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We didn’t think it would make it!!!

The Orange Gazebo, that makes us standout, has had a tough time recently.

Until last Saturday, 30th Aug, it was confined within the Keighley Bus Museum. They have been kindly storing it for the Society and it was in there during the fires and had to remain there, with all the buses keeping it company, while extra Fire regulations were put in place. But the valiant Bus Team managed to arrange for its release for last Sunday’s KBMT Fundraising Day so give them a very big clap please.

So we got the roof up and brilliant – no holes!

Again no holes in the sides, but they were covered in soot- yuck! But we decided the Orange Gazebo had earned its battle scars and at least we wouldn’t be doing the Keighley Show with two garden gazebos.

But Steve to the rescue. He looks to have performed miracles with the sides. So another big clap for him please.

Open photo

History Society at Keighley Show

The History Society will have its usual tent and displays at Keighley Show this weekend (Saturday 6th September 2025). Please come along and say hello. Plus if you are interested in supporting the society by joining us, you can join for 2026 at the show and get the rest of 2025 thrown in (£15 for one person, £20 for two people at the same address – cash only please).

Upcoming Events

The History Society will have stalls at two events coming up over the next couple of weekends.

On Sunday 31st August we will be at the Keighley Bus Museum fundraising event in Keighley College car park. The event runs from 10am to 3pm. See the poster for more details.

On Saturday 6th September we will be at Keighley Show, between 10am and 4pm. See the poster for more details, including the chance to buy cheaper tickets in-advance.

Please come along and say hello, and support these local events.

Article on next week’s meeting

Great coverage of next week’s History Society meeting in this week’s Keighley News. The meeting focusses on largely-forgotten crime writer Austin Lee, who was born in Cowling and educated at Keighley Boys Grammar School. During the 1950s and 1960s he published various whodunnit novels, many featuring amateur detective Miss Flora Hogg (including ‘Miss Hogg and the Bronte Murders’, with some very evocative descriptions of Haworth in the 1950s).

Speakers will be writer and journalist Sharon Wright, Bronte Parsonage Principal Curator Ann Dinsdale, and History Society committee member Tim Neal, talking about how they became converts to Lee’s cause. There will also be a small display about Austin Lee, courtesy of Keighley Local Studies Library.

The meeting is on Wednesday 13th August 2025, at 7.15pm in the Keighley Civic Centre on North Street. All are welcome to come along. Entry is £3.50 or free to History Society members. History Society members can also join the meeting via Zoom if they prefer. The meeting ends around 8.45pm.

Austin in August

This month’s History Society meeting is on Wednesday 13th August, upstairs in the Civic Centre on North Street at 7.15pm. The subject of the talk is ‘Austin Lee: Man of Mystery’. Austin Lee was born in Cowling and attended Keighley Boys’ Grammar School, and went on to have multiple careers including being an outspoken vicar, a barman, a teacher and the author of a series of cosy-crime novels featuring amateur sleuth Miss Flora Hogg. It’s a bit of team effort this time, with speakers Sharon Wright, Ann Dinsdale and Tim Neal, all of whom are keen to resurrect the profile of this most astonishing Keighley man.

Doors open at 7.15pm at the Civic Centre. All are welcome. Entry is free for History Society members and £3.50 for anyone else. Keighley Local Studies Library have copies of many of Austin’s books if anyone fancies reading them.

Summer reading…

August’s History Society meeting (on 13th August 2025) explores the life and works of vicar and crime novelist Austin Lee. If you fancy any summer reading in advance of the meeting, plenty of Austin’s books are available in Keighley Local Studies Library (just ask at the desk) – including some he wrote under his pen names of Julian Callender or John Austwick. We recommend ‘Murder in the Borough Library’ – set in a library inspired by Keighley’s own library (which is where Austin wrote it!).

A selection of books by Austin Lee, available to read in Keighley Local Studies Library. Photos: Tim Neal.

Roman Army Life Talk

A big thank you to John and Mary Hindle from the Roman reenactment group The Tungrians, who spoke to the History Society last night. They also brought examples of costume and armour along. They have their own website and Facebook page if you want the chance to see more of them and their reenactments. And a thank you to the society members and guests who joined us in the Civic Centre or on Zoom. Photographs by Tim Neal and Anne-Marie Dewhirst.

John and Mary of the Tungrians talk to the History Society in July 2025.

August’s talk will be a bit of a team effort, as we look back at the work and life of whodunnit author and vicar, the Reverend Austin Lee. Born in Keighley, with his murder-mystery novels often set in recognisable locations, Lee was a popular writer in the 1950s, and whose own story is full of twists and turns.

Asa Briggs Exhibition at Library

A small exhibition on Keighley-born historian Asa Briggs (1921-2016) is available to view in Keighley Local Studies Library for the next few months. He was educated at Keighley Boys’ Grammar School then at Cambridge. His main areas of interest were the social and cultural histories of the past two hundred years, resulting in books ranging from the Victorians to a comprehensive history of the BBC. He also wrote about his time working at Bletchley Park during the Second World War.

Asa Briggs exhibition at Keighley Local Studies Library, July 2025. Photographed by Tim Neal.

A short leaflet on Asa Briggs is available at the library, and in August a new biography is to be published by Harper Collins. The author is Adam Sisman and he visited Keighley Local Studies Library last year to research his subject’s links with the town.

Look out for in July…

There are several local history events and opportunities to keep an eye out for in July 2025…

Wednesday 9th July – this months History Society meeting in Keighley Civic Centre at 7.15pm. Featuring a talk by John Hindle from the Tungrians (a reenactment group who recreate Roman life in Britannia in the Second Century).

Friday 11th July – Community Curator Heather Millard will be giving her talk on the Butterfield Women of Cliffe Castle, at the Bradford Mechanics’ Institute at 10.30 am. Book a free place via Eventbrite (https://www.eventbrite.com/…/butterfield-ladies-of…)

Thursday 17th July – this will be the next Thursday Talk organised by the Bronte Society, held in the Old School Rooms in Haworth. More information is available on the Bronte Parsonage Museum website, but tickets are free to residents from postcodes BD20, BD21 and BD22.

And all through July the ‘Ice Age Art Now’ is running at Cliffe Castle Museum, admission is free. The museum is open Tuesdays to Sundays (i.e. is closed on Mondays).