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Site of The Alexandra Hotel	Picture source: John Yeadon
The Alexandra Hotel was situated on Great Horton Road. It was built on a slight hill and on the downhill side there was a bar at ground level in the basement. This pub was built in 1877, closed in the early 1970s and was then taken over by a local college. It was vacated in 1989 when deemed unsafe, and was demolished in 1993. Now used as a car park. I was based in the building from 1984 to 1989, by which time the bar had been removed. The cocktail bar remained until c1987. All that remains of the Alexandra Hotel is the low wall and railings at the front.  The land is used as an off-street car park.
In 1973, I started attending Bradford Technical College on a Metallurgy course, at lunchtime I would frequent the Vaults Bar in the lower side of the Alexandra Hotel. The Vaults had a front bar and a rear bar, the latter had wooden benches and tables down each side of the walls, they were partitioned off into pairs. The rear bar also had an excellent jukebox, the cost for playing one record was 2p, for 10p you got seven plays. Their was usually the smell of cannabis in the rear bar, the front bar was simply decorated, it was like a pub tap room. I also frequented the cocktail bar at the top of the hotel, it was called the Chaplin Bar, there was a large image of Charlie Chaplin on one of the walls. Both bars sold Scottish and Newcastle beers, the most popular drinks were Younger's Tartan Special, McEwan's Export, Newcastle Brown Ale, McEwan's Lager and Guinness. I had many enjoyable times in both of the Alexandra Hotel bars, incidentally, the Barbarian Rugby Football Club also known as the Baa-Baas, was founded in the Alexandra Hotel on the 8th of April 1890 after the idea of an International Touring Rugby Club was brought forward earlier in Leuchters Restaurant in the city.
David MacGregor (July 2024)
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