Former tannery, Bradford Road, Northowram

Image: © Stephen Craven Taken: 12 Mar 2022

I'm not quite sure of the identity of the building shown here so here are my thoughts. It is certainly on the site of the former Crown Brewery (see the 1893 map), which the Conservation Area Appraisal says later became a tannery, and the 1933 map shows this with a chimney, the stub of which is evident on the right hand corner in this view. The appraisal document goes on to say that the tannery was demolished following a fire and Booths furniture store Image was built on the site. However, Booths has recently been demolished itself, revealing this building behind. A local history page https://alanburnett.com/2021/11/16/the-rise-and-fall-of-the-crown/ has some old photos confirming that the front range of the complex was destroyed by fire in the 1970s, but what we see here I presume was the part of the original brewery/tannery complex, in which case, unusually, the Council's conservation officer may have made a mistake implying that the whole of it was destroyed.

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