Gasworks Tavern, 91 Mill Hill Street

Mill Hill Street looking towards the town centre with the bridge carrying the former Astley Bridge railway line in the distance. The Gasworks Tavern was situated on the right-hand side. The area has been clear of residential use for many years.

The Gasworks Tavern took its name from the nearby Lum Street gas works that was built by the Bolton Gas Light and Coke Company in 1851. The gasworks, along with a site at Gas Street, off Moor Lane, was purchased by Bolton Council in 1872. At that time it stood on the corner of  Lum Street and Mill Hill Street.

The Gasworks Tavern was situated just a few yards away on the other side of the viaduct carrying the goods railway line to Astley Bridge. It was built not long after the  Lum Street works opened and Worrall’s Directory of 1871 had John Entwistle as landlord.

The pub was an early tied house of Joseph Sharman. Between 1868 and 1874 Sharman brewed at  Crompton’sMonument, a beer-house less than 200 yards away from the Gasworks Tavern. In Pubs Of Bolton 1800-2000, Gordon Readyhough states that the Gasworks was at least tied to Sharman. [1]

The pub was later owned by Wingfield’s Silverwell Brewery, which sold out to the Manchester Brewery Company in 1899.  Walker & Homfray’s of Salford bought the Manchester Brewery Company in 1912 and it was as a Walker & Homfray’s pub that the Gasworks Tavern ended its days in 1935.

The former beerhouse premises were converted to residential use. The whole of the Mill Hill area was redeveloped for industrial use in the sixties and early seventies.

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