Tanners Arms

The former Tanners Arms, pictured in April 2012 when it was being used by a distributor of digital instrumentation. Image copyright Google Street View.

The Tanners Arms was situated at the bottom of Lever Street at its junction with Nelson Street. According to Gordon Readyhough, the pub dates back to the pub dates back to the nineteenth century and was originally a brew-pub named the Farmers Arms. [1]

The establishment of Walkers Tannery saw the pub change its name to something more suited to the trade of much of its clientele.

The pub was sold to the Alfred Crowther & Co Ltd of the Star Brewery in Bury in the early part of the twentieth century. Crowther’s were formed in 1897 but sold out to Wilson’s in 1925. However, the Tanners had long since been sold to the Bolton brewery of J Halliwell & Son, whose  Alexandra brewery on Mount Street ceased trading in 1910. Halliwell's pubs were bought by another Bolton concern, Magee, Marshall & Co, situated just off Derby Street about a mile away from the Tanners.

When the nearby tannery began to wind down its business in the early-eighties the pub's trade fell off and by June 1985 it was being reported that the Tanners had been closed and boarded up, as had the Peel on Higher Bridge Street [2]. The Tanners was de-licensed and put up for sale and by the middle of the following year it had been sold for use as a joinery [3]. The premises are now owned by a company manufacturing digital portable tachometers and associated devices. [4]

[1] Bolton Pubs 1800-2000, Gordon Readyhough, published by Neil Richardson (2000).

[2] What’s Doing, the Greater Manchester beer drinker’s monthly magazine. June 1985 issue.

[3] What’s Doing, July 1986 issue.

[4] Compact Instruments.   Retrieved 25 March 2014.