Irish Labour Club, 13/15 Lorne Street, Bolton

 

Lorne Street pictured in 2024. The club is believed to have been reached via the door behind the blue dumpster in the foreground.

Lorne Street in Bolton town centre – not to be confused with Lorne Street at Moses Gate in Farnworth – is a narrow thoroughfare that runs between Bridge Street and Market Street. There are no properties on Lorne Street itself today, although access can be gained to properties on Corporation Street and Deansgate. But in years gone by the upper storeys of properties on Corporation Street were considered to be separate and had addresses on Lorne Street.

Number 13 Lorne Street was, for a few years from the late-1880s until around 1892, the headquarters of the Bolton Home Rule Club. The club was in existence by 1877 when it held a St Patrick's Day dance at its then club room at the Palatine Buildings on Knowsley Street. Its aim was to campaign for home rule for Ireland and in 1879 it was addressed by the Irish nationalist politician Charles Stewart Parnell. A limited company, the Bolton Home Rule Club Company, was formed in 1882 and premises were purchased at 89 Town Hall Square. But by 1888 the club was at 13 Lorne Street before moving a few doors down to number 3 in 1892. Bolton Socialist Party were based at number 13 from 1899 before moving in 1904 to Wood Street, still the home of what is known as Bolton Socialist Club.

A dance academy was based at 13 Lorne Street from 1919 until 1921. Around this time the Bolton Home Rule Club faded away as the goal of Irish self-determination was realised, albeit in bloody circumstances. But by 1921 a new left-wing organisation, the Irish Labour Club, had taken up residence at 13 Lorne Street and they were to remain there for over 30 years.

In 1927 the club made the brave move of applying for a licence extension until 1.45 am to celebrate St Patrick's Day. In those days the national day of Ireland was celebrated almost exclusively by the Irish diaspora and by people with Irish roots. As far back as 1907 the Bolton Evening News bemoaned the fact that celebrations had become much more muted, and in 1925 a columnist complained that “St Patrick's Day in England, these times, is a dull affair, completely lacking the old times.” The writer went on to comment that perhaps there might be “a little extra treating” both at the Irish Labour Club and the Brown Cow pub on Bradshawgate (knocked down in 1966 to become part of The Trotters). But in 1927 the club made its audacious attempt to secure almost four hours of extra drinking time on 17 March. Such extensions were usually very difficult to come by. The club's representative, Mr T McCormick, told magistrates that it had 350 members but that only around 100 would be present. Ticket sales would be restricted to members only; none would be sold after midday on the day itself and there would be no admittance after 10pm. While around 25 to 30 non-members would be present they would not be allowed to buy drinks. “It is a jollification for the Irish people of Bolton,” Mr McCormick said. The Chief Constable remarked that while it might be an unusual application he had no objections and the extension was granted.

Ad from Christmas 1926

In 1932 one of the club's founders, Mark Tierney, died aged 77. Well-known in local Labour, trade union and Roman Catholic circles he was a past member and honorary life president of Bolton Trades Council.

In 1943, a customer at the club, Elizabeth Johnson, was found guilty of stealing a wallet, an Army pay book, a fountain pen and a pack of cigarettes from the tunics of two Canadian soldiers who had gone to drink at the club. A detective who visited her at her home in Bury the following day noticed that she was smoking the same brand of cigarettes that had been stolen from the soldiers. “I had had plenty of drink,” she said. She was sentenced to three months' hard labour.

In 1954 he club acted as host for the Lancashire Federation of Irish Democratic League Clubs at a social evening to be held at the Fleece Hotel on Bradshawgate.

In 1955 the Bolton Evening News wrote an article on the Irish Labour Club as part of a series on clubs in the town. Steward Joe Foye said there was never any trouble in the place and if there was “I just stop his tap – that's punishment enough”. He added: “We like to have things quiet here... despite having among our members some really fit fellows we get along very well.” He also got out a copy of the club's membership card and its one stipulation. 'I, the understand, being of Irish birth or proved Irish descent,” - that was it. Club secretary Pat Ferguson claimed that the club had been one of the first in Bolton to install a TV set (television arrived in Bolton the week before Christmas 1949). “I think the members appreciate it,” he said. There was also a billiard table as well as dominoes. The club had operated a soldiers' fund during the second world war. “For the lads who were away it was one of the best funds in the town. I think we can say that with certainty,” Mr Ferguson said. “Like most clubs in the town we keep plodding alone. We've no financial worries and the membership – around 400 – is flourishing.”

Ad from 1958

But it wasn't to last. An advertisement in the Bolton Evening News of 16 June 1958 announced a general meeting for the Irish Labour Club. However, the club's address was given as “late 13/15 Lorne Street” and the meeting was to be held at the Blue Boar on Deansgate, a pub that, in the fifties, had strong Irish connections. It sounds as though, for whatever reason, the club had lost its premises.

In February 1995 the Evening News' Looking Back column featured a query about the club. This led to two local Labour councillors with Irish connections, Councillor Martin Donaghy - originally from County Armagh - and Councillor Noel Spencer, whose family were originally from Ireland, to try and hunt down the former club. They went to offices on Corporation Street that were formerly occupied by the Bolton Journal (and, we believe, the Bolton Chronicle after it was revived in the late-seventies). At first the two men could find no trace of the premises, but when they looked through a hole in the ceiling they realised that the ceiling was false and that a wood-panelled room was behind it. Councillor Spencer remembered the panelling when he visited the club in the 1940s.

If Corporation Chambers is the site of the former Irish Labour Club that puts it in premises currently (2026) occupied by Neoartist Studios.

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.

Three Tuns, Bridge Street

Bridge Street looking towards Deansgate in April 2012 (Copyright Google Street View). The Three Tuns was situated were the roller shutter entrance to Wilkinsons is now. Older readers may remember a ginnel running down the gated entrance to the Jobwise property next to Wilkinsons. In the 19^th century the ginnel ran to Wood’s Court, one of the many courtyards in the centre of Bolton and which were often home to the town’s poorest inhabitants.

The name Three Tuns is one of Britain’s most common pub names. The sign of the Three Tuns represents the brewers’ trade being the symbol of the City Of London guilds for brewers and vintners.

There were three pubs by that name in Bolton. One was on Moor Lane. The Three Tuns on Chapel Street off Folds Road was the first to hold that name in around in 1800 and it was followed in 1808 by another Three Tuns just a few hundred yards away on Bridge Street. [1]

This Three Tuns was once used as a coroner’s court. It was not uncommon for pubs to be used for judicial sessions. Both the Queen Anneon Chancery Lane and the Boars Head  on Churchgate were used as courtrooms. The White Lion on Deansgate was the usual meeting place for the coroner’s court but one session in 1832 was held at the Three Tuns following the rape and manslaughter of a young woman not far away from the White Lion. It was felt that with the depth of local feeling at that end of Deansgate it was best to hold the hearing at the Three Tuns. [2]

In July 1916 a resident at the Three Tuns, George Brockbank, was killed while on duty in France. [3] George was 35 and had joined the 8^th Batallion of the Loyal North Lancashire Regiment. Although he was resident at the pub he appears to have been a lodger there. Both his parents were dead. His mother, Eliza, had died when George was just 10, while his father William, a Borough Surveyor, died when George was 19.

The Three Tuns lasted until November 1956. By then it was owned by Magee, Marshall & Co, who were looking to licence a new pub, the Willows on Willows Lane. Fortunately for them, Woolworth’s were looking to extend their Deansgate store into the properties at the top of Bridge Street. They bought all the properties down as far as the Three Tuns and the pub was demolished in 1957. The pub's full licence was transferred to the Willows.

The new Woolworth’s opened in March 1959 and closed almost 50 years later at the beginning of January 2009. A Wilkinson’s store opened on the site in 2011.

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

[2] Murderous Bolton, by Steve Fielding Published by  Amberley Publishing (2009). 

[3] DBBC. Accessed 12 August 2014.

Also the  Commonwealth War Graves Commission. Accessed 12 August 2014.

Bridge Inn, Bridge Street

The Market Place, approximate location of the Bridge Inn until its demolition around 1932.

Located on Bridge Street next to the site occupied by Bolton’s fish market until the late-twenties, Bridge Inn was originally called the Gartside Arms and was in existence by 1800. [1]

The pub hosted a Literary and Philosophical Society in 1813 though it subsequently moved to a room in the New Shambles. [2]

The Bridge Inn saw its licence refused in 1926 and it was demolished in the early-1930s for the widening of Bridge Street. Also demolished was the fish market, which was moved to the new market premises on Ashburner Street.

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

[2] Leisure In Bolton, 1750-1900, Robert Poole, 1982.