The letter shown here is from James Wharton (Building Contractor to H.M. Office of Works) of Ingrow, for the work rebuilding the gable end wall of the Brown Cow Inn, Leeds Street, Keighley. The estimate is £400 and the letter is dated 24th August 1945.
The Brown Cow was originally four back-to-back houses, at the bottom of Leeds Street and Turkey Street, built sometime in the 1820s. When exactly it became a pub is hard to determine although there is evidence that this could be as early as the 1870s. Timothy Taylor’s Brewery bought the pub in 1901. There was extensive work carried out on the building in the late 1940s when the original walls showed signs of bulging outwards. The history and documentation was researched by Carol and Barry Taylor when they took over the pub in November 2003.
The inset picture shows landlord John Robinson and children stood outside the Brown Cow Inn, at the junction of Cross Street with Leeds Street and Turkey Street, circa 1900. The picture came to light after a newspaper appeal from Carol and Barry. The main picture was taken by Tim Neal in 2018.
