20/09/2026
STORIES FROM THE JUNCTION 🍺📜
PART ONE — WHERE IT ALL BEGAN
We’ve spent weeks disappearing down rabbit holes researching this place, and we thought the only way to tell the story properly was to start right at the beginning.
Except… the beginning isn’t quite as straightforward as we thought.
You’ll often see 1872 given as the date for The Junction, and we’ve always used it ourselves.
But after digging through old maps, licensing records and archives, we’ve realised something quite important:
There is no physical proof we’ve found that tells us the exact year The Junction was actually built.
We know The Queen’s Hotel in Baildon was built in 1860. We also have a map from around that period which shows the area and The Junction isn’t there.
Then we reach 1872, and The Junction appears in the official licensing records.
So 1872 is the earliest date we can currently prove the pub existed and was licensed but that doesn’t necessarily mean somebody laid the first brick in 1872.
It could have been built shortly before. That’s one of the things we’re still trying to uncover.
And then there’s the name.
Why The Junction?
One theory we’re particularly interested in is the connection with Junction Mills.
The landscape around here was completely different then. The houses opposite, around what we now know as Lower Holme, developed around the local industry, and just over the bridge and towards the canal was Junction Mills.
So could our little pub have taken its name from the mill rather than from a road junction?
It certainly makes you wonder.
But, just like the build date, until we find something written in black and white, it stays a theory rather than something we’re going to tell you is fact.
What we can say is that by 1872, The Junction was here.
And from that point onwards, the names start appearing.
Landlords, landladies, brewers, families and children who didn’t just work at The Junction…
they lived here.
And some of their stories are absolutely brilliant.
Next time, we’ll introduce you to the first people we can actually trace behind the bar at The Junction. 🍺
