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The Cock and Bottle
The Topic was here for only two years, January 2006-February 2008.
Although without a dedicated stage, just being a room in a pub, in some ways it was a good venue for the Oldest (continuously-operating, weeky, English-style) Folk Club In The World, being a venerable pub - an inn of some sort was first licensed on or near the site in 1747 and ale is said to have been brewed there at the time. The name The Cock & Bottle was in use by 1822.
More info on our old C&B Venue page.
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The Melborn Hotel
The Topic lived here in White Abbey Road for more than 10 years until December 29th, 2005, a couple of weeks before the building was sold and ceased being a pub. For most of those years Philomena Hingston ran the club.
The place was built in 1935 with a music room in the plans. As well as The Topic, the landlord of 15 years, Eamon Halloran, hosted a whole range of other live music nights, especially Irish music.
The name was originally Melbourne, because of connections with the local brewery, but after a dispute the spelling was changed.
The piano and the door to the music room have been transferred to the Cock & Bottle...
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The Peel Hotel
The Peel in Richmond Road, not far from the University, was the home of the Topic for only just over four years, from March 8th 1991 to July 8th 1995.
Club organisers during its sojourn here were Deanna Norman , Brenda Baldwin and Roger Sutcliffe - who was the first to play in the new venue - and Philomena.
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The Star Hotel
The Star in Westgate was the record-holder for the Topic, hosting the club for 22 years until the move to the Peel in March 1991.
The Topic moved there after a year of turmoil. A total of 4 venues was tried in 1969 - the Rawson Hotel for one night, the Ukrainian Club and the Market Tavern, but the final venue, the Star, proved to be a pretty permanent base, with the enthusiastic support of the Landlord and Landlady, Marion and Friedal.
Quite a lot happened in the world and in folk between 1969 and 1991.
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Unity Hall
The Topic moved here for the period 1957-1958. Unity Hall, in Rawson Square, was leased by the German community in Bradford and was known as Schiller-Verein. Later it became a Masonic Hall and in 1910 became the base for the Oddfellows Society.
Unity Hall is also the name of a journalist who has been writing about the royal family since the 1950's. But she has nothing to do with this building.
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Laycock's Rooms
This is where the Topic first started, back in 1956, in an upstairs room. Laycock's in Albion Court had been a hotel and a cafe and a centre for political debating - GB Shaw spoke there, and JB Priestley, Kropotkin and William Morris, and Philip Snowden from Cowling, who went on to become Labour's first Chancellor of the Exchequer.
According to Topic founder Alex Eaton, the room they used was dingy, dusty and depressing, with heaped up chairs at the back and a table covered with green stained baize.
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