VINCENT FINN looks back at the days when beer was delivered to Bradford pubs by draymen on horse-drawn wagons:

There really was a skill to delivering such heavy barrels, and I remember watching them do it with such ease. The horses and wagons never pulled up Church Bank, it was too steep and cobbled, they went up Leeds Road to Harris Street then up to Otley Road.

Since every neighbourhood had several pubs that you could choose as a local, what attracted many regulars was the quality of the beer. There were several branded breweries in Bradford to pick from - Tetley, Melbourne, Bentleys, Ramsdens, Heys ,

John Smiths, and Sam Smiths, Hammonds, to name a few.

To maintain their regulars, a landlord would have to serve a good pint. There were lots of steps ‘behind the scenes’ before the pint got to the pump, starting with the arrival of the drayman. Most pubs had what was called a beer drop door; two half doors built into the pavement at the front of the pub opening to the cellar. In a recent T&A article on the Fighting Cock on Present Street there was a photo of the original pub showing the beer drop doors on the side of the building. I wonder how many readers remember seeing beer being delivered to the pub.

Off licence shops also had a beer drop door, since all the beer they sold was delivered in a barrel and sold via pump, often into a jug brought by the customer.

I went to St Mary’s Boys School on East Parade and often when we walked to St Mary’s Girls School for our ‘dinner’ at noon I stopped to watch beer delivered to the Cock and Bottle. The barrels were carried on a horse and wagon, a dray. Depending on the load, the cart would be pulled by one or two horses. The barrels were 36 gallons, a ‘hog’s head’, and were too heavy for the men to lift so they pivoted and rolled them to the back of the cart.

A ‘skid’ - a narrow bowed ladder - was set up on the back of the wagon and the barrel would slide down it, landing on a flattened sack full of straw. The second drayman would spin it upright and roll it towards the beer doors. The cellar entrance had a stone ramp each side of narrow stairs and the draymen would slide the barrel down onto sacking. The barrels were left to settle for a few days before being tapped, with pump lines inserted. All pumping was by a hand pump. Usually there’d two or three barrels on the still, it wasn’t uncommon for a barrel to run out and the landlord would have to go into the cellar and hook up another barrel.

There were many tricks landlords used to keep the beer clear. I had a friend who kept a pub in Otley Road and it wasn’t uncommon for him to use a small amount of fish scales, I think they were called ‘finings’, to help settle the beer and keep it clear. Nothing would give a pub a bad reputation and lose custom more than a ‘bad pint’ so landlords went to great lengths to keep the beer clear.

A delivery usually took an hour or so and the draymen often had a pint after deliveries. I remember the horses would stand quietly outside the pub with a feed bag hung over their heads. I think they were a breed called a Belgium Draft or a Shire or Clydesdale.