Bush Hotel - Star Inn - Star Concert Room, Churchgate

The Bush Hotel – formerly the Star and before that the Cock Inn - on Churchgate pictured in 1938. The Bush is in front of Theatre Royal’s canopy as we look. The Venue currently stands on the site.

The music hall was the most popular form of mass entertainment for the working-class public of Britain in the nineteenth century. In his book Popular Leisure And The Music Hall in 19th century Bolton written in 1982, Robert Poole claims the first music hall in Britain was at the Millstone on Crown Street in Bolton where landlord Thomas Sharples opened a singing and supper room around 1830. That claim has been challenged by some who believe the music hall began in London at least two years earlier or that its origins were in the coffee taverns of the late-18^th century. Even so, music hall didn't become a cultural phenomenon until around 1850 by which time Thomas Sharples had been in business in Bolton for 20 years. It has been claimed that Sharples was once a ventriloquist travelling from pub to pub with his dummy before he took over the Millstone (Moran family reminiscences, Bolton Evening News, 25 April 1882).

The Millstone still exists today and given the size of the pub – twice the size now as it was before it was extended in 2000 - such a supper room can only have been held upstairs.

No doubt the size of the Millstone hindered Thomas Sharples and his ambitions. Bolton's centre was Churchgate and we know that by 1838 Sharples had also taken on the Cock, a pub that had existed since at least the 1770s and allegedly got its name from the cock fights held there. It was a little more genteel by now and it was popular with churchgoers who would dine there on a Sunday lunchtime after attending service at the nearby Parish Church.

The Bolton Chronicle of 4 August 1838 reported that the Albion Lodge No. 46 of the United Odd Fellows held their annual dinner at the pub - “an excellent dinner provided by the worthy host and hostess, Mr and Mrs Sharples.”

However, not all functions held at the Cock were as civilised as the Odd Fellows. The Bolton Chronicle of 6 July 1839 reported that Robert Ogden was charged with being disorderly and indecently assaulting a number of females at the pub. The incident happened during a christening when Ogden introduced himself into the assembled company and, as the paper put it “took indecent liberties,” with some of the females. “To preserve their chastity he was given into custody.” He was fined 20 shillings (£1) plus costs.

By June 1840, the Cock had become the Star and Thomas Sharples laid the corner stone for the new music room. Ever the showman he put on a ceremony in order to extract the maximum publicity with singers performing the national anthem prior to coins from the reigns of George II, George III, George IV, William IV and Queen Victoria all being deposited beneath the stone.

The Bolton Chronicle was impressed. In its edition of 13 June 1840, the paper said:

“This room, we understand, when completed, is intended as a lounge, music room and museum, and in addition to a great number of interesting and valuable curiosities, will be the repository of Mr Sharples's valuable selection of paintings. For size, we believe it will exceed any other room in the town.”

The Chronicle kept its readers abreast of progress and on 9 September 1840 it gushed at the show Sharples put on for the opening night of the Star's music room. “It was enrapturing beyond conception,” said the paper.

Even the transfer two months later of two Oddfellow lodges, “Welcome Traveller” and “Orthodox”, from the Millstone, was accompanied by a show. Members of the two lodges walked in procession the short distance from the Millstone to the Star and as they approached the pub Thomas Sharples set off fireworks to welcome them. Mrs Sharples then put on a meal for no fewer than 300 people.

Like many music halls and concert room there were a variety of acts, some of which involved wild animals. On 11 February 1844, Matthew Ferguson, the keeper of the menagerie, was killed by Barney, one of the Star’s leopards. One version claims that Barney didn’t take too kindly to Ferguson’s liberal use of the whip and attacked the keeper. Some 28 years later, on 4 January 1872, the Bolton Evening News made reference to the incident but put a different spin on the circumstances. It claimed Ferguson had had a drink and decided to play with Barney at which point the animal turned on him and mauled him to death. There was no-one else present at the time. Ferguson was discovered some time later with Barney standing over him and moaning. Thomas Sharples had Barney destroyed and the animal was stuffed before being put on display in the pub's museum.

Sharples was refused a licence to put on theatrical performances so the entertainment was of the kind that would typify music hall for the next 70 years or so. A programme from 1845 detailed F A Canfield, the American Samson and wonder of the world, the Southern Minstrels, and gymnastic pantomimists Nunn, Walker, Honey and Steward.

Such was the fame of the Star that Thomas Sharples put on a special train from Manchester in September 1845. Patrons could enjoy a trip to Bolton where they could take in the curiosities of the Star's museum followed by a concert in the saloon “and all for the small charge of a shilling,” he told the Bolton Chronicle.

In July 1852 three people were killed following the collapse of one of the walls in the Star’s concert room. A fire six days earlier had made the wall unsafe and it was in the process of being demolished when it collapsed on to some cottages in nearby Wigan Lane. The inhabitants of Wigan Lane were, as the Bolton Chronicle of 24 July 1852 put it: “Irish people of the lowest orders” and the buildings were inhabited almost to the point of overcrowding. Michael Larkin, whose age was given as between 40 and 50, Mary Curley aged 38, and a ten-year-old child, Nabby Kilgallen, all died having been buried by the collapsed wall, Michael Larkin had been eating his breakfast, Mary Curley had been outside in Wigan Lane and Nabby Kilgallen was in bed. The collapse happened at ten o'clock in the morning, a time when the vast majority of the inhabitants of Wigan Lane were out at work thereby avoiding a greater death toll. A verdict of accidental death was passed by the jury at an inquest the same evening. Most of the cottages in Wigan Lane were destroyed and the other inhabitants were rehoused by the authorities.

At that stage the Star had the reputation of being one of the most popular and attractive concert rooms in the country. It also contained a museum the wonders of which were famed far and wide – 262 items including paintings, wax figures and a piece of pressed iron from Hick’s foundry on Bridgeman Street. Most were destroyed along with the stuffed effigy of Barney the tiger.

William Sharples had by now taken over the business from his father. Thomas Sharples retired to a house on Chorley New Road where he died in 1853, aged 50.

A month after the collapse of the wall, in August 1852, William Sharples tried to sell the Star, but those efforts were affected by the decision of local magistrates to suspend the licences of both the Star and the Millstone. Without a licence the Star was much less of an attraction to would-be purchasers. When it came up for auction it failed to realise its reserve price of £1100 and was withdrawn from sale. The month after the auction, in October 1852, both the Star and the Millstone regained their licences.

The Star's vaults were still open but the site of the former music room was empty. William Sharples offered to build a room on site to be used by the council as a library, but the offer was rejected.

In 1861, William Sharples bought the axe that was reputedly  used in the beheading of the Earl of Derby outside the Man and Scythe in 1651. He died in July the following year aged 38. His widow Ruth Rigg Sharples died four months later aged just 30. More on the axe here.

William Sharples remained at the Star until his death. His estate of £6000 would be worth around £700,000 today so the pub game had been good to him. For the next seven years it was run by a relative, John Smith, but by 1870 it was in the hands of a man who did much to bring back the glory days of the Star: J. P. Weston.

James Pitney was born in Somerton, Somerset, in 1831. He got into the entertainment industry while still a teenager. Indeed, the 1851 Census has him living with his family at Shoreditch, Middlesex – occupation: “clown”. By 1857 he was using the name James Pitney Weston. That Christmas he played the clown in a comic pantomime at the Theatre Royal, Norwich, and was credited with arranging the comic scenes. Reviews of the time described him as "the Clown of all Nations".

By 1860, Weston was the manager of the Theatre Royal, Bolton, just a few doors along from the Star. That year he wrote a pantomime especially for his theatre entitled The Storm King's Dream, Or, Harlequin Rainbow and the Fairyof the Sunlit City of the Sea.  Initially he lodged at 19 Bath Street with his wife Mary Ann and sister-in-law Rose Blake, but by 1871 he was living on Churchgate.

From 1870 Weston was initially the lessee of the Star, but in 1872 he bought the pub, its concert hall, the nearby Angel Inn and the Theatre Royal for £4900.

Bolton's theatreland evokes images of something akin to London's West End but it was nothing of the sort. In 1871, a barman at the Star abducted Christine Masper, a girl under the age of 16. He was sentenced to three months imprisonment although as the Bolton Evening News pointed out in its issue of 14 March 1871, had she been the heiress to any money or property, he would have received between three and 14 years' penal servitude.

The attached Angel Inn was part of a betting scandal in 1873 which found the Star's manager Robert Blake in court. There was also an attempt to remove the licences of both the Star and the Angel in 1873 as part of a Victorian crackdown on anything that might be considered immoral. That included bawdy music hall songs. Fortunately, the police were on Weston's side and he escaped without censure.

Weston only ran the Star for seven years, from 1870 to 1877. However, he over-stretched himself financially not so much in Bolton but elsewhere. He also owned a number of other theatres in the north-west including the Liverpool Palace Of Varieties which he renamed the New Albert Theatre and where he appeared himself as Hamlet in 1874. He also bought the rights to London dramas and adapted them for his own theatres. (See An Illustrated History of British Theatre and Performance: Volume Two - From the Industrial Revolution to the Digital Age by Robert Leach, published by Routledge, 2018).

In 1877 Weston decided to sell his Bolton properties. He moved to Dawes Street where he oversaw the conversion of the former Temple Mill to the Temple Opera House. He was forced to deny claims he was going to America but in May 1878 James Pitney Weston was declared bankrupt. The order was later annulled but it was the end of his time as an impressario. Weston moved to the Rochdale area and he was lodging with the Swindells family by 1881. His wife Mary Ann died in 1884 but Weston remarried in 1890. He married 23-year-old Rose Emily Pannett in Salford declaring his own age to be 55. In reality he was at least four years older. He described himself at that time as a caterer.

The Bolton Evening News of 29 October 1902 announced the death of James Pitney Weston in Leeds the previous night. The paper admitted he'd had “a chequered career” since he left Bolton. Weston would have been 71 years old at the time of his death and he was employed by Messrs Dotteridge and Longton, theatrical proprietors, in Leeds.

The Star remained as lively as ever. In October 1882, William Smethurst was sentenced to three months' hard labour after attempting to bite off the ear of Thomas Almond following an argument in the music room.

One Saturday night in August 1891 the pub's landlady called the police to remove from the lobby a group of men who were refusing to leave. Police forcibly removed 22-year-old William Henry Lyons of Waterloo Street but he began a disturbance on the corner of Bradshawgate and the police went to take him into custody. A crowd gathered and were called upon by Lyons to help free him. This they tried to do and blows rained down on the police officers. They got Lyons as far as Mealhouse Lane where the crowd began throwing bottles and other missiles. Thomas Chisnall of Lorne Street, Moses Gate, called for the crowd to “kick the officers' heads off” [Bolton Evening News, 3 August 1891]. Police eventually got Lyons to the town hall and they also arrested Chisnall and another man, James Walkden. In defence, Lyons' solicitor “pleaded for mitigation on account of having had some drink, and also having lost his hat.” Lyons was fined a total of 40 shillings. The two other men were also fined.

In 1895, the Star lost its music licence. Magistrates heard from police that the pub was the scene of frequent disorder. Detective Bootham stated that on 14 April 1894 he visited the Star. There were two music rooms in the pub. Downstairs there were 70-80 people, mostly elderly and listening to a singer. There was good order. Upstairs there were about 200 people aged between 22 and 55 one-third of whom were female. About four or five young men were creating a disturbance, several rows were in progress, there was a good deal of cursing and shouting and nobody was listening to the music. It was also stiflingly hot. The ceiling of the Star was only eight feet five inches high “where professional evidence would ought to tell them it should be 12ft high.” [Bolton Evening News, 31 January 1895]. Council regulations for the minimum height of rooms in houses constructed at that time recommended rooms should be 9ft high. The pub's owners, local brewer John Atkinson and Co, stated they would take off the pub's roof and raise the height of the ceiling. However, the magistrates declined the licence and music at the Star came to an end. The following year, landlord John Parkinson was up in court for flouting the ban. Police had visited the Star 23 times and found a piano being played by what turned out to be Mr Parkinson's son. There was also singing and police claimed on one occasion a couple were seen dancing. Parkinson claimed the room wasn't a music room but one where refreshments were consumed and magistrates dismissed the case. The Star applied for a music licence in 1897 and twice in 1902, but the applications failed on both occasions.

The Star was renamed the Bush Hotel in 1903. A successful application was made for a billiards licence. By now the pub was owned by Cornbrook's, a Manchester brewery. Atkinson's had sold out to Boardman's United Breweries in 1895 and three years later Boardman's were taken over by Cornbrook's.

The Bush Hotel ended its days as a Bass Charrington pub. Bass bought Cornbrook’s in 1961 and perhaps it is telling that just two years after they took over the Bush, the nearby Derby Hotel and the Theatre Royal all three were closed and demolished to make way for the redevelopment of Churchgate.

The site of the Bush and the Theatre Royal was converted into a supermarket, first known as Lennon’s, then Kwik Save and finally Foodsave, but in 1996 the premises were converted into a pub, The Brasshouse. This in turn became Number 15, a live music venue, and then Club Kiss before closing again in 2008. In September 2014 it reopened as The Venue, described as an over-25s cabaret bar. 

Isaac Clowes, an odd looking fellow, complained of a waiter at the Star Inn taking his hat on Tuesday night. He took his seat in the front of the gallery at the Star Concert Room, when several persons called out “turn that felly eaut wi' th' grey hat on.” When requested by the waiter to take off his hat he refused upon which she took it off and carried it to the bar and detained it. Mr Taylor: “It was a shocking bad hat, I believe; people laughed so hard at your beaver that they could not go on with the performance.” Complainant - “It was ta'en off my head; it was a hat I thought a deal about; the waiter took my hat off forcibly; I didn't ask for it on my way out.” Mr Taylor exhibited the beaver placing it on his head in court amidst universal laughter. Complainant: “I think it looks a very tidy hat. They had no right taking my hat off.”....Mr E. Ashworth: The complainant says there are no rules up in the room that persons are not to go there with white hats on. Mr Taylor: “It's charged as a wilful trespass and there is no damage done to the hat.” The case was dismissed. – Bolton Chronicle, 25 January 1845.

Stealing Wearing Apparel – A woman named Mary Taylor, who for a long time past has been representing herself as “Miss Gleaves” sister to Mrs Sharples of the Star Inn, and thereby succeeded getting board and lodgings for which she has never paid, was charged with stealing wearing apparel from two places at which she had been lodging. A short time back she stole several articles from the house of Mrs Bleakley, from whom she had been lodging in Bark-street; and she succeeded in practising a similar trick soon afterwards from the house of Mrs Heywood, Churchbank. She was committed to the New Bailey for two months. – Bolton Chronicle, 29 December 1855.