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During WW2 the Cross Keys was nicknamed “The Seven Sisters” due to the fact that my mother, Rose Day and her six sisters, Bella, Betty ( probably the proprietor ), Rhoda, Margo, Julia and Bertha Day all worked/lived there during their twenties/late teens from approximately 1938 -1950. They were all single and strikingly good looking and doubtless this was part of the pub’s apparent popularity particularly with the RAF personnel from nearby Breighton Bomber Base. The pub stood on the B1228 just before the rail line crossed at Highfield with a Dance Hall alongside. The pub has since been converted to a private home. Publican in 1893 was George Exelby.

Source: Bob Hadley

I lived in this pub with my parents who were landlord and landlady (Jim and Peggy Hood) from 1955 to 1960. There was a main bar/lounge, darts and dominos were popular, and a TV room. The TV room housed a small set on a shelf high up on the wall. This was a great draw when very few people had their own TV. The room was used on a Sunday to serve teas. The dancehall was also in regular use, not just dances but weddings and other celebrations with Peggy doing all the catering. There was also an orchard and a chicken hut. The pub was a regular meeting point for the local hunt. The beer served was from Stones, brewed in Sheffield with only two handpumps, bitter and mild. plenty of bottled beers and off sales at the backdoor.

Sheila Mitchell (November 2019)

THOSE WERE THE DAYS AT THE CROSS KEYS BUBWITH HIGHFIELD. In a period spanning 160 years from 1837 to 1998 many thousands of fun-loving people from the Bubwith area and beyond descended upon the Cross Keys, more latterly the Hideaway Inn at Bubwith Highfield, to experience the pleasures of drinking, dancing ,folk music and occasional fighting. Nowadays that very popular pub of yesteryear is known as The Old Coach house on Street lane. When local man George Lawton built the Cross Keys in 1837, with a view to catching passing trade on the Howden Road, little did he know that his project would become a significant part of our local history. However, life for the Lawtons who both died before 1850 would have been far better if Joseph Patrick formerly of the Bubwith New Inn hadn’t built the Queens Arms just down the road at Highfield Cross Roads in about 1840.. After the Lawtons’ time from 1850 to 1881 Charles Bramley a native of Seaton Ross was the landlord until he retired at the age of seventy three. Charles opened a grocers shop to supplement his income and benefited a great deal when the adjacent Highfield Railway station opened in about 1858. He was succeeded by George Exelby a farmer from West Cottingworth who when he retired at the age of 65 sold out to James Pilling Kirk, a brewer and the owner of some forty pubs from Sherburn near Scarborough. Exelby made the news in 1903 when he was fined £5 for allowing a musical policeman to perform on his premises. Apparently P.C. Mitchell the local bobby, was in the habit of entertaining patrons at the Cross Keys with his accordion, but to his misfortune he was caught in the act by his Inspector and dismissed from the force. When Kirk bought the pub he installed Walter Harrison a Ripon publican as the licensee. At the licensing sessions in 1913 it was claimed that the Cross Keys could accommodate 35 patrons with stabling for seven horses and on occasions as many as fifteen gigs could be seen outside. Then in 1922 after Kirk had died suddenly at the age of 58, Harrison moved elsewhere, and the Cross Keys was bought by Major Robert Bloom retired from Darlington. His licensees were Charles and Nellie Roberts previously shopkeepers from Leeds. The ownership changed again in 1925 when West Riding publican and entrepreneur Frederick Charles Lamb bought the Cross Keys from Major Bloom with ambitions to demolish the stable block and build a dance hall, whilst retaining the Roberts as licensees. However, fate intervened when Mr. Lamb died within a year, and it was left to his 16 year old son Laurence, born at the Albion Vaults Selby, to complete the job. The new dance designed to accommodate 200 fun-loving people was no state of the art construction, as it was more than an unattractive looking shed about 12ft. high built from recycled railway sleepers. But quite amazingly its unappealing appearance was no detriment to its success. Highfield Dance Hall opened in about 1927, and for the next SO years Bubwith Highfield was an entertainment Mecca on Friday and Saturday nights. And for Boxing Night and New Year’s Eve dances ,one really had to know someone to get tickets. In the 1920’s/30’s/40’s dance halls and cinemas provided escapism from the harsh outside world, and for a great many dance bands provided the only access to live music. The other great attraction was the dance hall’s internal bar facility, a great favourite with quite few local hard men who tended to over indulged and were then spoiling a fight. Most fortunately the village bobby was soon on hand to calm things down. But on one extreme occasion in the 1950*s he shut the place down and sent everyone home. After Mr. Lamb’s death his estate was placed in trust while Charles and Nellie Roberts stayed on until 1934, but from then on until 1939 the licensee remains unknown. The year of 1929 turned out well for the Cross Keys because the Queen’s Arms at Highfield Cross roads was declared a redundant pub and closed down by the local magistrates under the Balfour Act of 1904.Then from 1939 to 1951the Cross Keys experienced its highest point of popularity, when the licensee was the newly married Elizabeth Greaves (nee Day) known as Betty whose husband was away on military service. But what made the Cross Keys such a major attraction was that also living at the pub for most of her term were her six very attractive unmarried sisters, and for ten years or so the Cross Keys became locally known as the “Seven Sisters “pub. Their names were Bella,Margo,Rhoda,Julia,Bertha and Rose. Needless to say these young women were a great hit with the young R.A.F. men on the nearby Breighton Airfield throughout the war years. A popular story exists that some mischievous R.A.F.boys ventured into the kitchen and stole the goose out of the oven one Christmas Day. Another well known patron who made the pub his favourite place of recreation was Thomas Kitson Blackburn the Foggathorpe Squire and socialite. Mr Blackburn so loved the place that he bought it from the Lamb trustees in 1942,but then sold it on to Wm. Stones Brewery of Sheffield in 1946,when he needed to fund his master-ship of the York and Ainsty foxhounds. Elizabeth Greaves left in 1951, and next twenty years saw Laurence Chisholm, Phil. Baxter, Jim Hood and Reg. Sheffield all licensees at the Cross Keys. During this time business took a bit of a down-turn with the introduction of the breathalyser in 1967.However, this did not deter Bass Carrington buying out Wm.Stones in 1968, and three years later in1971 Brian and Betty Loughton from the Albion Vaults in Selby became the new licensees. They soon established themselves as very popular hosts, and it was Betty who was credited with having persuaded the brewery to change the Cross Keys name to the "Hideaway". By the early seventies the popularity of dance nights at Highfield was in decline, but most fortuitously in 1972 Val and Harvey Lakin of Holme on Spalding Moor were seeking a new venue for the Holy Ground Folk Club, and for the next eight years the club thrived at the Highfield Dance Hall on a Saturday night, with more than a hundred music lovers present. When big stars such as Mike Harding and Jake Thacker played a full house was guaranteed. The folk music club wound up in about 1980 and Brian and Betty retired to Selby in 1987.For the next three years mine hosts at the Hideaway were a Geordie couple, Roy and Olwyn, and it is well remembered that Roy always referred to his wife as "the woman" as is the custom in the Newcastle area. They left around 1990 when Bass installed a short term manager, before they declared the Hideaway unviab)e in 1991 and closed it down. The Hideaway was put up for sale and bought by local entrepreneur Derek Arnold in 1992 to be reopened with much ceremony on New Year’s Eve the same year, when the new licensee was Julia Marie Mcloughlin. It was down to her hard work and enterprise that the Hideawy stayed open until1998, when last were finally called. In 2000 the old dance hall was demolished for housing, and the Hideaway sold off as a private dwelling, now known as The Old Coach House. John Leake East Yorkshire (December 2020)

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