Lost Pubs Of Bolton: Howcroft Inn

The Howcroft Inn, photographed shortly before its closure in May 2012. Copyright Lost Pubs Of Bolton. More photographs are at the foot of this article.

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Updated 11 June 2019 with details of the pub's early history.

The Howcroft on Pool Street, just off Vernon Street, closed its doors for the final time on 20 May 2012 after almost 160 years as licensed premises. The pub was one of the few remaining in Bolton to have its own bowling green but it would be more accurate to say that the bowling green was the initial reason for the pub’s existence. indeed it pre-dates the pub perhaps by over 60 years. Certainly, the green is marked as the ‘Howcroft Bowling Green’ on an 1849 map of the area and it is also visible on the 1793 map of Little Bolton. At that time it was situated in an area called Green Hill just off Back Lane, which was the only approach road to the pub. Prior to the construction of St George’s Road around the end of the 18^th century, Back Lane was a principal route out of Bolton, running from Blackburn Road down to Chorley Street even though it was only about as wide then as it is now – similar to a back street.

Just as it does now the bowling season ran from April or May to October each year and in his book Leisure In Bolton, written in 1982, Robert Poole claims that the Howcroft bowling green regularly had 60-odd attendees at their end of season dinner. [See reports at the end of this article].

However, the story of the Howcroft's birth as a pub suggests it came to be licenced as a result of a court case over a clampdown on 'hush shops' in Bolton. From 1830 onwards anyone could open a beerhouse – licensed to sell beer but not wine and spirits – on payment of 2 guineas (£2.10). It was the Beerhouse Act of that year that led to an explosion of pubs over the next 40 years often by people simply opening up a room in their home. However, two guineas was still a lot of money for some people when effectively all you were doing was to allow people into your house to drink beer. Many decided to bypass the licensing arrangements and save themselves 2 guineas by simply opening up their houses and letting word of mouth get round – 'hush shops' as they were known. It was a risky business but it was widespread. One local brewer of the time claimed he had turned down 14 barrels' worth of beer sales one weekend because he knew they were destined for 'hush shops'.

The authorities had regular crackdowns and in 1853 they were supported by a newly-established Licensed Victuallers and Beersellers association in Bolton which gathered evidence on hush shops and informed the police. In October of that year, five cases came to court including one for the then unlicensed Howcroft Bowling Green. Police had engaged the services of a painter from Manchester named Thomas Fletcher as an informant. On seven consecutive Saturdays he came to Bolton to check out potential hush shops for the police. On Saturday 29 October 1853 he went to play bowls at the Howcroft Bowling Green. He said he played for booze rather than money and stated that he saw beer being poured from a 'quarter-barrel' – a nine-gallon wooden container. The following morning he and Christopher Brownlow, the son of the landlord of the Founders Arms on St George's Street, went to the Howcroft where Brownlow claimed they could get a pint of beer. They were met at a hut next to the bowling green by John Shepherd, who was employed as a greenkeeper by the bowling club, and they were given beer poured from a small barrel. Fletcher claimed Brownlow paid sixpence for the beer. In his evidence, Brownlow claimed the sixpence was paid to Shepherd because he owed that from the previous day's bowling. It was claimed in Shepherd's defence that any beer at the bowling green had been brought privately by members and that he simply wanted to get rid of the beer before it went off. Such a tale stretched credibility as it suggested that a quarter-barrel, the equivalent of 72 pints of beer, had been brought in by a bowler. At stake was not so much that Fletcher and Brownlow had been drinking beer but whether or not they had been sold the beer by Shepherd. There was doubt in the magistrates' minds over the sixpence paid over – was it for the beer or was it a gambling debt from the previous day? However, the case wasn't watertight and as the magistrates were split down the middle the charge against Shepherd was dismissed.

It's almost certain that beer been sold at the Howcroft Bowling Green, but the effect of the case was to bring drinking at the green on to a firm legal footing. Around 1855 the club paid two guineas and applied for a licence to operate as a beerhouse. The 1849 map of the area shows a small building next to the bowling green which is likely to have been part of the current building. An 1893 map shows the pub in its present form which means that an extension comprising the gents’ toilets and the longer back room was built some time in the late-19^th century. In that case the original pub would have consisted of the bar area, the small lounge and the pool room behind the bar. The building was used as housing accommodation prior to being licenced. In 1840, a court heard of the death of a three-year-old child, Richard Greenhalgh, who lived at the Howcroft along with his mother, a widow named Nancy Greenhalgh. Richard drowned in a tank next to one of the outbuildings. [Bolton Chronicle, 25 January 1840]

The first licensee was a man named Gorse, but by 1859 Richard Bradshaw was in charge. To celebrate his arrival he put on an opening dinner on Tuesday 9 June 1859 “on the table at Four o'clock in the afternoon”.

By 1869 the pub had a bagatelle table but in January of that year a Glaswegian named John Smith was in court over the theft of three bagatelle balls worth £1 and 3 shillings from the Howcroft. The landlord's sister-in-law claimed Smith had spent two hours in the pub's bagatelle room one day. He stole the balls and offered them to the landlord of the Star Inn in the centre of town. Bizarrely, he was also charged with stealing a monkey from the Star and was found with both the animal and the bagatelle balls in the Town Hall Hotel. He claimed he hadn't stolen the monkey but merely taken it to give it some beer as it had been unwell!

In 1870 the pub was listed as the Duke Of Wellington, Back Lane rather than the Howcroft. A potted history of the pub that was on display in the premises until it closed claimed it was known as the Prince Of Wales towards the end of the 19^th century until changing its name to the Howcroft. That isn't quite true. Licensee J Atkinson advertised in 1874 that the green was known as the Prince Of Wales Bowling Green and that it was for the exclusive use of the Howcroft Bowling Club on Tuesdays and Thursdays. But any change of name was of a temporary nature and certainly by 1878 the pub was known as the Howcroft once again.

The Howcroft gained a number of additional licences. An application for a billiards licence was successful in 1870 and licensee Daniel Booth obtained a music licence in 1881. But his attempt to sell foreign wines at the pub later that year was unsuccessful. However, a further application in 1900 saw the licence granted. The then landlord, James Shippobottom, had been at the pub for the previous seven-and-a-half years and in his application he stated that it was mainly used by bowlers who utilised the green. There was a also a billiards room and a semi-billiards room. It was apparently the only pub with a green of that size that sold beer only.

The Howcroft was a Sharman’s pub at that time and it remained so until it was transferred to the Warrington firm of Peter Walker and then to Tetley’s following their takeover of Walker’s in 1960.

As the nineteenth century went on, the Green Hill area, which surrounded the Howcroft, had taken on a different look. When the bowling green opened it was on the edge of Bolton with countryside to the north. Indeed, the Bolton Chronicle of 15 February 1845 carried an advertisement for the letting of six acres of meadow land “near the Howcroft”. By the end of the nineteenth century the pub and its bowling green were surrounded by housing with the construction of Clarence Street, Davenport Street, Kent Street and Church Street. By then the pub's address was Pool Street which ran from the pub down the hill and across St George’s Road to the River Croal. The Howcroft remained part of Pool Street until the construction of Topp Way began in 1980 and cut off the top of the street from the portion on the other side of the road. Even so, the pub retained Pool Street as its address.

In 1954 the landlady was a Mrs A Doran but she relinquished the tenancy that year in favour of Frank Hardcastle, an employee of the pub who worked as a glass collector – described as ‘Mrs Doran’s pot boy’ in the pub’s history. He took the pub along with his wife Olwyn and Frank successfully applied for a full licence in 1957 allowing him to sell spirits alongside beer and foreign wines.

Frank was a legendary figure whose photograph was displayed in the Howcroft until the pub closed. Its halcyon days were probably from mid-seventies until Frank's retirement in 1983. The pub had a reputation not only for the high standard of its real ales but also for the cider it sold. Coates’s Triple Vintage wasn’t available on draught. Instead it was poured straight from litre bottles into a pint pot and Frank limited consumption to people he didn't know or weren't regulars. The pub was busy – heaving on a Friday and Saturday night but also with good trade during the week. But the regulars weren't necessarily people who lived locally. The Howcroft’s reputation was such that it drew its custom from all over Bolton.

In 1974, one of the pub's regulars, Pete Methy, instituted what became known as Methy's Tour, an annual trip to two or three towns in the north of England. Even after the pub closed the trips continued and run to this day.

Olwyn Hardcastle died in 1980 and Frank carried on alone before retiring to Blackpool in 1983. He died there in March 1995.

During his final couple of years in charge Frank Hardcastle had to oversee a major re-siting of the pub’s bowling green due to the construction of Topp Way. The new by-pass hacked off the pub from the rest of Pool Street, and with the construction of the by-pass it was now only accessible from St George’s Road taking a circuitous route via Vernon Street. The old bowling green stood parallel to the pub and was bounded by Back Lane, Church Street and Pool Street. It was moved a few yards and turned diagonally – see Google Maps or Google Earth for an overhead view - effectively cutting off Back Lane. Much of the housing constructed in the surrounding streets in the late-nineteenth century was demolished at the same time with new housing was built in its place. The work on the bowling green was completed by July 1982 although it was not ready for matches until the following summer. [What’s Doing, the Greater Manchester beer drinkers’ monthly magazine, July 1982 issue].

Later that same year the pub was branded a Walker’s outlet after Tetley’s revived the name of the brewery they took over in the early sixties. They also introduced a portfolio of Walker’s beers, some of which had been based on the original recipes.

When Frank left in September 1983 there was the potentially thorny problem of who was to succeed him. The choice of the pub’s regulars were Tony and Carole Bretherton, two popular members of the bar staff who had worked at the Howcroft since the early seventies. [What’s Doing, October 1983 issue.] A petition was set up at the pub to allow the Brethertons to take over the tenancy but it was not to be. Denis Lund and his wife Marion arrived but the Brethertons moved to another Walker’s pub, the Ainsworth Arms at the top of Halliwell Road where they spent over 25 highly successful years.

With Frank Hardcastle gone Walker’s decided to give the Howcroft a long-overdue refurbishment. The result was tasteful enough to win the Campaign For Real Ale’s Joe Goodwin Award for the Best Urban Refurbishment of 1985. It is unthinkable today for a brewery or pub company to enlist the licensee to advise on a pub’s refurbishment – they are treated as hired hands at best - and to be honest it was just as unusual in the eighties. But having successfully run another Walker's pub, the Raven in Wigan, before moving to the Howcroft, Denis and Marion Lund played a part in the plans for the Howcroft’s refurbishment. In the pub'scitation the judges hailed the Lunds' involvement in the refurbishment as being “as crucial as that of Peter Walker’s architects in ensuring the traditional nature of the pub was retained when the improvements were complete.” [What's Doing, February 1985]

Denis left in late 1992 and was replaced by Clive Nightingale, a former soldier who will be remembered for introducing a beer festival at the pub following the demise of Great North Western Beer Festival which had taken place at Bolton Sports Centre in Silverwell Street from 1987 to 1993. Over the course of four days each October Clive would place boards and a huge marquee over the bowling green for the event which was run in aid of Bolton Lads and Girls Club. The beer festival lasted at the Howcroft until 2007 before moving to Bolton Rugby Club. By then Clive had left to run a boarding house in Austria. The festival still takes place but at the University Of Bolton Stadium,

It is often said that stability of management is the key to a successful football team. The same could be said for pubs. By the time Clive Nightingale left the Howcroft the pub had had just three licensees in over 50 years. But after he left landlords came and went although the pub was dealt a blow in 2010. Having been taken over in 2009 by Jane McDonald and Frank Smith the Howcroft appeared to be on the up. Sadly, Mr Smith died in September 2010 and in 2011 the owners decided to put the pub up for sale.

The Howcroft was sold in 2012 and was converted into student accommodation. However, the bowling green remains. In 2014 it was reported that the green could be built on after civil engineers George Cox reported that an offer for it to be rented for a minimal fee hadn't been taken up. The flats were subsequently pub for sale but the bowling green remains in place overgrown as Mark Hampson's 2016 photograph for the I Belong To Bolton Facebook group shows.

Howcroft Green – This popular green was opened for the season on Thursday when near fifty of the subscribers and their friends partook of an excellent dinner in the greenhouse, which was served up in Mrs Greenwood's usual style of excellence. A challenge, for Bolton to play all England, on two greens, for any sum, according to annual custom; but as usual no one appeared to dispute the claim of the Boltonians to superior skill in this delightful game. - Bolton Chronicle, 9 April 1836.

Howcroft Bowling Green – This nonpareil of green closed for the season on Thursday, when a sumptuous dinner was served up by Mrs Greenwood, of the Hand and Banner, in excellent style, to about sixty subscribers and friends. The day was favourable, and a pleasant afternoon was spent on the turf. The whist tables in the greenhouse were well attended, and a most harmonious evening was spent. - Bolton Chronicle, 7 October 1837.

R Halliwell of Daubhill and R Parr of Bolton contested a match of 51 up, on level terms, for a £20 cup, on the Howcroft Hotel green, Pool-street, yesterday afternoon. Result: Halliwell 51, Parr 33. - Bolton Evening News, 22 July 1908.