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| A printed of Churchgate from 1822 |
Ringers Pulling The
Ropes was apparently a public house on Churchgate, close to the
Parish church.
The only record we have
of the pub is a very tenuous one. It comes in an article called The
Gates Of Bolton written by W.J. Redford, a series of which appeared in the
Bolton Evening News in 1905.
On 18 February 1905,
the paper published an article by Redford on the Churchgate area and
he takes a look back a hundred years to the early part of the
nineteenth century.
“Before leaving the
parish church of St Peter's I wish to make a few remarks on the yard
and surroundings. In the early part of the nineteenth century there
were old houses nearly to the steeple and a public-house with the
sign “Ringers pulling the ropes”. No huge wall existed in
Churchbank as we see now, but a sloping bank adorned with trees.”
The earliest licensing
records we have seen go back to 1778 and there is no mention of any
pub whose sign could possibly be the “Ringers Pulling The Ropes”.
There was a pub in 1778 called the Rising Sun and a pub by that name
certainly existed later in Churchbank. Other than that there is
nothing.
Mr Redford also makes
comment on the Swan Hotel claiming there is a stone or sill inside
the hotel dated 1637 which would make it just one year younger than
the rebuilt Man and Scythe next door. However, he goes on to add an
interesting suggestion about a former name.
“It has been
suggested this old hostelry (formerly with its three-pointed roof)
which can be entered from two gates, be the one referred to as
Boltane by a Cistercian monk of Deane named Albertus, it is very
interesting as once being known by the sign of the 'Jolly Cistercian'
hanging from the corner of a strong wooden lintel swinging to and fro
and creaking in the windy weather. There was a sundial upon a stone
pillar, casement and steps and inscribed upon a plate 'Time flees,
improve each fleetyng hour' with a horse-mount stone water trough and
cross-stone.”
So was there a pub
called Ringer Pulling The Ropes and was the Swan Hotel once known as
the Jolly Cistercian?
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