Newport Street with Great Moor Street running across pictured in the late-nineteenth century. The 1835 version of the Wheatsheaf can be seen on the left-hand corner.
The story of the Wheatsheaf Hotel is one of three buildings
in two locations on opposite sides of the town centre.
While many people will associate the Wheatsheaf with the
round building on the corner of Great Moor Street and Newport Street, the
original Wheatsheaf stood on Bank Street – ‘Windy Bank’ as it was known to
Bolton residents at the end of the 18th century.
In his book Pubs Of Bolton 1800-2000, [1] Gordon Readyhough
claims the original Wheatsheaf opened in 1810. However, the list of Bolton pubs
from 1778 shows that there was already a Wheatsheaf Hotel with Thomas Haslam as landlord.
The pub stood close to the entrance to the Unitarian chapel
on Bank Street and the chapel’s bicentenary book from 1896 makes reference to
the Wheatsheaf and its proximity to the chapel’s Sunday School, which was built
in 1796:
“It [the Sunday School] stood between the passage to the old
chapel and the old Wheatsheaf Inn. On the removal of this inn, with the
inn-keeper and the name of the hotel, to the new Wheatsheaf in Newport Street,
the school building, along with the inn, was pulled down, and shops built on
the site.”
In those days Bank Street was a narrow passage, in fact it
was “so very narrow that it was necessary for foot-passengers to step into some
shop or doorway to avoid being crushed by a passing cart.” [Sayings and Doings
of Parson Folds. Bolton : Geo. Winterburn, 1879, page 34]
In 1818 the landlord of the Wheatsheaf was Samuel Henry and
he appears to have run the pub until shortly before it was removed to Newport
Street in 1835. In the 1836 Bolton Directory [2], John Platt was the landlord of
the Wheatsheaf while Samuel Henry was running a beerhouse on Bridgeman Place. [3]
Samuel Henry’s departure may well have been the catalyst for the removal of the
Wheatsheaf to its new location.
The Wheatsheaf was sold by auction for £8400 on 3 April 1878 [4] and was run in the 1880s and 1890s by George Walker, the proprietor of the Bolton
Brewery Company Ltd. The premises were much larger than the building that still
stands today and was run as a hotel, as this old photograph from the late-fifties shows. Here's another shot of the old building, this time from the Bolton Evening News taken in 1961 shortly before it was demolished.
Indeed, there appears to have been a Wheatsheaf Hotel
Company that was taken over by the local brewery of Magee, Marshall and Co
around 1909. Magee’s ran the pub until they were taken over by Greenall Whitley
in 1958.
A few years later, Greenall’s took the decision to knock
down the 1835 building and rebuild the Wheatsheaf in a modern style – complete
with revolving doors. The new building was set further back than the old Wheatsheaf,
but the pub had new neighbours: the western side of Newport Street had been demolished
and rebuilt in 1957 and when the new Wheatsheaf was completed in 1962 it was
more in keeping with the buildings that had sprung up around it. A new row of
shops was later built next to the pub– including a branch of Hanbury’s and
Shaw’s outfitters – so that corner of Newport Street and Great Moor Street had
architecture which, while perhaps not entirely aesthetically pleasing, at least
complemented each other and were much more of their time. Here's a photo from 1963.
The new Wheatsheaf had a much smaller bar area than the old
building, though it did have an upstairs function room, used for weddings,
engagements and the like, and also heavy rock discos for a few months around
1984.
In 1986, Greenall’s decided to refurbish the Wheatsheaf. The
result was £100,000 spent on an “exciting and cosmopolitan” town centre venue
known as Serendipity’s. The idea was that instead of being just a pub,
Serendipity’s would also serve tea and coffee for passing shoppers.[5]
But for “exciting and cosmopolitan” read ‘one last throw of
the dice’. Some of the rougher pubs were at that end of town and with the
clientele to match. Serendipity’s did well at first, but towards the end it had
become a pub to avoid. It closed around 1994 and after lying empty for a few
years it was converted into a branch of cut-price retailer Home Bargains, which
opened in 1997.
[1] Pubs Of Bolton 1800-2000, by Gordon Readyhough.
Published by Neil Richardson (2000).
[2] Four Bolton Directories: 1821/2, 1836, 1843, 1853.
Reprinted by Neil Richardson (1982).
[3] The beerhouse on Bridgeman Place that Samuel Henry was
running may well have become the Bradford, though not the pub of the same name
a few hundred yards from Bridgeman Place, on Bradford Street. This one was
where the petrol station now stands.
[4] Annals Of Bolton, James Clegg, 1888
[5] Bolton Beer Break, the magazine of the Bolton branch of
the Campaign for Real Ale. Summer 1986 issue.
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