THIS was the old Crown Hotel in Church Green.
Together with adjacent properties it was bought by Keighley Corporation in 1884, when the carriageway was a mere ten feet wide.
The buildings were demolished and Church Green widened five years later.
The tall drinking-fountain on the left was presented to the town in 1869 by Miss Butterfield of Cliffe Hall (forerunner of Cliffe Castle), hopefully as a means of innocently quenching the thirst of some who might otherwise have been tempted by the plentiful hostelries in this locality!
The fountain served a second purpose – by occupying the site of Keighley’s stocks it put an end to some hitherto unedifying scenes. In 1858 the Keighley temperance magazine had described how one Thomas Bradley had sat in the stocks for being drunk and disorderly: “So wilfully stupid was this man, that he would not sit on a rug, nor sack, nor would he have one thrown over his shoulders – but sat on the cold stone for six hours, without even a coat...and although the day was piercing cold, and he sat trembling nearly the whole of the time – yet he stood stupid to the last, as drunkards generally do.”
The drinking-fountain was transferred into Devonshire Park on its opening in 1888.
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