Queens Arms - Flax Tavern, 42 Bridge Street, Bolton

 

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Bridge Street pictured in June 2018 (copyright Google). Tuesday's Skate shop is at number 42, next to Bolton's last vinyl record store, X Records. Another pub, the New Market, was next door at number 40 until 1972. It was later pulled down and an advertising hoarding put on the site until Bow Street was widened.

The Queens Arms was situated at 42 Bridge Street – a building that still exists.

The pub was originally named the Flax Tavern and opened around 1860. Flax is a fibrous plant from which linen is produced. Nearby Bark Street Mill produced flax and was known as Flax Mill. Its chimney was demolished in 1972. There was a Flax Place on the other side of Bridge Street not far from the mill.

The pub's first mention is in an article in the Bolton Chronicle of 24 June 1865. The local council donated £5 towards a meal at the pub for workers on the new fish market situated just across the road. The fish market remained in place until 1932 when it moved to the newly-built market premises on Ashburner Street. It was demolished soon afterwards and the story goes that swarms of rats fled the building when demolition began.

In January 1870 the Flax Tavern was the scene of a bizarre incident involving landlord Joseph Hamer and his brother-in-law Samuel Wilson, a carter who lived in nearby Back Bow Street. One Sunday night Wilson went to the pub but over the course of the evening he became very drunk. Hamer tried to calm him down and the Bolton Chronicle of 24 January 1870 takes up the story:

“About ten o'clock he [Wilson] became very quarrelsome, and threw a dog at him [Hamer]. He then rushed at him and threw him to the ground, and a cry was raised that the prisoner was biting. He was taken off the prosecutor [Hamer], and it was then found that a piece of his left ear had been bitten off. The prisoner then ran away, and the piece of ear was found on the floor. Prisoner, who pleaded that he was very drunk at the time, was committed to the assizes for trial.”

Hamer died in 1872. He had previously worked as a stonemason and it is likely that he continued his work in that profession even while he had the pub. His wife Alice took over the licence on his death and she continued in the pub trade for at least 20 more years. She later ran two beerhouses off Bridgeman Street, the Coe Street Tavern and then the York Street Tavern where she was the landlady as late as 1895.

By 1881 the Flax Tavern had changed its name to the Queens Arms. In November of that year a laundress named Frances Hardman of Chapel Alley walked into the pub and asked to be shown the back yard. She was led through the kitchen and out the back door but after she had left, landlord Ellis Fletcher noticed that a shirt and towel were missing. Ms Hardman was also accused of stealing 12 brushes from a shop in Rushton Street and 50 yards of galatea cloth from a shop in Corporation Street. She had sold 16 yards of the cloth to the landlord of the George Hotel. Hardman admitted stealing the items and she was committed to the sessions for trial. [Bolton Evening News, 26 November 1881].

In 1899 the Queens Arms was one of a number of pubs put up for auction as part of the sale of its owners, Walkers Bolton Brewery Company Ltd. Pubs in Bolton and Preston as well as a brewery on Spa Road were included in the sale. The brewery was built in 1874 by George Walker, a pub landlord and brewer who had built up a small tied estate to be served by the brewery. However, the business had got into difficulties and in 1899 Walker decided to sell. Bidding started at £50,000 but the lot was withdrawn at £73,000. Instead, Walker formed the Spa Wells Brewery Company Ltd to buy the brewery and the pubs. By the end of 1903 that company was also in trouble and it was put up for sale. Walker appeared in the bankruptcy court claiming he had lost £7500 on the value of his shares in the Spa Wells Brewery.

The brewery and the Queens Arms, as well as a number of Spa Wells' other Bolton pubs, were bought by James Jackson who registered his business as a private company in 1913. That company was taken over George Shaw & Co Ltd of Leigh in 1927. The brewery was bought by the Bolton Free Brewery Co Ltd which became the Bolton and District Clubs Brewery Ltd in 1929. That lasted for eight years until it was bought by Howcroft's in 1937. It finally closed in 1969 after Howcroft's merged with B Cunningham Ltd of Warrington. Magnet Kitchens has been on the site for some years. Walker Street, next to the premises, are the only clue as to its former life as a brewery.

The end for the Queens Arms came in 1906 when its licence was objected to at the annual licensing sessions. Speaking for the council, Mr JH Hall stated that there were 11 fully-licenced pubs and three beerhouses within a radius of 200 yards of the Queens. One of those beerhouses was the New Market which was situated right next door. Police Inspectors Habgood and Clarke and Superintendent Lowe stated that the Queens was frequented by a large number of young girls and men as well as a number of “disorderly women”. In defence of Jackson and licensee William Singleton, Mr Russell said that the pub did a fair trade – five barrels a week plus bottles. In the few days since the announcement of the pub's impending closure, a petition against the decision had been signed by 200 people. Jackson, the pub's landlady Mrs Singleton and William Partington who lived two doors away at 46 Bridge Street gave evidence to the effect that the house was run in a straightforward manner. However, despite their best efforts the licensees orders its closure [Bolton Evening News, 9 May 1906]. Compensation was later set at £520. [Manchester Courier, 11 January 1907]

Since the Queens' closure the premises have been used by various enterprises. In 1924 it was Taylors pawnbrokers and according to the book Bolton Pubs 1800-2000 it has been partly rebuilt. It was Bolton Spinal Care for a number of years before becoming Tuesday's Skate Shop in 2016.

Pike View Hotel, 321 Derby Street, Bolton

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The Pike View pictured in 2008

The Pike View Hotel was situated on Derby Street on the corner of Swan Lane*. There are two theories as to how the pub got its name. The most likely is that it was named after a view of Rivington Pike which was uninterrupted until properties were built on the other side of Derby Street. But there is also a theory that it was named due to its proximity to The Pike, Robert Heywood's former home not far away from the pub on High Street and which would have been clearly visible until the 1880s.

The Pike View dated back to the 1850s and the first mention we have is in a report in the Bolton Chronicle of 23 May 1857. Thomas Boardman, described in court as “half-witted”, was accused of causing a disturbance at the pub. However, it emerged that other customers would often torment Boardman after he'd had a drink. They would pluck at his hair and pinch him, much to his annoyance, and this disturbance was the result of such provocation. Boardman's father said he'd been run over at the age of seven and suffered from fits. He was blind in one eye and had lost the use of one arm. The landlord of the Pike View said he didn't know what to do and on the face of it the locals could be accused of behaving callously towards someone with obvious disabilities. While some people were in favour of Boardman being allowed in the pub others were against it. The magistrates decided there was no case for Boardman to answer and dismissed the case.

In 1862, landlord Samuel Partington applied for a spirit licence. He was refused and it was over 40 years before spirits were sold at the Pike View. When he applied again the following year a meeting at the Temperance Hall was told that eight of the 16 applications for new spirit licences came from pubs between the Pike View and the Flag Hotel as housing development continued along Derby Street and beerhouses applied for spirits licence to satisfy what they perceived as a demand for those drinks.

Samuel Partington died in 1872. His daughter Elizabeth Partington, a dressmaker by trade, took over the licence after his death but she sold the pub at an auction in 1875 shortly before her marriage to John France. An assumption could be made that Mr France wasn't interested in the licensed trade, hence the sale; however, by 1881 the Frances were living in Bollington and running a pub.

The purchaser at the auction was Robert Dobson of the Parkfield Inn  on Crook Street. The Parkfield had its own brewery and Dobson supplied the Pike View with beers from the Parkfield until his death in 1888.

Ads for the 1875 auction made reference to a club room at the pub and the Pike View was used as the meeting place of a number of organisations over the years. The Welcome Stranger Lodge Number 53 of the Loyal Order Of Female Druids met at the pub in 1859 and at least two early football clubs used it as its headquarters. In the 1881-82 season Pike View Rangers were based there. The Bolton Evening News reported in its edition of 20 March 1882 that the Rangers were involved in a local derby against a side named Willows Rangers. It was a home game for Pike View, although the location of their ground isn't revealed in the report. The visitors were triumphant by scoring three goals to Pike View's one goal and a disputed goal. A team was still active at the pub in the 1893-94 season although by now they were simply known as Pike View. The Evening News of 21 October 1893 reported that they were held to a 2-2 draw by Rumworth St George's which was most likely a church team based at St George The Martyr on Church Avenue. Although there was an organised league in Bolton at that time, made up mostly of church teams, most clubs played friendly matches and an extensive list of results in the paper show the teams that were active in the Bolton area at that time: Bolton Orlando, Bark Street Alliance, St Luke's Choir, Arden Street Rangers, Alma Swifts, Dixon Green Rovers, Deane Association and many others. By 1895, Daubhill Wednesday of the Lancashire Wednesday League were based at the Pike View and were active into the twentieth century.

The 1895 Bolton Directory shows that a Percy Orrell was the manager of the Pike View. Percy had been brought up in the pub business – his father was Thomas Orrell, a local councillor who ran the Railway Hotel on St Helens Road. Census records from four years earlier show that Percy was indeed a public house manager but that he was just 19 years old. He didn't live on the premises but in nearby Howcroft Street along with his wife Mary and their young son. Mr Orrell later left the Pike View and joined the Duke Of Lancaster's Own Regiment. He was killed in the Boer War at Faber's Spruit in 1900.

There was a large increase in the population of the locality around the Pike View towards the end of the 19^th century. In 1885 the Bolton to Leigh railway, which for 57 years had run a couple of hundreds yards behind the pub, was re-routed with the opening of a new line that ran between Daubhill station and Great Moor Street via a cutting that ran beneath Crawshaw Lane (later Ellesmere Road) and Higher Swan Lane. The old railway line had followed an incline from Swan Lane down to town and the new route removed that. The old line was pulled up and houses built between Adelaide Street and High Street. Auburn Street, Essingdon Street and Bowness Road were among the streets that were constructed in the 1890s and all survive to this day. Employment in the area was boosted by the newly-built Swan Lane Mills. Number 1 mill was built in 1902 with Number 2 mill following three years later. This double-mill was the largest in the world at that time.

With the area booming the Pike View underwent alterations in 1898 but in 1904 another application was made for a spirit licence. By now the pub was owned by Magee, Marshall and Co whose Crown Brewery at Cricket Street was just a quarter of a mile away. However, in order for the application to be granted Magee's had to offer up the licences of one fully-licensed pub, one beerhouse and one off-licence. The fully-licensed Elephant and Castle on Blackhorse Street was sacrificed along with the Jolly Carter  beerhouse on the corner of Derby Street and High Street and an off-licence at 68-70 Rosamond Street.

Magee's owned the Pike View until they sold out to Greenall Whitley in 1958 although their tied estate was served by the brewery at Cricket Street until its closure in 1970.

The Pike View served real ale up to 1979. According to the issue of Greater Manchester beer drinkers' magazine What's Doing in July of that year, a refurbishment brought about the installation of cellar tanks and the removal of handpumps. The article mourned the pub's loss as a real ale outlet describing is as “a traditional, well-kept local”. A number of pubs went back to real ale over the ensuing years, but not the Pike View.

Plans were afoot in 1987 for the first-floor living accommodation at the pub to become a branch of the Royal Antediluvian Order of the Buffaloes. This followed the closure of the RAOB's former premises, the Crown Hotel on Derby Street which was demolished to make way for extra parking at Cambrian Soft Drinks, the Greenall's subsidiary that succeeded Magees in their occupancy of the Crown Brewery. However, the application was withdrawn and the Buffs moved instead to the Ram's Head on Derby Street.

Greenalls got out of brewing in the early nineties and the Pike View became part of Admiral Taverns. As with just about all the pubs on the so-called 'Daubhill mile' trade at the Pike View slowly diminished. It lasted longer than most with the end coming in 2009. The premises subsequently became a fast-food outlet.

* Not to be confused with Higher Swan Lane. Swan Lane used to run from Derby Street to Settle Street but when Bridgeman Street was extended from High Street to Adelaide Street at the end of the 19^th century Swan Lane was split in two. The section from Derby Street to Bridgeman Street kept the original name but the section from Bridgeman Street was re-named Higher Swan Lane. It was extended to Lever Edge Lane as houses were built along the section beyond Settle Street in the early years of the 20^th century.