Bromilow Arms ("Bonnie Lasses"), Lostock Lane, Bolton

 

The Bromilow  Arms pictured in 2009. Copyright Google.

The Bromilow Arms, also known as the 'Bonnie Lasses' or the 'Three Bonnie Lasses', was opened by the Bromilow family in 1851. It was run by family members until the 1920s when it was sold to local brewer William Tong's. It later became a Walker's pub, then Tetley Walker, and it closed for good in 2012.

In 1851 James Bromilow was a farmer and beerseller at Plat Brow (later spelt Platt Brow), the slight incline that forms part of Lostock Lane. In July 1867 he was brought before magistrates at Bolton accused of having his pub open at nine o'clock on a Sunday morning. PC Kenyon visited the premises and found two men in an area used for storing beer. Bromilow called witnesses to testify that one of the men was his son and the other was a lodger at the pub. The magistrates dismissed the case on a technicality as the consumption of beer by residents wasn't covered by licensing laws.

Oddly, neither the 1861 or 1871 Census returns show that James Bromilow had a son. However, he did have three daughters. The pub's nickname was “The Bonnie Lasses”, although an 1886 report of a bowling match on the pub's green referred to it as “The Three Bonnie Lasses”.  The lasses in question were: Alice (born 1834), Ann (born 1843) and Ellen (born 1845). Only Ellen married and that was to her cousin, also named James Bromilow, who lived at nearby Stone House Farm. Alice Bromilow took over the pub on the death of her father with the pub passing to Ann after Alice died in 1894. In 1901 it was transferred to Ellen's husband, James Bromilow, with cousins William Shaw and Eliza Barlow taking over on James's death in 1912.

By July 1920 the Bromilow Arms was appearing in advertisements by local brewery Tong's, something that suggests the pub had been sold. During that month Tong's secured a raft of hours extensions on the occasion of the Royal Lancashire Show being held in Bolton. In those days pubs usually had to close between 3pm and 5.30pm in the afternoon, but Tong's obtained an afternoon extension for over 30 pubs, including the Bromilow, for the three days of the show. The pubs could also open at 10 in the morning although last orders in the evening remained at 10pm.

Despite the sale to Tong's the Bromilow was still being run by a distant relative of James Bromilow, in this case James Barlow, a cousin of Eliza Barlow. Before the Great War, James's son William was employed as a coal miner at Lostock Colliery. He attempted to join the army in 1916 but it was 1918 before he was finally called up. In October of that year – just a month before the Armistice – he sustained horrific injuries from a shell explosion in France. He spent three years in hospital and underwent 30 operations to completely rebuild the right side of his face. But on being discharged he discovered that his place of work had closed down and he endured 16 months of unemployment before asking the Bolton Evening News to help him find work.

The Bromilow became a Walker's pub after they took over Tong's in 1923. Walker's merged with the Leeds firm of Joshua Tetley in 1960 to become Tetley Walker. This became part of Allied Breweries the following year.

In April 1961 licensee Elizabeth McCracken was fined £4 and 10 shillings (£4.50 in decimal money) after police found three customers in the Bromilow at 11.16 one Friday night. Mrs McCracken said that the three men had been playing darts and had lingered with their drinks and that the bar was closed and locked when the police arrived. The three men were fined £2 each. Mrs McCracken left the pub that same month. She was the latest in a rapid turnover of licensees and had been the sixth in the eleven years since Edna Holden took over from Margaret Lawton in the summer of 1950.

Ad from April 1963

By 1962 the Bromilow was being run by Kathleen Parker who tried a different approach to attract custom. In 1960 pubs in Bolton were allowed to have musicians without the need for a special licence, the first time this had happened since 1912. There were restrictions on the number of musicians and no amplification was allowed, but a number of pubs began to employ keyboard players and sometimes drummers. Mrs Parker put on free-and-easy concerts three nights a week, but it seems that the concerts weren't well-attended. In 1963 she appeared in court on a charge of serving liquor outside licensing hours after police arrived at 11.50 one Saturday night. She was fined £10 but told the magistrates that she had handed in her notice at the brewery. The pub was selling only one barrel of beer per week – that's 288 pints over a seven-day period. It was making no money and she was worse off than when she took over.

Kathleen Parker's case shows how difficult it was for the Bromilow. This was a pub with very little in the way of immediate local trade. There were no nearby houses although the British Aerospace factory a few hundred yards away would have brought in some lunchtime trade, but in some regards it's a wonder that the pub survived for so long. But survive it did. Mrs Parker was succeeded by Frank Pollard and his wife Dinah who spent 12 years at the Bromilow from 1964 to 1976.

Plans were lodged in November 1972 for land next to the pub to be used for the sale of caravans but the application was rejected by the council.

By 1976 the Bromilow was being run by Ken Humphries. Formerly the general manager of an electronics company Ken devised a darts scoring machine which was believed to be the first of its kind. He had already sold three machines at a cost of £100 each (the equivalent of over £700 in 2026). This electronic calculator was already in use at the pub whose darts team had won both the local and regional Tetley championships as well as the Tetley Challenge Cup.

Ad from 1982.

In the mid-nineties the Bromilow received a boost when it was announced that Bolton Wanderers would be moving to a new stadium at the Middlebrook development just half a mile away. The Bolton Wanderers Supporters Association formed a Horwich branch at the pub in 1995, two years before the club finally made its move.

Having the Wanderers on its doorstep gave the Bromilow a new lease of life. The pub was packed on match days and even gained a reputation as being a friendly outlet for away supporters. But 20-odd good days a years doesn't make a viable business and the Bromilow closed in August 2011. It reopened three months later in November; however, it closed permanently in August 2012 ending over 160 years of history. It became a private residence with apartments being built on the former bowling green and also to the rear of the pub building.

The pub still has a dedicated page on the website of the Campaign for Real Ale. The page has links to article on the pub in Camra publications as well as links to other photographic archives.