I'm hoping somebody might be able to help me with research that I'm doing on the garage known as F.E. Cox situated on Cox's roundabout on the Bradford Road during the 50's and 60's.

The directors were Charles Crabtree, Dennis Crabtree and Donald Jagger.

Also hoping to find some photos of the garage in period.

Here's hoping!

Thank you

Richard Baxter

M: 07971 120250

Current location (optional) hertfordshire

Have you looked at pics on the FaceBook Group called Keighley and District Local History.. https://www.facebook.com/groups/KDLHS/photos/

I also have a collection of about 1000 old Keighley photos, I will look through them and come back if I find anything.

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 58-64

Current location (optional) Wirral

I am indebted to Alan Pickles who very kindly took the trouble to call me and pass on the contact Details Of Mr Donald Jagger, I have briefly spoken to DJ and we have arranged to talk later this evening. And to you Brian, I haven't tried face book but did try the web site from the local historics group.

It has taken me many many hours over a 3 yr period of searching the internet speaking to any local people I could and contacting the local papers, little bits of information were gleaned along the way, but this thread has been by far and away like hitting the jackpot!

I will later explain the purpose of my mission but must now leave as I'm travelling from Hertfordshire to Wakefield (on business) and hopefully will fit in a stop at Keighley over the weekend to visit the location.

Current location (optional) hertfordshire

Someone enlighten me please. Where was Cox's roundabout? I can't remember any roundabouts in Keighley until they built the "new road" past the rugby club.

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 1958-65

Current location (optional) Leeds

Wasnt it where Hard Ings Rd joins Bradford Rd near The Beeches ?

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 58-64

Current location (optional) Wirral

Yes, Brian. I think there was a tyre depot next door, and across the road and over the wall, Victoria Park. My dad had many cars from there over the years, having at some point switched allegiances from Tanfield Motors (next to the Regent Cinema). I think Cox’s had the BMC franchise, then Rootes Group, then Datsun - but my memory is hazy on this. My early 70s’ Datsun 120Y came from there, though it was used and could have been a trade-in. It rusted away nicely over a period of not so many years.

Wasn't the roundabout outside The Albert Hotel always there - or is my memory playing tricks?

Current location (optional) Torquay, Australia

The tyre depot Allan mentioned may have been ONDURA tyre remoulders factory. They were some years later a customer of mine, I supplied 5t lots stearic acid, use as a mould release agent. Later taken over by another tyre remoulder in Gloucestershire (Watts Tyres), but they eventually were closed down, maybe around mid 90's.

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 58-64

Current location (optional) Wirral

That's right, Brian - Ondura it was :http://www.thetelegraphandargus.co.uk/news/8066596.Jobs_blow_to_Ondura_workers/

Ah a bit later than I thought, 1999. Thanks Allan

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 58-64

Current location (optional) Wirral

See photo here https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10209592189680902&set=p.10209592189680902&type=3&theater&ifg=1

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 58-64

Current location (optional) Wirral

I think the link may not be publicly available, Brian. Clicking takes me to message "Sorry, this content isn't available at the moment
The link you followed may have expired, or the Page may only be visible to an audience that you aren't in". I'm guessing the latter. You would need to change settings to Public for that post.

Gents - an Update.

Over the weekend of the 7/8th August, I was in Wakefield on business, after which I stopped by Keighley visiting the library to go through the available archive. Unfortunately nothing was found, however an extraordinary peice of luck occurred when I stopped by a Jeep garage in the Bradford Road and asked whether anyone might know somebody who worked at F E Cox in the 1960's and can you believe a gent called Brian had just popped in and he used to be an apprentice there in the 60's!

The reason for my research is due to a Jaguar (E Type) I purchased in 2011, that was sold new through Cox's in 1962. A year or so after my purchase in 2011 I met with the owners son then 83 (who still resided in his fathers house) who had invited me after an exchange of correspondence to come up for tea so he could be reunited with the car and which he had used in period.

Back to the weekend of 7/8, Brian kindly gave me names of former colleagues and one in particular Ray had worked on my car in period and he remembered well the owner. More information is being gathered but I just wanted to show how helpful this forum has been in unlocking this peice of research - I will update later. The thing I would dearly like to find would be a photo of F.E Cox in the 60's when the overhanging clock was in position over the National petrol pumps in Bradford Road.

Current location (optional) hertfordshire

Allan , works for me if you copy and paste the address into you browser heading...

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10209592189680902&set=p.10209592189680902&type=3&theater&ifg=1

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 58-64

Current location (optional) Wirral

Still not getting through to that link. Maybe you can see it because it's your facebook account and therefore you have permission to view? Can anyone else open the link? Maybe it's just my steam driven computer!

I can't get it either Allan.

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 1958-65

Current location (optional) Leeds

I lived in Beecher Street, just a hundred yards down Bradford Road from Cox's Garage, so knew it well. It was indeed on the corner of Hardings Road and Bradford Road, and the petrol pumps could be accessed from either of the two roads. For most of my childhood it had an old Studebaker car in the window opposite the pumps, which had belonged to a Keighley GP (whose name escapes me now - Carmichael, maybe?), in the twenties and thirties. I think there was no roundabout there until the nineteen seventies, and in order to create it a great slice of the bottom part of Victoria Park - including the gates and the cottages either side of them - was removed. Grievous to me for that area of the park was precisely where we kids from the streets around played rugby and cricket, the former even on dark nights, by the 'floodlighting' from Hardings Road.

The Bradford Road entrance to Ondura left a great, cavernous,covered space open to the road, once its doors were closed for the night, and that too provided a play area, especially when it was raining - 'floodlit' from Bradford Road.

'The Beeches' was mentioned earlier in this thread, but it wasn't always the hotel-restaurant it is now, though its name was always that. It was a house which belonged to a Mr Feather, the owner of Botany Mills, down Dalton Lane. It also happened to be the last delivery of my paper round and every Christmas Mr Feather would meet me at the door and give me a ten-shilling note as a tip - which was quite something in the nineteen-fifties. There was also always a sense of trepidation attached to this Christmas treat, the fear that he might forget, or decide not to bother... fortunately, he always came up trumps!

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 1951-58

Current location (optional) Keswick, Cumbria