TWO very distinctive buildings once graced the Bradford skyline.

They made up Waller’s Bradford Brewery Ltd, later becoming Trafalgar Brewery, in Trafalgar Street, Manningham Lane and subsequently taken over by the Leeds & Wakefield Brewery.

Designed by architect Joseph D Wood, of Colmore Chambers, Newhall Street, Birmingham, a specialist consulting engineer for the brewing and malting industry, the buildings were erected in 1853 for C.Waller & Company.

They consisted of two imposing stone buildings, one rather like the famous Maltings in Snape, Suffolk, with two small chimneys at either end of a high, steeply sloping roof, the other quite different in appearance, with a castellated roof and tall chimney.

Waller’s was a respected firm. In the late 19th century the brewery owned more than 90 pubs across Bradford district. It also ran the Queen’s Hotel on Marine Road Central in Morecambe and an off-licence in Lord Street, Morecambe.

An advert at the time for Waller & Son Brewers boasts of its Havanna cigars, Waller’s LB Ale and nourishing stout in screw-topped bottles.

Imperial pints - advertised as ‘the best in the market’ - were priced at 2/6 per dozen and a ‘small cask of beer for family use, in splendid condition cost one shilling for a quarter or half a gallon. ‘Quality unsurpassed’, says the poster.

Wallers cream of Scotch, a very fine old liqueur whisky cost 24 shillings per gallon.

The company’s telephone number is listed as 472.

Waller’s ceased to brew beer here in 1916 and a chocolate company, a firm of drum manufacturers and an oil company all ran businesses from the buildings, which faced demolition more than once for unsuccessful schemes to unite the railway lines into the city.

The brewery was sold to the Midland Railway in 1914 and brewing was transferred to Brear & Brown Ltd’s Hipperholme Brewery in around 1917.

It was in a chimney of the old brewery, in 1923, that a sensational discovery was made. Bank notes to the value of £17,500 which had been stolen from Forster Square Station where it had been awaiting collection by a bank. Today that money would be worth more than £1 million.

By the time demolition work began in 1953 the buildings were occupied by the Superheat Furnace Company.

Wallers also had a brewery and offices in Upper Millergate, formerly Miller Gate. Under the Bradford improvement act of 1873 Charles Waller sold a portion of the building to create Sunbridge Road in Bradford. In the agreement with Bradford Corporation they agreed to build a tunnel entrance on Aldermanbury, which is now the entrance to Sunbridge Wells. Miller Bank was widened and raised in level by some 20 ft and changed to Sunbridge Road.

Waller’s Brewery carried on trading with a bottling plant in the tunnel, with beer supplied by Bass and many other breweries in the country. There was a large increase in bottled beer during this period.

The name Wallers Brewery lives on in the tunnels of Sunbridgewells, with a pub called Wallers Brewery in the new development.