Sunday 12 October 2014

Oscar's, The Wellsprings, Le Mans Crescent


An Oscar's gig guide from the spring of 1994. Members of Lost Boys are now in Glam 45.

Oscar’s opened in 1989 in the cellar of The Wellsprings, an office block built on the site of which a large stone building that once housed Bolton Central Library.

The old library building opened in 1893 but closed in 1932 when the library service moved to the newly-built Civic Centre across the road. It remains there to this day. Its former premises was the Victoria (Civic) Restaurant from 1948 to 1951 before housing National Insurance and local government offices until they moved to Elizabeth House when that was completed in 1971. It was subsequently used as the Bibliographic Services unit of the library until it was demolished in the mid-eighties. The Wellsprings was built in its place. [1]

Part of the entrance to Oscar’s was on the site of the Town Hall Hotel, a former pub that closed in 1933.

Oscar’s was initially a café bar but it soon gained a reputation as a live music venue and it had live acts on most nights of the week as the above leaflet shows. It’s hard to imagine a pub having so much live music on these days with only the Alma Inn or the Dog and Partridge coming close.

The pub was run by the same management team that ran Hawthorn's on Spa Road. 

Oscar's closed around 2004, supposedly when the lease ran out. Far from the premises being taken up by another pub lessee the premises were given over to a ladies-only gym.

A night-time view of The Wellsprings from March 1996 can be seen here.  

Another gig poster from the 1990s can be found here


[1] Bolton Town Centre, A Modern History. Part One: Deansgate, Victoria Square, Churchgate and Surrounding Areas, 1900-1998

1 comment:

  1. The gig list shows a band called Moses Gate. The guitarist was Damon Gough before he became Badly Drawn Boy.

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