Southowram Pub Tour Part 1

Southowram Pub Tour Part 1

Part 1 - Pubs from Brighouse to Ashday Lane

Footballers Rest

The pub on the right has been called Footballers Rest, Sun Inn, Who Could A Thow't It and Masons Arms in the past. This would have stood where the roundabout now stands.

View an old map of Southowram

Vine Hotel 42/169 Elland Road

Built in 1860 as a mill with a house next door. This was originally a beer house. In 1867, the beerhouse was owned and occupied by Mr Cliffe, and a licence was refused to Mr F. Barber. This was a Brear and Brown house [1894] and inquests were held here [1889].

The pub closed in 1933. It later became Vine Works and then a private house.

Info from Calderdale Companion

Red Rooster

Next drink on the tour is at 'The Wharfe', Brookfoot. This Websters pub opened around 1833 for the workers at the Brookfoot Wharfe. In 1983, it was bought by 'The Fighting Cock' group and was renamed 'The Red Rooster'.

Woodman Inn Purlwell, Elland Road, Brookfoot

A short walk to our next pub the 'Woodman Inn' .

This pub stood at the entrance to the road leading to Brookfoot Mill and was a Halifax Brewing Company pub [July 1898]. The pub was declared redundant in 1938 and closed on 11th April 1940.

Casa - (Grove Inn)

We continue our pub crawl with a trip a little further on Elland Road to 'The Grove', now known as 'Casa' but previously known as 'Lakeside Lodge' and 'Casa del Lago'.

Having been extensively re-furbished in recent years, Casa has grown from humble beginnings to become a lively bar, restaurant, Wedding venue and more; all overlooking the picturesque Cromwell Lake. Casa is situated in Brighouse, West Yorkshire and has a 150-seater restaurant, large bar and 10 en-suite rooms.

Rawson Arms

Further on Park Wood Lane brings us to the 'Rawson's Arms'. This was right next to Knowles's Brickworks which would have provided a steady clientele.

We will leave 'Colliers Arms' and 'Barge and Barrel' for our Elland tour

Neptune Inn

Now we return about 1 mile and start to climb Brookfoot Hill and what is now a cottage used to be the 'Neptune Inn'.

Brookfoot House, Brighouse

The site where Brookfoot House once stood is a lonely, desolate place, seldom visited and often overlooked. This is hardly surprising given how inaccessible the area is. The ruins lie in a tract of dense, overgrown woodland on the steep hillside between Brookfoot Lane running up to Southowram and the industrial estate which clutters the bottom of the Walterclough Valley opposite the Red Rooster.

Little remains of the substantial structure today for but the odd tumbledown wall and the course of its foundations, all swathed in nettles and ivy. Nonetheless, the land has not been used for any other purpose in almost a hundred years and you can still sense its absence, a potent testament to the power of entropy and decay.

The industrial estate which stands in the valley bottom is perhaps the only surviving remnant of its Victorian heritage, for there has been activity there since Joseph Richardson founded Brookfoot Dye Works on the site in 1870.

It is unclear exactly when Brookfoot House was built. A house stood on the site in the 1830s, occupied by a stone merchant named Samuel Taylor but it was either enlarged or entirely rebuilt by Richardson in 1879, who lived there until his death in 1885.

The business passed to Thornton, Hannam & Marshall in 1894 and the house was subsequently occupied by a senior partner of that firm, David Hannam Thornton and his family until the 1920s when it was allowed to fall into dereliction.

Brookfoot House must have been an impressive building in its day, a late Victorian mansion complete with ballroom, billiard room and ornamental gardens. It is scarcely surprising that the ruins of such an imposing edifice in such a solitary place should have left a profound psychic impression and there is a palpable atmosphere in the woods around the site today. It is noticeable that no birds sing in the trees there and the place always feels cold and dank, even in summer. Meanwhile, local children exploring the area have reported seeing a shadowy lone figure in Victorian garb pacing on the terrace where the house once stood and the clatter of hoofs nearby, perhaps from phantom horses on the now overgrown driveway.

from Ghosts and Legends of the Lower Calder Valley

Delver's Arms

We continue our climb up the steep hill and get a deserved drink at the 'Delvers Arm's'. Now terraced housing but the pub name can still be seen painted on the front. Adjoining the pub used to be Lady Royd school

Hi, I thought you would be interested in the photo of the Delvers' Arms (attached) in Southowram.

I was sent this photo by a distant relative, David Saunders, back in c2008/2009.

The photo shows a front view of the pub. It would have been taken c1903/1904. To arrive at this estimate, I have used the known fact that the twin girls in their mother's lap (to the left of the pub entrance) were born 10th September 1902.

The sign on the wall indicates that the licensee was William Leather (1862-1917), my great great grandfather. He would later be licensee at The Black Swan in Overton, near Wakefield. William can be seen standing in the doorway.

Some of the people in the photo have been identified, tentatively or with certainty: Left to right: Unknown, unknown, Annie Ainley (nee Watson) holding twins Doris & Gladys Ainley, Mary Louisa Ainley, unknown, Jane Watson (nee Child), William Leather, Herbert Leather (holding bags), unknown, unknown, unknown, unknown, unknown, unknown.

Steven Leather

Plaque on Lady Royd, Brookfoot Lane, Southowram

“The Law(?) of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom. Training a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not part from it. This School and House was built at the Charitable Bequest(?) of Mr William Staines of LONDON Anno Domini 1787.” He became Sir William Staines, Lord Mayor of London. The school was erected on a close called Longlands, on the “north side of the highway leading from the town of Southowram to Brighouse”. Lady Royd is on the south side of the present road, but Jeffreys's map of 1775 shows that at that time the road had a sharp bend to the south part-way up the steep hill from Brookfoot, and then curved round to meet the present line a little to the west of Lady Royd. This route is confirmed by the draft OS 1” map of 1840, although broken by a quarry by then, and is perpetuated by field boundaries on the various editions of the 6” map. The present Lady Royd doesn't look as old as 1787, nor does it look like a purpose-built school. By 1857 the school was reported as being disused, and it was sold in 1860. It would seem likely that soon after that date it was demolished and Lady Royd built, and the plaque saved and set into a window embrasure.

Malt Shovel

Before we reach St.Annes church we arrive at what was the 'Malt Shovel'.

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Shoulder of Mutton 16 Cain Lane.

This was a delightful and typical village pub.

Aka The Mutton Inn [1891]

Planning applications show that this was a Stocks pub [October 1903].

Records for Shoulder of Mutton go back to 1834 when Charles Greenwood was the landlord but there is a record of all Southowram pubs with no 'Shoulder', but there is a pub called 'Single Sisters' with records of a landlord (Samuel Haigh) in 1822 and again in 1829. Maybe this is the same pub.