PHOTOGRAPHING the new Cavendish Hotel in the early 1900s was obviously an event which attracted patrons and passers-by into the picture. There was then a door on the corner, above which a window is advertising the availability of billiards. On the right, a blank space indicates where some of the Cavendish Street shops have been demolished but not yet rebuilt.
The Cavendish Hotel’s predecessor, the Oddfellows’ Arms, together with the Queen’s Head Inn on the opposite side of the road, had created a notorious “bottle-neck” in Cavendish Street. In 1899 the Halifax brewers T Ramsden and Sons had acquired the Oddfellows’ Arms on condition that they replace it with a grander hostelry.
The Queen’s Head was allowed to continue in business only until the Cavendish Hotel was completed in 1900, then in turn demolished – part of a process which would eventually see Cavendish Street hailed as “a close rival to North Street for architectural effect, width, and symmetry”.
The photograph has been supplied by Mr Kevin Seaton, of Shann Lane, Keighley.
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