Turnpike Hotel

overview

It was a popular nightspot for both Yorkshire and Lancashire folk and has been used as a halfway house for the two counties ever since. It has been a cocktail bar, a hotel, a member’s discotheque and if rumour has it, a house of ill repute. Some locals remember the time each table had a telephone allowing eligible men and women to “call” one another…. an idea based on the German cabaret bars of the 1930’s and made famous in the late 80’s by Caspers Telephone Exchange in London.

In the past few years the building became neglected and stood empty for 12 months, inviting vandalism and theft – even having the stone slates pinched from the roof. The Pennine weather threw all it could at the building and the pub came dangerously close to being lost altogether.