bright surroundings, in complete contrast to the homes of the working class. These alterations were helped by the removal of excise duty on glass in 1845 and window tax during 1851. The local magistrates frowned on the dram shops, which they thought were designed to attract younger customers and courage excessive drinking, but they failed to prevent most of these alterations being carried out.
In the case of the Cock & Bottle, a new doorway was built on the Barkerend Road side and all of the property to the right of that entrance, including the large shop-front style window. A new brewhouse was constructed around the same time; plans shoe a brewing pan which served for mashing and as a copper, and also a shallow open cooler.
By 1881 a manager, James Radcliffe, lived at the inn with Councillor Bower's son-in-law, George Dickinson, overseeing the trade. The latter person died in October of the next year and his widow, Mary Dickinson, was listed at the house in the directory for 1883-84.
George Albert Booth let the property by 1887 and the following year he purchased the house for £7000. Four servants lived on the premises - one barmaid and three waitresses - in 1891.
Owing to the illness of G.A.Booth, the pub was offered for sale by tender in January 1902. The notice described the pub as a valuable fully licences premises with brewhouse, stabling and outbuildings. Also included were two shops with dwelling houses. It went on to say that the inn was a commanding corner property, substantially built, well arranged and doing a very large and lucrative business, being in a thickly populated district, and only a few minutes walk from the centre of the city. Trams with connections to all parts of the city were said to pass the door. The interior of the house had recently been elaborately fitted on the most modern principles containing bars, vaults and other business rooms. The brewhouse comprised a three-quarter plant which could produce about twelve barrels (36 gallons = 1 barrel) per mash.
No suitable offer appears to have been received as William Francis Howard was installed as manager. He had been born in Ribcaster, Lancashire, though he was later said to have been a native of Glusburn. His first public house in Bradford was the Station Hotel, Arctic Parade, Lidget Green, where he appeared on the census for 1891 and the directory for 1900 showed him at the Fox & Goose, Canal Road. In 1914 he obtained the lease of the Cock & Bottle and, six years later, he bought the building for £14500.
While on holiday in August 1927 at Bournmouth, he was taken ill and died in a nursing home there, aged 62. He had been a director of the Hippodrome Picture House, Barkerend Road, at the time. His executors sold the Cock & Bottle to the Leeds & Wakefield (Melbourne) Breweries Limited who only had a handful of pubs in the city at that time. Most of their Bradford properties came from the take-over of Wallers Bradford Brewery Limited in 1935.
The Cock & Bottle was, as far as I know, Bradford's last home-brew house, the penultimate being the Great Northern (demolished a few years ago) on Wakefield Road in 1924 and also acquired by the same company.
MT
