March 4 marks the fortieth anniversary of the dramatic fire which gutted what was arguably Keighley's most impressive building, the Mechanics' Institute at the top of Cavendish Street.
Designed by the famous Bradford architects Lockwood and Mawson, this had opened in 1870 to accommodate a School of Science and Art and a Trade and Grammar School, whilst its inclusion of a Municipal Hall ensured its importance also as a social centre.
Its tower, to which industrialist Prince Smith added a clock in 1892, was the town's focal point.
In the small hours of that Sunday morning in 1962 - after a Saturday night dance - the flames shot 300 feet into the sky as 75 firemen battled the blaze.
Bitter cold froze water from their hoses, yet the heat cracked a shop window on the opposite side of North Street.
The burnt-out shell would not be demolished until 1967.
Mr Michael Shearing, of High Spring Gardens Lane, snapped this bleak view later that Sunday, as stunned townspeople at the bottom of Albert Street contemplate their ruined Mechanics' Institute.
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