Parkfield Inn, Crook Street

The  Parkfield pictured shortly before its closure in 1973.

The Parkfield Inn was situated on Crook Street and dated from the second half of the nineteenth century. 

The pub was stood on the corner of Dawes Street and an older, narrower thoroughfare named Parkfield Street. The area behind the Parkfield – on land now occupied by Morrison’s supermarket - was known as Newtown in the middle of the nineteenth century and was the poorest part of the town. Parkfield Street was in the heart of Newtown.  

The area was settled by Irish immigrants fleeing the famine of 1848 and the squalor of the conditions in the area were recounted by Dr. Edward Ballard in his Report Upon The Sanitary Condition Of The Registration District Of Bolton,Lancashire, And Particularly Upon Its Infant Mortality. A copy of the report still lies in Bolton Central Library.

We know the pub was standing in the 1870s as the landlord, Robert Dobson, died in 1888 and his will was considered important enough to be published in the London Gazette [1] demanding that anyone who had a claim on his estate need contact the late Mr Dobson’s solicitors. The executor of the will was Adam Smith of the Pike View on Derby Street which, Gordon Readyhough says, was owned by Dobson in the 1870s when he was described as a wholesale brewer based at the Parkfield Inn. [2]

The Parkfield eventually came under the ownership of William Tong & Son at their Diamond Brewery in Deane.  Tong’s were taken over by Walker Cain in 1923 and Walker’s merged with Tetley’s in the early sixties.

The construction of Bolton’s inner relief road marked the end for the Parkfield. The pub was under a compulsory purchase order and bought by Bolton council in the early seventies. The pub closed on 19 July 1973 and its closure marked the retirement of licensee Annie Hamer after 50 years at the pub. She was also said to be teetotal!

The Parkfield was subsequently demolished although that section of the inner relief road – the Trinity Street extension – wasn’t completed until 1979.

Crook Street in the foreground, Morrison's supermarket in the background in this image taken in March 2011. The green sward of grass represents the approximate location of the Parkfield Inn. Copyright, Lost Pubs Of Bolton.

[1] London Gazette, 20 April 1888. 

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