Last week’s feature on the Paul Jennings book Bradford Pubs has brought another beer-related volume to our attention.

After reading last week’s piece, Elizabeth Downsbrough got in touch and dropped off a copy of her own book, The Lost Pubs Of Bingley, which features an introduction by the aforementioned Mr Jennings.

Self-published under the author’s own imprint, the Downsbrough Press, the book has just been published this year and offers a fascinating insight into Bingley’s drinking establishments that are, for one reason and another, no more.

Something of a local historian, Elizabeth has put together two previous volumes, Cottingley And Its Families, and The Old Sun Inn Of Cottingley.

It was researching the latter book that inspired Elizabeth to delve deeper into the lost pub life of the area. But the author had an even earlier start in pub culture – she was born in a bar!

She writes in her preface: “Following the publication of my booklet, I became inspired to do further research into the subject of the public house, and especially into the history of the old King’s Head of Bingley, as this old inn was the place where I was born and bred.

“So I spent some time delving into old newspapers and visiting the local libraries and archives, and while doing so I came across a large body of information about other Bingley pubs, and soon discovered that many of these pubs, like the Old King’s Head, had disappeared from the map of Bingley.”

Elizabeth’s book is well-illustrated with some fascinating old photographs of Bingley pubs, including the one where she was born and bred, the King’s Head. The photograph, from 1932, shows the author’s parents, Stanley and Annie Marshall, with her brother, Kenneth.

Elizabeth writes: “My memories as a child living at the King’s Head are that on entering the pub from the front door was the main bar, to the left of which was the commercial room and to the right the smoke room…To the rear of the main bar was the singing room, with a small raised dais and space for dancing.”

Elizabeth also talks of – and provides a wonderful photo to accompany – cows being driven down Bingley’s Main Street on their way from Myrtle Farm to the Old Hills.

Ranging away from the King’s Head, Elizabeth is our guide to numerous forgotten pubs, including the Elm Tree, one of Bingley’s oldest staging inns, where coaches regularly stopped, and which boasted, in 1830, of having the only billiards table in town.

One present-day building which used to be a pub is the Church House on Main Street, opposite the parish church. Elizabeth writes: “This used to be the Ring Of Bells public house. The rear of the property backed on to the river where boats could be hired for picturesque trips up the river as far as Marley.”

The Lost Pubs of Bingley costs £10.99 and is available from Copyquick in Bingley and Reid’s Bookshop in Keighley.