The site
of the Tippings Arms in September 2014. The pub knocked into its neighbouring
properties many years ago and part of the premises had already been sold off
and converted into a taxi office when this image was taken.
The
Tippings Arms opened in the 1820s and was named after the Tipping family, local
landowners who owned land in the Little Bolton area north of the River Croal. The
pub was one of the last buildings in Bolton, at least until Astley Bridge was incorporated
into the County Borough of Bolton in 1896. The bridge itself over Astley Brook
was just a few yards away up Blackburn Road.
John
Grime was an early landlord of the Tippings and he was followed by Humphrey
Nightingale and his son John who ran the pub from around 1836 until 1848.
Mr
Nightingale was succeeded by Jesse Langshaw, previously a warehouseman in
Little Bolton. Jesse had married a Turton girl, Alice Wood, in February 1848
and once they had settled in at the Tippings the couple took the opportunity of
the relative stability of life as pub licensees to start a family. In the space
of less than two-and-a-half years, Alice gave birth on no fewer than three
separate occasions – a girl followed by two boys.
The
Langshaws were gone by 1870 and were running a beerhouse further up Blackburn
Road.
Later in
the nineteenth century, the Tippings was bought by Eden and Thwaites, who since
1770 had owned the Water’s Meeting bleachworks at the bottom of what was then known
as Tippinge’s Road (now Water’s Meeting Road).
The deal made commercial sense to Eden and Thwaites who would see their
employees trudge up Tippnge’s Road every night into the pub. Buying the Tippings
at least ensured that they reclaimed what was perhaps a fair chunk of their
employees’ wages.
There
was a more munificent side to Eden and Thwaites. When one of the partners,
James Eden, died in 1874 he left money for the establishment of a children’s
home. The Eden Orphanage stood on Thorns
Road from 1878 to 1951 when it was taken over by the Isis Independent School.
It closed in 1966 and most of the buildings were demolished. Pendle Court now
stands on the site. [1]
The Thwaites
side of the partnership built The Watermillock in the 1880s. After ending its
days as a private residence it was an old people’s home for many years before
being converted into a restaurant in the 1990s by Banks’s Brewery. It is now a Toby Carvery
Eden and
Thwaites eventually sold the Tippings to
Threlfalls brewery of Salford. Threlfalls were bought by Whitbread in 1967. That led to handpumps being pulled out of the
pub and Whitbread’s ubiquitous national brand Trophy Bitter being pushed. Local
drinkers reported in 1981 that it did, however, sell two of Whitbread’s real
ales from time to time: Special Cask Bitter and Dutton’s Best Bitter. [2]
The pub
was taken over in the mid-eighties by the same licensees that ran another Whitbread pub, Scandals (formerly the Painter’s Arms) on Crook Street. They renamed it Astley’s and turned it into a kind of
disco pub with regular live acts. It did well – at least for a while.
In
January 1999, Astley’s was taken over by Willy Richards, described by the
Bolton Evening News as “a larger than life character” who had previously run
The Jungle (previously Pink Panther) on St George’s Street. Willy renamed Astley’s
as the Bedrock CafĂ©, based on a Flintstone’s theme. Opening-night invitations
were sent out on slate. There were three bars, two floors and two DJs. [3] When
that didn’t work out the pub reverted back to being the Tippings Arms.
The Tippings
closed in 2006 and the premises remained empty for a number of years. A taxi
office opened in one part of before work began converting the rest of the premises
into houses in 2014.
The
Tippings can be seen in the distance in this 1970s image of Blackburn Road. In
the middle distance people are crossing Astley Bridge itself, which at one time
marked the Bolton boundary. But in the near distance is the Bridge Inn which was
demolished some time after the turn of the millennium. The site of that pub has remained
vacant ever since.
[1]
Bolton.org.ukhttp://www.bolton.org.uk/edenhome.html. Retrieved 31 January 2015.
[2] What’s
Doing, the Greater Manchester Beer Drinkers’ monthly magazinie, July 1981
issue. Retrieved from the Bolton Camra website, 31 January 2015. What’s Doing’s
Bolton items from 1975 to 1984 have been collated onto two files (the otherfile can be accessed here).
[3]
Bolton Evening News, 22 January 1999. Retrieved from the Bolton News website,
31 January 2015.
Sorry, but you're wrong about the Bridge pub being demolished in the late 80's. I used to run a ladies aerobics class in an upstairs room there in the mid 90's, my son met his wife in there in 2001 and they were regulars in there for quite some time afterwards.
ReplyDeleteThanks for that. I've corrected it. I must admit, I thought it was much earlier.
ReplyDeleteJust out of curiosity I've been digging about to try to find exactly when the Bridge was demolished but haven't come up with anything as yet. It's certainly only within the last eight years or so though. I know in November 2004 I had my motorbike stolen from the car park of a nearby nursing home and it was found abandoned round the back of the Bridge. The pub had been empty for a while then but was definitely still there and was only demolished some time after that.
ReplyDeleteI found your blog by accident while looking for something else, but you've stirred up many memories of pubs I used to go in back in the early 70s, some of which I only knew by their local nicknames. It will be interesting reading through your blog to see if I can find them.
I was only going off my memory and I thought it was much earlier. The Closed Pubs project (http://www.closedpubs.co.uk/lancashire/bolton.html) doesn't offer any date.
ReplyDeleteWhen was the bridge over Blackburn road built
ReplyDeleteI used to live in the Bridge 1983/1984 (has a child) and from what I know it was never a profitable pub, and from what I hear never was after either. Can't say I was happy there, but I was sad to hear it had been demolished, after being derelict and the subject of an arson attack. I think Greenall Whitley stopped brewing has did Whitbread. Tippings & Tramways pub went, and the globe further towards Bolton Town Centre.
ReplyDelete