Belle Vue, 242 Halliwell Road

The Belle Vue pictured in October 2009 less than two years before it closed (copyright Google Street View).

Part of the famous ‘Halliwell Mile’ the Belle Vue Hotel was situated at 242 Halliwell Road. If you started the crawl at the top of Halliwell Road it was one of the last pubs - or one of the first if you started at the bottom.

The first mention we have of the pub was on the 1871 Directory. At that time it was being run by 44-year-old Mathias Stones who lived at the premises along with his Hannah and their six children. The family had lived on Gaskell Street in 1861 where Mathias worked as a buttonmaker.

Mathias Stones died in 1886 and his widow Hannah Stones took over the running of the Belle Vue. She was aided by her son Matthew who brewed the pub’s beer. By 1901 Hannah had retired and was living with her daughter Emma Brownlow who was a brewer and beerseller at the Lord Raglan further up Halliwell Road. Hannah died in 1904.

David Rostron was running the Belle Vue by 1905. He had previously been at the Lodge Bank Tavern on Bridgeman Street. By 1911 the pub was in the hands of the Oliver family. William Oliver (1876-1913) ran the pub until death and his widow Mary Jane Oliver succeeded him as licensee.

By the 1930s the pub later became part of the small tied estate owned by Samuel Smith – not the Yorkshire firm but a Bolton brewer who also ran the Dog and Snipe on Folds Road along with a small tied estate of pubs in Bolton and Horwich.

The Belle Vue later became a John Smith’s pub. John Smith’s Smooth is sold in many Bolton pubs today but before that the brewery’s Magnet Ales – as they were known – were a rarity in the town. Perhaps as well as they didn’t have a great reputation.

John Smith’s got out of the pub-owning business in the 1990s and the Belle Vue ended up in the hands of Enterprise Inns. It closed in the early part of 2011 the final licensee being Zoe Eckersley.  It was delicensed on 14 July that year. The premises are now [2015] a bedroom showroom. 

The former Belle Vue pictured in September 2014 (copyright Google Street View).

Kings Arms, 177 Chorley Old Road

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The Kings Arms pictured in the early-1930s. The shot was taken by Walkers as part of a pictorial review of their tied estate in the Bolton area. The old St Luke’s church is pictured to the right of the pub. Its foundation stone was linked by local dignitary Peter Ainsworth of Smithills Hall in 1869. The church opened by licence in 1871 and was consecrated in 1874. It was destroyed by fire in the early-1970s and was replaced by a single-story building. St Luke’s Street runs to the left of the pub. Note the separate entrance to the vault on the corner of the pub. That had long since been bricked over when this writer first drank there in the late-seventies.

The Kings Arms on Chorley Old Road dated back to the late-1870s. A small pub, its layout was similar to that of the Dog and Partridge on Manor Street: a small vault to the left of the main entrance, a pool room towards the rear and a large lounge running along the whole of the right-hand side of the pub.

The first recorded landlord was John Balshaw (1855-1894) who was already living at the pub in 1881 along with his wife Sarah. The couple married in 1876. Sarah’s family hailed from the Daubhill area and the 1871 Census has her living with her family on Swan Lane.

Oddly, the 1891 census has John and Sarah living around the corner in St Luke’s Street.

After John died in 1894, Sarah took over the pub. She met Walter Brown and the couple married in 1896, but they remained at the Kings Arms until at least 1911. However, the pub had earned the nickname of 'Balshaw's' by which it was known locally for many years after.

The Kings was owned by Robert Wood of the Prince Arthur brewery, but it was sold to Tong’s of Deane after wartime raw material restrictions forced Wood’s to cease brewing in 1917. Tong’s in turn sold out to Walker Cain Ltd of Liverpool in 1923 and the pub fell into the hands of Tetley after they bought Walker’s in 1960. Admiral Taverns were the owners when the Kings closed in the summer of 2010. The premises were converted  into offices and are now occupied by a legal firm.

The Kings Arms pictured around 1973. 

The Kings Arms pictured in 2014. (copyright Google Street View).

Papermakers Arms, 73 Bridgeman Place

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The Papermakers Arms was situated at 73 Bridgeman Place on a small row of houses between River Street and the bridge over the River Croal.

The pub was started by Mary Bolton, who was running a pub named, appropriately enough, the Bolton Arms on Bridgeman Street in 1848.  By 1853, she was at Bridgeman Place in premises that later became the Papermakers Arms. The papermaker in question was Robert Lever. By 1861, he was living at the pub with wife Jane, Mary Bolton’s daughter, and their children. When he took over the running of the pub, he named it after his previous profession.

But the Papermakers' life as a beerhouse was only brief. In 1869, all the town’s beerhouses had to re-apply for their licences. The licence of the Papermakers was objected to on the grounds that Police Constables Dearden and Fletcher had seen prostitutes drinking at the pub. [1]

An appeal on November of that year failed and Robert Lever went back to being a papermaker. He and his family were still living at the premises in 1871. Indeed, the premises survived as residential accommodation until the 1960s. They were eventually demolished to facilitate the construction of St Peters Way.

Bridgeman Place pictured in May 2012 (copyright Google Street View). The former National Union Of Mineworkers building is in the foreground with River Street running down the side of it. The traffic island in the foreground consisted of a small row of buildings including the former Papermakers Arms which stood at the corner of the junction with River Street.

[1] Bolton Evening News, 10 September 1869.

Bark Street Hotel (Bark Street Tavern), 251-253 Bark Street

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The Bark Street Hotel – known as the Bark Street Tavern for much of its history – stood at the junction of Bark Street and Pool Street.

The pub was founded by James Albinson, whose background was in the iron industry, and he converted part of his residence into a beerhouse in the early-1860s.

But the Bark Street Tavern was very nearly shut down in 1869. That was when licensing magistrates were given the power to close down beerhouses. Previously, they were in business on payment of a two guinea fee and other than that there was very little way of closing them down. But a good number were indeed closed down in Bolton in 1869 and the Bark Street Tavern was almost one of them.

At issue was the sale of alcohol on Sunday mornings. At that time, pubs were able to open pretty much when they pleased from Monday morning until midnight on Saturday night. But Sundays – and in particular Sunday mornings when people were expected to be in church - were a different matter.

On 1 September 1869, the process began whereby every beerhouse in Bolton had to re-apply for their licence. With a surname close to the top of the alphabet, James Albinson’s was the one of the first cases to be heard. He stated that he had worked at Messrs Dobson’s for Mr William Taylor for 14 years and previously for his uncle, John Albinson (the 1861 census shows James Albinson as a junior partner in a small iron foundry).  But the police objected to James Albinson’s licence. They said the Bark Street Tavern had been troublesome, that the beerhouse had ‘watchers’ stationed there on a Sunday morning to watch out for any approaching officers. It was because of these watchers that the police constables were unable to get at the pub to ascertain whether or not any illegal drinking was going on. Men had also been congregating around the pub at times when they ought not to be. In his defence, Mr Albinson said that there were two yards at the pub – it was essentially two premises converted into one - and he said he would do whatever he could in order that the bench might remove the objection. But if James Albinson had been selling beer on a Sunday morning then his system of watchers had done their job effectively. He had never been fined for any illegal activity, nor was the beerhouse used by thieves and prostitutes, another reason licenses were objected to. The bench, which included a notable teetotaller in the shape of Mayor James Barlow, allowed the licence to stand. [1]

James Albinson left the pub a few years later. He had continued to work as an iron moulder  and is believed to have gone back to his profession without the hassle of running licensed premises. He was succeeded by John Ridyard, who also worked as a joiner and builder while his wife Agnes ran the pub.

By the turn of the twentieth century the pub was in the hands of James Parkinson. His father had been the managing director of a cotton mill in Chorley Old Road in 1881, but his business acumen didn’t rub off on poor James. By 1911 he was living with his second wife off John Brown Street and was described as being out of employment.

William Blinkhorn on the I Belong To Bolton Facebook group claims that in the late-fifties and early-sixties the Bark Street Tavern was known as the 'Little Lads Pub' due to there being more  under-age drinkers in there than boozers of legal age.

The Bark Street Hotel was bought by Magees and it ended its days as a Greenalls pub. The area around Bark Street had been largely depopulated by the late-sixties. A few houses still remained towards the bottom end of Pool Street but there was no local catchment area to speak of. The pub closed in 1969 and it was demolished shortly afterwards. Pool Street South car park opened on the site in 1971. [2]

[1] Bolton Evening News, 1 September 1869

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

The corner of Bark Street and Pool Street, once the site of the Bark Street Tavern. Bark Street goes off to the left, Pool Street to the right on this 2014 view of the junction of the two streets (copyright Google Street View). Pool Street car park was built on the site of the Bark Street Tavern.

Brunswick Hotel - Railway Shipping Inn - Bowling Green, 91 Crook Street

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The Brunswick Hotel was situated at 91 Crook Street on the corner with Ormrod Street.

Like many beerhouses it began life as a shop. The 1841 census shows Wright Sutcliffe as a shopkeeper in Crook Street. Ten years later, in 1851, he is described as a provision dealer. However, Mr Sutcliffe was already a beerseller having appeared as such in the 1843 Bolton directory. A list of Great Bolton beerhouses for 1848 shows that Mr Sutcliffe was the landlord of the Bowling Green on Crook Street. This was the pub’s original name came from a nearby bowling green situated on the corner of Crook Street and Blackhorse Street.

Wright Sutcliffe also appears to have owned the Greengate Inn on Hammond Street. In 1854, he applied unsuccessfully to convert it from a beerhouse into a fully-licensed pub, but the application failed. He ran the Bowling Green until his death in March 1875 and was succeeded by his grandson, Wright Lever. He had been living at the pub in 1871 along with his wife Harriet, the first of his three wives and had previously lived in nearby Andrew Street.

The first thing Wright Lever did was to change the name of the pub from the Bowling Green to the Railway Shipping Hotel for the simple reason that the bowling green had long since been built over and Wright wanted to appeal to railway clerks from the nearby Great Moor Street station.

Wright Lever was at the pub in 1881 along with his second wife, Sarah Ann (nee Gerrard), her daughter Harriet from her first marriage and Sarah’s widowed mother Sarah Wardle. But by the early-1890s Wright Lever had given up the pub trade and was living at 142 Deane Road along with Sarah and grand-daughter Phyllis Elliott. Sarah died a few years later, but Wright Lever married for a third time. In 1901 he was 53 years old and still living at 142 Deane Road but with his third wife Louisa Ann (nee Smith), then aged just 19, and their five month-old son Wright. He died in 1930 aged 82.

The Railway Shipping Hotel was bought by local firm Atkinson’s whose Commission Street brewery was situated half a mile away from the pub. It received a full licence in 1888 following the closure of the Old Hen and Chickens, situated further down Deansgate from where the sole surviving Hen and Chickens (formerly the Higher Hen and Chickens) still stands.

By 1898, the pub was owned by Cornbrook’s of Manchester and it remained in their hands until it closed in 1955. It was renamed the Brunswick Hotel after the First World War. The licence was transferred to another of Cornbook’s Bolton pubs, the Bull’s Head (‘Bottom Bull’) on Bury Road.

The Brunswick remained standing until 1968 when it was demolished. The Trinity Street dual carriageway runs through the site of the pub.

Ormrod Street still exists, at least in part. It runs from Great Moor Street down the side of the Grosvenor Casino – the original Sainsbury’s. But part of the street running up towards Crook Street was closed off many years ago and is now as parking for residents of Hargreaves House.

Trinity Street pictured in September 2014 (copyright Google Street View). The walled car park on the left marked the end of Ormrod Street. The Brunswick stood on the far corner of the junction as we look.

Hole I'Th Wall, 20 Ashburner Street

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The Hole I’The Wall was situated at 20 Ashburner Street. While we can only guess why this beerhouse was so named, Ashburner Street was named after the steelworks that stood at one end of the street where the market has stood since 1932.

The Hole I’Th Wall dated back to around 1840. Joseph Broughton ran the premises for many years. He was there at the first mention of a beerhouse in that part of Ashburner Street, which was on the 1841 Census. At that time he lived there with his wife Alice whom he married in 1830 when the couple were both aged 19.

The Broughtons appear not to have any children. The only person to live with them was Ann Spencer, a washer-woman who was Alice’s mother. Sadly, they were down to just Joseph Broughton and Ann Spencer in 1861 following Alice’s death in 1857. He married again, to Margaret Bentley in November 1863 and by 1871 he had moved to Davenport Street. Oddly, despite having spent much of his adult life in the licensed trade the census return for that year describes him as a ‘retired brickmaker’.

The Hole I’Th Wall was bought by Magees later in the nineteenth century. The pub closed in 1931 and was subsequently demolished. The Octagon Theatre now stands on the site.

 The bottom end of Ashburner Street looking up towards the library is shown in this September 2014 image (copyright Google Street View). The multi-story car park is on the left, the Octagon Theatre is on the right.  The Hole I’Th Wall was near to the top of the theatre building as shown on this image.

Royal Tiger, 4 Noble Street

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The Royal Tiger was situated at number 4 Noble Street. Some earlier directory and census listings put it at 1-3 Duncan Street, 1-3 Back Defence Street – as Duncan Street was known for a short time - or even on Pikes Lane, but it was the same building.

The pub was founded in the mid-1830s by James Greenhalgh, a carter by trade who, like so many people after the 1830 Beer House Act was passed, paid a fee of two guineas to allow their premises to sell beer.

The 1841 census shows the 48-year-old James living with his 30-year-old wife Alice. There are six children the elder two of whom, one might think, would have been from an earlier marriage. Thomas (17) and William (14) had both followed their father into business as carters.

The Greenhalghes ran the Royal Tiger for around 50 years from its conversion into a beerhouse right up to the 1880s. Alice Greenhalgh was a widow by 1861 and she lived with two of the children from her marriage to James: Joseph, aged 21, and Sarah, 15. There was a change of address, too. Duncan Street ran off Blackburn Street (now Deane Road), the next street along from Punch Street. Noble Street originally ran from Derby Street. The two streets initially ended a few yards apart from each other, but the waste land between the two was cobbled over in the 1850s and the whole stretch from Derby Street down to Blackburn Street was renamed Noble Street. The Royal Tiger was number 4.

In 1871, Alice Greenhalgh was still running the pub along with Sarah and her husband, a wheelwright named Squire Wolstenholme who was unemployed at the time. Squire and Sarah continued to run the pub after Alice’s death in 1880, but by 1891 they were living in Commission Street, not far from Noble Street, but Squire was back unemployed. He later had a spell as the licensee of the Lord Hill on Sidney Street and by 1901 he was working as a pigeon trapper and living – quite aptly – in Partridge Street.

The Royal Tiger was later run by Robert Buchan Richardson, a Scot who was possibly one of Bolton’s oldest ever landlords. He was at the pub for a decade from around 1894 and was well into his seventies when he took it over. Robert lived there with his wife, Hannah, whom he married in 1887 when he was 58 and she just 33. By 1911 he had left the pub and was living with his son.

The final landlord was Josiah Simons. Born in Norfolk in 1875, he was living with his wife, Hannah, her seven siblings and her parents in Bridgeman Street in 1901. Hannah’s father, Samuel Foulds, was an aquarium manager.Josiah and Hannah left the Royal Tiger for James Street where he set himself up in business as a draper.

The Royal Tiger closed in 1911 and later became a private residence. After the building was demolished in the 1960s, Derby Ward Labour Club was built on the site. 

Derby Ward Labour Club pictured in August 2008. Noble Street used to end at the right end of the club. They Royal Tiger was the second building up on the right-hand side of Noble Street.