The influence of a Keighley landowner was felt on both sides of the Pennines, as Robin Longbottom explains

TODAY, few people will remember Parker Street in Keighley.

Just off South Street, it was demolished to make way for Worth Way.

In the 1960s and very early 70s it was the location of the Parker Street Cafe, a small, homely establishment occupying one of the old terrace houses on the left as you went down.

Full breakfasts and pints of tea were served until about mid morning and then it was full steam ahead for the owner to prepare for the dinners, often meat and potato pie made in a large meat tray with short crust pastry and boiled cabbage and carrots.

It was named Parker Street after Robert Parker, of Marley Hall, near Keighley. Now forgotten here in Keighley, this gentleman – born in the middle of the 17th century – is still remembered in the small village of Waddington, three miles to the north west of Clitheroe in Lancashire.

He was actually a Lancashire man and was born at Browsholme Hall, near Clitheroe, the second son of Edward Parker and his wife Mary Sunderland. As the second son he was unlikely to inherit the family estate and therefore his maternal uncle, Samuel Sunderland, left him the manor of Harden with Marley together with land in Keighley.

Samuel Sunderland, a lifelong bachelor, was a wealthy lawyer, having made his money during the lucrative years following the restoration of the monarchy after the English Civil War. He died in 1678 reputedly leaving a fortune of £17,000 and land holdings with an annual income of £1,200.

As well as owning Harden with Marley he also owned the manor of Hainworth, which he left to his brother's family. His nephew, Robert Parker, was also a lawyer and it was no doubt at his instigation that several stoops were erected across Harden Moor to define the boundary between the two manors. These stoops were marked with a letter P on their Harden side and an S on the Hainworth side.

Although he settled at Marley Hall, where he rebuilt the nearby Blakey House which still bears his initials and the date 1694, he continued to retain an interest in Lancashire where he owned land in the village of Waddington.

Towards the very end of the 17th century, he decided to build a 'hospital' at Waddington to provide accommodation for poor widows of local farmers and villagers. The word hospital simply denoted a place of hospitality, and the accommodation would today be more commonly described as almshouses.

After the foundation of the Waddington Hospital, he established a charitable trust to provide income to support the almshouses and endowed it with property and land. The first trustees were appointed in 1701.

Robert Parker's endowment included his land at Keighley, the larger part of which comprised five fields that lay approximately between what is now South Street and Worth Way and a sixth between South Street and Greengates. For centuries, this land had been open fields of arable, pasture and hay meadows but by the 1840s it had become more valuable as development land for the rapidly expanding town.

The trustees therefore prepared a plan and divided the fields up by streets. The proposed streets were all given names associated with the trust. Three streets were named after the families connected to it – Parker Street; Sunderland Street, after the Sunderland connection, and Heber Street, after a family who were trustees. Three other streets were named after Parker family estates – Marley Street, Browsholme Street and Alkincoates Street, after a hall in Colne. And finally, Waddington Street was named after the Waddington Hospital.

Robert Parker died in 1714 and today his fields in Keighley are occupied by light industry and small businesses.