Monday 23 November 2015

Boilermakers Arms, 48 Phoenix Street, Bolton



Boilermakers Arms Bolton site of August 2015

A children’s playground stands on the site of the Boilermakers Arms on Phoenix Street. (Copyright Google Street View August 2015).

The Boilermakers Arms was situated on Phoenix Street, a street that still exists and which connects Folds Road with Turton Street.

The first record of the pub is when Andrew Chadwick is listed as its licensee in the 1871 Bolton directory. Mr Chadwick originated from Blackburn and was a yarn dresser living in Woodside Place, Darcy Lever according to the 1861 census. By 1871 he was running the Boilermakers Arms along with his wife, Ellen. Two daughters, aged 17 and 9 were with them along with a two-year-old grandson.

The Boilermakers Arms took its name from the Phoenix Boiler Works, an engineering factory that appears on maps towards the end of the 20th century. The factory was practically next door to the pub. As Phoenix Mill it later dealt in cotton waste and the site of the mill still operates as a waste recycling plant.

The cutting below comes from the Bolton Evening News shortly before the Boilermakers Arms closed in 1956. It notes that it was owned by the Crown Brewery of Bury. Crown didn’t have a huge number of pubs in the town though the Man and Scythe on Churchgate was one of them. Crown took the council’s offer of compensation and the pub was demolished as part of a slum clearance plan along with many of the surrounding streets. A children’s playground now stands on the site.

Boilermakers Arms Bolton 1956


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