Vulcan Inn, 130 Great Moor Street

The Vulcan pictured in 1961. Great Moor Street runs from left to right across the front of the pub; Crook Street can be seen running down the side of the pub. Derby Street Secondary school is in the background.

The Vulcan Inn stood on the junction of Great Moor Street and Crook Street. It began as a beerhouse around 1860, but became a fully-licensed house in 1874 [1] following the closure of the Angel and Woolpack on the corner of Deansgate and Mealhouse Lane. The Angel and Woolpack’s wine and spirits license was transferred to the Vulcan thus enabling it to save the full range of alcoholic drinks.

The Vulcan was a Magee’s pub at the end of the nineteenth century, but a few yards along from the Vulcan was the Grey Man, also a Magee’s pub. The brewery decided to sell one of the pubs rather than have two outlets so close together so the Vulcan was sold on to the Manchester Brewery Company in the early-twentieth century.

The move perhaps wasn’t for the best for the Vulcan. At that time, MBC had already expanded its tied estate in Bolton through the takeover of TR Wingfield’s Silverwell brewery which stood on the site of what is now the Pack Horse student accommodation. But the purchase of Wingfield's, plus that of Manchester brewery, Broadbent’s, had financially stretched the company. A shareholder’s committee was formed in 1904 which drank its way across the whole of MBC’s tied estate. This included pubs in Preston, Oldham, Manchester plus a sizeable number of pubs in Staffordshire around the Black Country area. Disgruntled tenants and a lack of investment in the company’s pubs coupled with poor beer meant that some pubs were actually losing money. [2]

The Vulcan Inn taken from Hargreaves House shortly before the pub closed in 1973.

In 1912, MBC was taken over by the Salford brewery of Walker and Homfray. They were in charge until 1949 when the Vulcan was one of 477 Walker and Homfray’s pubs to be bought when the brewery was taken over by Wilson’s of Manchester.

The Vulcan was reputed to have been a gay pub in the early seventies which would have made it one of the earliest such pubs in Bolton. It closed in 1973 and was demolished as part of the construction of the Trinity Street dual carriageway. That part of Moor Lane which runs along the side of Bolton One now stands in its place.

In 1937, the photographer Humphrey Spender took a number of shots of the interior of a Bolton pub. It is believed to be the Vulcan because of the image in the pub’s vault window. Two of the photos are reproduced below. The photos are from the Bolton Worktown website and are copyright Bolton Council. Other photos from the set are here, here and here.

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

[2] Manchester Breweries Of Times Gone By, by Alan Gall. Published by Neil Richardson (1982).