The Peel pictured in 1975. The entrance to Gordon's car showroom can just be seen on the left-hand side of the photograph. Falcon Street runs down the side of the Peel. The building directly next to the pub is slightly set back and out of shot of the camera. After the chemist’s and the property next door to that was the entrance to Clarence Street, again slightly out of shot. Image from the Bolton Library And Museums Service collection. Copyright Bolton Council
The Peel Hotel was a nineteenth-century pub that was fully
licensed by the end of that century. It stood on Higher Bridge Street
on the right-hand side as you go out of the town centre and on the opposite corner
of Falcon Street to Gordon’s car
showroom.
The pub was one of four in the town to be named after Sir
Robert Peel, along with three pubs named the Peel Arms: one on Halliwell Road,
one on Sidney Street and one on Waterloo Street.
The Peel on Higher Bridge Street was owned by Threlfalls
brewery of Salford at one time, but it was sold to local brewer Magees and passed to Greenall
Whitley when they took over Magees in 1958.
It had a lounge area on the right as you entered the
pub. A vault – or public bar – was on the left and was also accessible via another
entrance on Falcon Street.
In the summer of 1985 it was being reported that the Peel
had been closed and was boarded up, along with the Tanners Arms on Nelson
Street. At the time it was up for sale
with an asking price of £48,000; however,
just over a year later, in September 1986, it was announced that the Peel had
been bought by Bolton Metropolitan Borough
Council and would be demolished as part of the Topp Way extension.
Ironically, Falcon Street was named after a pub at the
opposite end, the Falcon, which was bought at the same time.
Both the Peel and the Falcon were demolished in 1987. The
following year, in a guide book entitled, Vintage Pubs And Real Ale In The Manchester
Area, the Campaign for Real Ale said of the Peel:
“This pub had an elegant façade and a spacious interior with
large public bar, comfortable lounge and an upstairs function room. Among the
pub ‘memorabilia’ was a fascinating price list from the 1950s.”
[1] Pubs Of Bolton 1800-2000, by Gordon Readyhough.
Published by Neil Richardson (2000).
[2] What’s Doing, the Greater Manchester Beer Drinkers
Monthly Magazine, June 1985 issue.
[3] What’s Doing, September 1986.
[4] Vintage Pubs And Real Ale In The Manchester Area. Edited
by Peter Barnes. Published by the Campaign
for Real Ale (1988).
A May 2012 image of the area where the Peel used to stand
(Copyright Google Street View). The pub was situated roughly where the cars are coming towards us on the right-hand side of the shot. The tree-lined traffic island is where the
chemist was on the 1975 shot, with the entrance to Clarence Street now visible next to the row
of houses in the distance.
What was the chemist's called?
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