Alexandra Hotel, 14 Stewart Street, Bolton

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The Alexandra was situated on the corner of Mount Street and Stewart Street quite close to what is now Brownlow Way.

The first record of the pub comes in 1868 when John Halliwell is listed as a beerseller at 14 Mount Street. However, an application to the local magistrates for a spirit licence in 1878 claimed that the pub was built 13 years earlier in 1865 . [1]

In his book Bolton Pubs 1800-2000, Gordon Readyhough tells us that Halliwell began his brewing business in 1856. Prior to that he had lived in Sharples where he worked as a bleacher. It is possible that he opened the pub that became Alexandra at the same time he began the brewing business as that part of Halliwell was in the process of being built up around that time. The name Alexandra comes from Princess Alexandra of Denmark who married Queen Victoria’s eldest son, the Prince of Wales in 1863. That also gives us a possible date for the pub. She became Queen Alexandra when her husband King Edward VII acceded to the throne on Victoria’s death in 1901.

By 1871, the address of the Alexandra pub is given at 14 Stewart Street. John Halliwell is there. He is 39-years-old and his occupation is given as a brewer. His wife Martha is 41 and there are six children including Edward, 16, who worked for his father as a brewer, and John, aged 10. By this stage Halliwell had built a brewery next to the pub.

The business expanded and by 1876 John had left the pub and was living at 77 Chorley Old Road. Edward Buckley had taken over as licensee of the Alexandra and in 1881 he applied again for a spirit licence. Up to then the pub had sold only beer. The application was refused along with similar applications for the Rock House Hotel and for Mere Hall, then owned by Richard Haworth. Mr Haworth said in his particular application that he had purchased Mere Hall ten years previously and had laid out the grounds surrounding the mansion. He had also built 317 houses in the vicinity. No matter, one of the occupants of those 317 homes complained, as did a Mr Bradbury who got up a petition to object to the granting of the licence. Like the Alexandra and the Rock,  the Mere Hall didn’t get its spirit licence.

John Halliwell’s wife, Martha (nee Whittaker) died in 1879. The couple had married at St Paul’s in Astley Bridge in 1853. John remarried the following year this time to Jane Fielding, a provision dealer from Blackburn Road. However, he died in 1885 and the business was taken over by his eldest son, Edward.

It was under Edward Halliwell that the business grew. In 1881 he was living at 85 Hampden Street, just a few yards away from the brewery. But his influence within the business was already such that he was described on the census form for that year as a master brewer employing 11 men. He was 26 at the time and living with his 22-year-old wife Ann and their one-year-old daughter Florence. But in 1890 Edward made the decision to sell the brewery, its 12 pubs – including the Alexandra – and nine off-licences. [2]

By 1891 the family were living in much more salubrious surroundings at 108 Chorley New Road, a large semi-detached house which still stands opposite Bolton School. Edward Halliwell took a back seat in the running of the brewery and by 1901 he was living on Westcliffe Road, Birkdale, near Southport along with his wife and daughter. The family had been hit by tragedy with the death of Edward’s brother, John Halliwell, in 1891. John had worked for the brewery as a salesman and could claim some credit for the business’s growth. He was just 30 years old when he died.

Edward also died at a relatively young age. He was 49 when he died while on a visit to Merionethshire in Wales. He left an estate valued an estate valued at £16584 – the equivalent of £1.8million today – split between his wife, his daughter and his brother, James Halliwell, who had eschewed a life in the brewing industry to become a vet.

Back at the Alexandra, George Hamilton took over in 1885. A former joiner from nearby Brougham Street he was at the pub for well over 25 years. George was at the Alexandra when it changed ownership. In December 1910, another local brewer, Magee, Marshall and Co, made an offer to buy Halliwell's brewery and its small tied estate of pubs, including the Alexandra. After the deal went through the brewery closed and it was demolished in the 1920s. For many years its site was a wasteland colloquially known to local children as ‘the brewery’.

The Alexandra carried on into the 1930s. It gained a full licence in the early part of 1935 when the wine and spirits licence of the Four Factories on Turton Street was transferred. It lasted until the 1960s when it closed and was demolished as part of the clearance of that part of the Halliwell area.

Stewart Street can be seen in the distance on the other side of this car park off Back Grantham Close. But the building in the foreground is actually the site of the Alexandra Hotel.

[1] Bolton Evening News, 28 August 1878,

[2] Bolton Evening News, 3 December 1890.

For the record the other pubs were:

FourFactories, 34 Kay Street;

MasonsArms, 125-127 Turton Street;

Blue Bell Inn on Kay Street,

Royal Oak, 115-117 Kay Street;

HaydockArms, 28-30 Haydock Street;

JunctionInn on the corner of Egyptian Street and St John Street; 

Victoria British Queen, 124-126 Blackburn Road,

LordAshley on Tyndall Street, which was sold along with five adjoining houses which the brewery also owned;

SeftonArms on the corner of Thwaites Street and Brougham Street;

NewbrookHouse Inn, 52-54 Junction Road,

Church Inn, Manchester Road, Little Hulton.

The off-licences were situated at:

515-517 Halliwell Road,

138 Halliwell Road,

1-3 John Brown Street,

1-5 Hill Lane, off Windley Street,

10-12 Back Turton Street,

41-43 George Street, Astley Bridge,

36-38 Balshaw Street,

58-60 Morris Green Lane.

Stewart Street can be seen in the distance on the other side of this car park off Back Grantham Close. But the building in the foreground is actually the site of the Alexandra Hotel.

Edited 12 November 2018 to  include details of the pub's inclusion in the sale of Halliwell's brewery in 1890.

Prince Of Wales, 102 Mount Street

The Prince Of Wales pictured in 1961. Belgravia Street runs by the side of the pub. St Matthew’s school was a little further down with St Matthews church behind the photographer.

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The Prince Of Wales, situated at 102 Mount Street, on the corner of Belgrave Street, was a few years behind the slightly longer established Mount Street Inn. But it did have one advantage over its neighbour in that whereas the Mount Street Inn was only licensed to sell beer – at least until 1961 – the Prince Of Wales was fully licensed and as such could also sell wines and spirits, though whether that made any difference in the Halliwell of the 1860s is open to question.

At first, the Prince Of Wales was in the hands of the Bogle family who originated from the Tonge Moor area. The 1841 Census shows a number of the Bogles working in the printing industry, but at least two of them got into the pub trade with both John Bogle and George Bogle running the Prince Of Wales in the late -1860s and early-1870s.

By 1876, the pub was owned by Thomas Iddon, who remained there for almost 15 years. But Iddon decided to get out of the pub trade. He was in his sixties and he sold the Prince Of Wales to Wingfield’s brewery, based in Nelson Square.

However, Thomas Iddon’s successor at the Prince Of Wales was someone already known to him. Alfred Edward Cox was born in Northleigh, Oxfordshire in 1855. He was a tram driver in Bolton and he lived with his wife and daughter at 259 Derby Street, which was the Black Horse, another of Thomas Iddon’s pubs. On hearing of the tenancy at the Prince Of Wales he successfully applied for the position and so, in 1888, Albert Cox began an association with the Prince Of Wales that was to last for 25 years.  He and his family remained at the pub until 1913 when he retired to Ivy Road. He died at the beginning of 1918, aged 63.

Wingfield’s sold out to the Manchester Brewery Company Ltd in 1899. They were in turn taken over by the Salford firm of Walker and Homfray’s in 1912. Wilsons Brewery of Newton Heath took over Walker and Homray’s in 1949 and it was a Wilson’s pub that the Prince Of Wales ended its days in 1965.

The area was later redeveloped and the Spinners Arms was built close to the spot where the Prince Of Wales once stood. 

Mount Street Inn, 136 - 138 Mount Street

The Mount Street Inn pictured in the 1920s - probably the late-twenties or even the early-thirties given that the signs proclaims it to be a Shaw's pub. There were only three  more properties after the pub before Mount Street ended at Darley Street and two of them can be seen here. Next to the pub, at number 140 lived Ellis Scholes, a tripe salesman, in 1924. The shop, which can be seen above, was run by William  Fletcher. Just out of shot was the home of Ruth Cunningham, a stocking knitter. The pub's landlord in 1924 was John Whowell who had been there since before the first world war.

The Mount Street Inn was situated on Mount Street at the corner of Portland Street.

The pub was founded in the late-1850s by Edward Harwood. Edward was born in 1819 and for much of his life he was a finisher in the area around Lower Pools. But by the time his daughter Marina was born in 1860 he is described as a publican and on the 1861 census return he is a brewer and beerseller at an address given simply as ‘4 Brownlow Fold’. This is likely to have been the beerhouse that later became the Mount Street Inn.

Edward Harwood may have been an opportunist – and so he might, for just yards away from his beerhouse the Brownlow Fold Mills were taking shape in 1860 and were destined to become major employers in the area. The mill was built by Richard Harwood, who wasn’t an immediate relative of Edward.

In time, Mount Street developed, but Edward’s time at the pub was to be tempered with sadness. His first wife, Mary Ann, died in 1863 at the age of 40. Later that year, he married Mary Frances Paton – a woman aged 31 compared to his 44 - but she died in 1872 at the age of just 39.

This second death appears to have been the catalyst for Edward Harwood to leave the Mount Street Inn. He married again, this time to Jane Ashworth and they went to live in Bury where he died in 1895. A later landlord, James Haydock, saw his ten-year stint at the pub ended by his death in 1904 at the age of just 43.

The pub suffered an objection to its licence in 1869. Local justices were given the power to oppose licences and the police reported at a hearing in September of that year that Mr Harwood had been fined on two occasions for serving beer at prohibited times. While pubs at that time were able to open from 4am to 1am on Monday to Friday, they had to close at midnight on Saturday night and were unable to open again until 12.30 Sunday lunchtimes. In other words, after Sunday morning service at church. Edward Harwood was fined twice – once in 1867 and once in 1868 – and the police claimed he had ‘watchers’ situated about the pub to warn him of police in the area. The licence was refused but was then granted at an appeal at the end of October. 

The Mount Street Inn was bought by local brewer Joseph Sharman whose brewery was situated just a quarter of a mile away on the other side of Mere Hall. [1] By this stage the pub was in two properties: numbers 136 and 138 Mount Street.

Sharman’s were taken over by the Leigh brewery of George Shaw and Sons Ltd in 1927, but the deal stretched Shaw’s financially and they were taken over by Walker Cain Ltd of Liverpool in 1931.

The Mount Street Inn was a beerhouse for much of its existence, but it gained a full licence in 1961. It closed towards the end of the 1960s and the area was cleared away.

A small part of Mount Street still exists. All the old buildings have been demolished and replaced with new housing in the past 40 or 50 years, but while the likes of Pen Street, Prosperous Street and Nith Street have all been wiped off the map, that stretch of Mount Street that included the Mount Street Inn still survives.

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