Poplar Inn, Vernon Street - Kent Street

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The Poplar Inn was situated at 74 Kent Street, but it was on the corner of Vernon Street and at times its address was given as 82 or 84 Vernon Street.

The first mention of the pub comes in the 1871 Bolton Directory when it was being run by Robert Lyne. But in the census return of that year Robert is said to be an iron turner so it is likely that the pub was being run by his wife, Mary Ann. Both Robert and Mary Ann came from families with connections with the licensed trade. Robert’s father was Peter Lyne, who ran the Rainforth Hotel on nearby School Hill. Mary Ann’s father, Thomas Suttle, had been a brewer. The couple later went on to run the Duke Of Connaught on Mill Street.

The Poplar Inn was taken over Winfield’s Silverwell brewery on Nelson Square in the 1890s. Brewery takeovers ensured the pub’s ownership changed at regular intervals over the years. Wingfield’s sold out to the Manchester Brewery Company in 1899. MBC were bought out by Salford-based Walker and Homfray’s in 1912 and finally Wilson’s took over Walker and Homfray’s in 1949.

The Poplar was a Wilson’s pub when it closed around 1970. The building remained empty for a few years before being demolished. New housing was built on the site in the early-eighties.

Vernon Street, pictured in September 2014 (copyright Google Street View). The Poplar was situated on the corner of Kent Street and Vernon Street. Part of Kent Street still exists, but at the opposite end to where the Poplar Inn was. Pleasant Gardens - seen here going off to the right - was built at the Vernon Street end. The Poplar was on the far corner as we look.

New Globe/Rock House Hotel, corner of Kent Street and Duke Street

The New Globe pictured in May 2014. The pub had been shuttered earlier in the year but it appears that the new owners had taken up residency by the time the photo was taken. Kent Street runs to the right of the pub,  Duke Street to the left.

The New Globe closed at the end of 2013 and its days as a pub appear to have come to an end.

The pub was in existence as a beerhouse certainly as early as 1871 when Christopher Briggs was the licensee. It was known for all but the last few years of its life as the Rock House Hotel, perhaps due to its stone structure.

Although it was built a residential hotel, at first it had only a beer licence, but the Shakespeare on Bradshawgate had closed around 1875 and its full licence had simply been surrendered to the council. James Drinnan saw an opportunity and applied to have the Shakespeare’s licence transferred to the Rock. [1] He was successful and in 1883 the Rock House Hotel became a fully licensed inn.

The Drinnans had moved around the corner to a shop at 103 School Hill by the early part of the twentieth century and the Rock House was bought by Chadwick’s Walmersley Brewery in Bury. Chadwick’s remained in control until 1927 when they sold their brewery and 43 pubs to Walker & Homfray Ltd of Salford. Walker & Homfray merged with Wilson’s of Newton Heath, Manchester in 1949.

Wilson’s were in control of the Rock House for almost 40 years. In 1988 it was one of 210 pubs sold by the brewery to a property company named Heron International, but within weeks it had been sold again, one of 60 pubs bought by the Wolverhampton brewery, Banks’s. [2]

The layout of the Rock was similar to many nineteenth-century suburban pubs until a refurbishment in the nineties brought in an open-plan scheme.  There were two entrances: a main door on Kent Street and a side entrance on Duke Street. Before the refurb there was a ‘vault’ to the left of the Kent Street entrance with a lounge bar to the right that included a dart board at the far end. The Duke Street entrance led to a small side room which was used as a pool room and was still in situ after the refurb.

The area around the Rock changed over the final 30 years or so of its life. In the late-seventies and early-eighties the old terraces on Davenport Street, Duke Street, Clarence Street and School Hill were all swept away and were replaced by new housing. While there were pubs in the past on School Hill they had gone by the early-eighties, while the United Veterans Club on Duke Street went out of business in the nineties. If anything, the Vets was much busier than the Rock, especially at weekends when the club would put on cabaret singers.

Around 2002 the Globe on Higher Bridge Street closed its doors for the final time. The locals decamped almost en masse to the Rock and the pub was renamed the New Globe.

The pub carried on until 2012 when it closed for a while and in January 2013 planning application was put in for the New Globe’s conversion into a house. At the time it was stated that the pub had been closed for over a year – news to its regulars. In March 2013 planning application was granted but the pub remained open until just before Christmas 2013.

Although it was boarded up around the time of closure the sheet metal boarding was taken down by the time the above picture was taken in May 2014. Inscriptions on the windows were still visible publicising karaoke, singers and cheap booze offers and the words “The New Globe is here to stay.” It gave the impression of a pub doing its best to justify its existence, but licensed premises to a pubco are just pieces of property to squeeze income out of. The New Globe was obviously more valuable as piece of real estate than as licensed premises and the pub was closed and sold.

The Rock House in 1952.  Note the door on the corner leading to the vault. This was long gone even by the time this writer would visit the pub in the late seventies. 

The Rock House pictured in 1982 when it was a Wilson's pub.

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

[2] Bolton Beer Break, the magazine of the Bolton branch of the Campaign for Real Ale. Summer 1988 issue.