Bradford & District | Archive | 2004 | March | 4
From the Telegraph & Argus, first published Thursday 4th Mar 2004.
Campaigners wanting to save an historic Bradford pub will have to wait another four weeks to find out its fate.
Last year buyers were queuing up to bid for the 18th century Cock and Bottle in Barkerend Road, with offers in excess of £120,000 - but since then three deals have fallen through.
Agents Christie & Co say a new deal is on the table and an announcement should be made next month
Owners Enterprise Inns say the pub had to be put up for sale after no-one responded to an advertisement for the vacant lease.
Real ale campaigners are still clinging to hopes that whoever buys the building could re-open it as a pub.
Bradford CAMRA (Campaign for Real Ale) member David Boothroyd believes the pub just needs someone "with a bit of imagination" to run it.
He said: "We'll never give up hoping that it will return eventually as a pub.
"It's very form and function means that it's a pub and should stay as one. Its bar can't be touched because it's listed and the same goes for its little rooms - I don't know what else it could be used for."
The Cock and Bottle is steeped in history. It dates back to 1747 when an inn is first reported to have been licensed on or near the site of the present pub.
The wife of Oliver Cromwell's deputy, Sir Thomas Fairfax, is said to have been captured by Royalist forces in 1643 on the spot where the pub now stands, but a long standing myth that there was a secret passage linking it to Bradford Cathedral has been discounted by historians.
The pub appears to have been rebuilt in about 1820, and the name Cock and Bottle was first used in 1822.
It has also endured a chequered history in recent years. It was boarded up in 1991 when the licensee walked out, and in 1996 it was the scene of a notorious killing when landlord Peter Tooley was stabbed to death by his wife Marjorie.
The pub was bought by Enterprise Inns, who agreed to accept a rent of £1 a week in 1999 from volunteer worshippers from Bradford's Christian community who exorcised it and ran it as Britain's first Christian pub until the brewery chain got a full rent offer.
The firm finally called time in March last year and has been boarded up since.
© Newsquest Media Group 2008