Tempest Arms, 1110 Chorley Old Road, Bolton

 

The Tempest Arms pictured in July 2016. Copyright Google.

The Tempest Arms opened around 1850 and closed in 2022.

In 1841 Richard Pendlebury was a shopkeeper in Horrobin Fold, small hamlet off Chorley Old Road, but by 1851 he was also selling beer at a new building, the Tempest Arms. The name was a tribute to the Tempest family who owned land in the area.

In December 1853 Richard Pendlebury picked up a fine for allowing after-hours drinking at his house. In response he levelled a series of allegations against the police officer concerned, a PC Bradley. One of the claims was that PC Bradley demanded money from a number of licensees in the Heaton area so he could shut down illegal drinking dens; however, none of the named licensees would give evidence in court against the police officer and the action failed. 

Richard Pendlebury died in 1864 and the Tempest passed to his wife Hannah. In 1868 she successfully applied for a full licence for the pub enabling her to sell wine and spirits. Previously the pub had only been able to sell beer. A petition supporting the application was accepted by the magistrates and there was no opposition. Her timing was impeccable. A new licensing law was passed the following year that made full licences far more difficult to obtain.

When Hannah Pendlebury died in 1870 her eldest daughter, also named Hannah, took over as landlady. The younger Hannah Pendlebury married Henry Holt in 1872. In those days a woman's property passed to her husband on marriage so he became the licensee of the Tempest. But Henry and Hannah Holt left the pub trade in 1873 to become farmers in Blackrod. Henry's twin brother Charles took over as landlord until the pub was sold in 1875.

The Tempest had a bowling green to the rear and this became popular not only with locals but with bowling clubs in pubs further afield many of whom would have an annual day out at the Tempest involving a series of matches to determine their champion. The green was run for a while on a subscription basis. The green was still showing on maps in the sixties but was later built on.

Ad from 1900.

There was great excitement in 1881 when a cab driver coming down Chorley Old Road noticed some clothing next to a lodge at Shipton Mill. Fearing a suicide police were called and the lodge was 'dragged'. A library card was found inside one of the items of clothing containing the name of Robert Brown and an address at Howcroft Street, Daubhill. An officer was sent to the address where he found Mr Brown calmly sitting by the fire reading a newspaper. It transpired that he had been to a party at the Tempest the previous night. After leaving the pub he undressed at the side of the lodge believing that he was at home and getting into bed. While he admitted to drinking seven or eight pints he claimed he wasn't drunk and that his beer had been drugged! 

In 1892 the Tempest's landlord of 16 years, John Longworth, died at the pub. His wife Ellen took over and became notable for acts of charity in support local causes. The area around Delph Hill and Doffocker contained a number of coal mines and a strike in 1893 brought great strife. Ellen Longworth opened a soup kitchen at the Tempest to help striking miners and their families. She also put on a Rose Queen Festival the following year. Upward of a hundred children were given tea and group photographs were taken on the pub's bowling green. There was then a procession along Chorley Old Road which was lined with hundreds of spectators. The children then walked back to the pub where they sang songs and played games. Each child was given a small bag containing nuts, biscuits, fruit and sweets.

The Tempest brewed its own beer for many years, but by 1909 it was advertising beers from local brewer Halliwell's. It became a Sharman's pub in 1922 but by 1930 it was serving beers from Shaw's in Leigh following their takeover of Sharman's.

For many years a large depiction of the crest of the Tempest family was displayed on the side of the pub along with family's motto “Lowf as thou fyndes” - “Laugh as you find”. It was particularly visible to travellers on the local tram route after it was extended along Chorley Old Road. So well known was the motto that in 1923 a postcard addressed to “Mine Host, Lowf as though Fyndes” was successfully delivered to the pub.

On the morning of Wednesday 18 September 1935 the landlord of the Tempest Arms, Jack Hampson, left the pub along with his dog, telling his wife Hilda that he was going to the hairdresser and then to the bank. He was spotted in the bank some time between ten and eleven o'clock that morning, but Hilda never saw him again. The mystery was deepened by the fact that the dog returned to the pub alone. Two weeks later, on 2 October, the Bolton Evening News ran a follow-up story on the disappearance. But there was still no sign of Jack, a man well-known in the licensed trade having previously run the Grapes in Stoneclough. His parents had previously been licensees of the Blue Boar on Churchgate. A mysterious woman was said to have stopped Jack and Hilda's son in New Hall Lane, Heaton, and told him that his father had written to say that he would be home that afternoon. Efforts had failed to trace the woman. Six months later, BBC Radio broadcast an SOS message calling for Mr Hampson to contact Townley's Hospital (now the Royal Bolton Hospital) where his wife was dangerously ill. There was no response to the message and Hilda died a few days later on 28 April 1936. There are no definitive records as to what happened to Jack Hampson.

Ad from March 1937

The Hampsons were succeeded as licensees of the Tempest Arms by John Rothwell Murray. Mr Murray spent 18 years in charge before handing over to his son-in-law, Roy Wood, and retiring to Blackpool. In April 1954 Mr Murray's wife Ann travelled to Bolton to help out Mr Wood at the Tempest and also to visit her daughter, Mr Wood's wife, who was ill in hospital. When she returned to Blackpool she found the body of her husband hanging in the hall. His aunt, Miss Clara Murray, was dead in a bath upstairs. The inquest heard that Mr Murray and his wife had retired to Blackpool to look after his aunt, a woman who had brought him up from the age of 8. But later in life Miss Murray had suffered from problems with her mental health. She had tried to drown herself the previous year and been placed in a mental institution, but Mr Murray visited her regularly and would often bring her home to spend the weekend with him and his wife. Even then, she spoke about wanting to drown herself and he had joked with her about it to try and talk her out of it. He had never shown any signs of mental health problems and did not drink much. A police detective told the inquest that officers had found a sheaf of notes at the house. One, from Miss Murray to Ann Murray said: “It's my fault. Poor Jack, I made him do it. I've been a rotter all my life. Forgive me, Annie. I have robbed you of your husband.” One note from Mr Murray said: “Well, she did it after all. What could I do? The end of it all. Goodbye.” Another note from Mr Murray said: “You are not to blame for anything. You are a true wife. Marry a good man next time – JRM”.

In 1960 it became easier for pubs to put on musical acts without a special licence. Music had been banned in most pubs since 1912 and the decision by Bolton Council to relax the rule came in the face of competition from pubs in neighbouring towns where the rule did not apply. Many pubs put on small acts such as an organist and a drummer, but in 1964 the Tempest was advertising local band The Cotton Pickers on Friday and Sunday nights as well as Fabulous Ernie on Sunday lunchtimes. Entertainment was to become a staple at the Tempest Arms for many years to come.

June 1972

From 1931 the Tempest was a Peter Walker pub. This Warrington-based brewery became part of Allied Breweries in 1960 but as Allied retreated from owning pubs in the nineties the Tempest was bought by Anchor Inns (Northern) Ltd. By 2010 it was part of the Heineken-owned Star Pubs and Bars group but was later sold again, this time to Admiral Taverns. Certainly it wasn't one for the real ale purists. A 1981 listing of Bolton's real ale pubs showed that it was a keg-only outlet and it failed to make the 1989 Camra publication Beer In Bolton for the same reason. Real ale made brief returns in 2013 and 2019 but was withdrawn due to poor sales.

Ad from June 1983.

Covid eventually killed the Tempest Arms. The pub closed in 2022 and the building was put up for sale. Plans were lodged with Bolton Council in 2023 to convert the premises into a nursery. A fire broke out inside the building in 2024 and fresh plans were lodged to convert it into nursery premises. 

More on the Tempest Arms can be found on the pub's page on the website of the Bolton branch of the Campaign for Real ale.

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.

Green Rooster Cabaret Club, 54-56 Deane Road, Bolton

 

Ad from 1960

Number 54 Deane Road was situated on a block that ran from Wareing Street to Stanley Street South. The Windmill pub was next-door-but-one and the original Derby Ward Labour Club was on the corner of the next block at number 62. In 1905 number 54 was a draper's shop and by 1924 both it and number 56 were owned by Arthur Flitcroft, the former premises still operating as a drapery and 56 as a newsagents.

By October 1958, 54 Deane Road was the base for a property maintenance company, Ashcroft Roof Repairs. The owner of the business was Lauchlan Ashcroft. Born in 1930 it's fair to say that Ashcroft already had a chequered past with a string of court appearances to his name, mainly for motoring offences. When, in December 1951, he stood trial for taking a car without the consent of its owner he told the court that he wanted a long sentence and that when he got out he would do the same again. He got six months.

Lauchlan Ashcroft turned his ground-floor premises into Lock's Transport Cafe, but in 1959 he once again fell foul of the law. Premises needed licenses for anything and everything; installing a juke box required a music licence and as someone who had form in flouting the law that was something Ashcroft didn't bother to get. For five nights in February police spent half an hour each evening watching the cafe. When they approached Ashcroft he said that the owners of the juke box would consider it a test case because there wasn't excessive noise. By the time the case came to court he had changed his tuned saying he now understood that he needed a licence. He said that a number of his customers were truck drivers and had requested that a juke box be installed, but the magistrates issued him with a £2 fine.

But either Lock's Transport Cafe wasn't working or Lauchlan Ashcroft decided that he needed to take the business to another level because at the beginning of June 1960 the Green Rooster Cabaret Club opened at 54 Deane Road. Opening night acts included Betty McKenna, Johnny Lee, and the Jay Bellis Trio. Over the coming weeks the club also staged auditions for aspiring musicians.

The Green Rooster didn't last for long. At 11.25pm on 1 October 1960 police entered the club where they found 13 members with either full or half-empty glasses long after last orders. The raid was headed by the town's deputy chief constable, Chief Superintendent Higham. Around 50 or 60 people were on the premises but the police only charged those who had drinks in front of them. The 13 who were fined were aged between 16 and 33 years old although most were in their late teens and early twenties. Ashcroft was fined over £45 on 26 charges of supplying liquor and aiding and abetting the consumption of liquor after hours. Also fined were two committee members, John Alexander McKinley Smyth and Kenneth Byron. It transpired that the 21-year-old Smyth had provided most of the capital to keep the club open and Ashcroft pleaded for leniency towards him, but given that Smyth was allegedly the heir to a £250,000 fortune it's doubtful he struggled to pay his £45 fine.

As a result of the raid the Green Rooster was struck off the club register and Ashcroft had to give an undertaking not to open the club in the next 12 months. The club did re-open in July 1962 but without a drinks licence. It was known as the Regent Club and the opening night saw the Fred Lang Trio appear along with vocalist Eddie Earle. Both had played at the Green Rooster. However, it seems that Lauchlan Ashcroft wasn't involved – not directly, at any rate. An application for a drinks licence was heard three months later in October 1862 when the applicant was a Mrs M. S. Martin. The application was refused as it was thought it would prejudice the planned redevelopment of the area. The Regent closed down. 

Number 54 Deane Road went back to being a shop. Ann Grant moved there from her premises on Longcauseway in Farnworth and sold a variety of household goods. But plans for the redevelopment of the area finally came to fruition towards the end of the decade. The shop closed at 4pm on Friday 1 August 1969 and was demolished shortly afterwards.

Lauchlan Ashcroft left Bolton and by 1971 he was in living in Harrow and running the Gardenia nudist club in St Albans. In 1998 he was jailed for historical sex offences against children committed over more than two decades at the Gardenia. He died in 2005.

Oddfellows Arms Hotel, 140 St Helens Road, Bolton

 

Oddfellows Arms pictured in 2014

SUMMARY

Opened c1840s. Became a Magee Marshall pub c1893 and was rebuilt in 1895. It became a Greenall Whitley pub following their takeover of Magees in 1958 and the closure of the brewery in 1970. It last opened in October 2020. In April 2021 it was announced that the pub would not be reopening.

ODDFELLOWS ARMS  HISTORY

Nobody knew that when pubs in Greater Manchester went into lockdown for a second time on 23 October 2020 it meant the end of the Oddfellows Arms after around 180 years as a pub. Six months later, in April 2021, the Bolton News reported that owner Admiral Taverns had taken the decision to close the pub. Landlady Margaret Wilson, who had run the Oddfellows for 15 years, said “I had an inkling that they would close the pub as there are lots of maintenance issues which need to be fixed.”

The story of the Oddfellows goes back to the middle of the 19^th century. The 1841 census shows John Crompton as a publican in Daubhill. The word 'publican' was used to describe the licensee of fully-licenced premises. The only fully-licenced pub in the area was the Stags Head, a little further up the Bolton to St Helens Turnpike Road - as St Helens Road was known at that time - and Peter Boardman was the licensee from the 1830s to the 1850s. So it is far more likely that John Crompton was a beerhouse owner at what was to become the Oddfellows.

John Crompton was succeeded as landlord by his son Richard who was listed as the pub's owner in 1855. By that time he would only have been in his early twenties. In 1854 he married Fanny Bowker, herself the daughter of a pub landlord in Atherton, and the couple would spend over 20 years at the Oddfellows. During that time the district of Daubhill changed immeasurably. The Bolton to Leigh railway pre-dated the pub having opened in 1828, but between 1862 and 1867 the local firm of Tootal, Broadhurst and Lee built Sunnyside Mills by the side of the railway line and just a couple of hundred yards away from the Oddfellows. That led to a boom in the local population. A whole network of streets were built on either side of St Helens Road to accommodate the new workforce.

The pub was sold in October 1878 and an article in the Bolton Evening News described it as “a beerhouse, the Oddfellows Arms, St Helens Road, Daubhill, with dwelling house, occupied by Richard Crompton, term 940 years, ground rent £2, £940.” A price of £940 equates to around £94,000 in 2025 prices.

The Oddfellows was one of a number of trades guilds and friendly societies that sprang up in England in the late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries. The name comes from the term 'odd fellows' - craftsmen from an assortment of trades. In 1810 TheIndependent Order of Oddfellows Manchester Unity was formed and still exists to this day. In 1832 the Ancient Noble Order of United Oddfellows, Bolton Unity was formed and was in existence until 1962. The branch was meeting at the nearby Stags Head in St Helens Road in 1872 and it is possible that a move to Richard Crompton's beerhouse further down the road led to him naming the pub after the organisation. Oddfellows branches frequently met at local pubs and members would often take something “for the benefit of the house”. As a result pubs would name themselves the Oddfellows Arms. It's still a relatively common name and there were at least two other pubs in Bolton with that name. The Ancient Shepherd on Bold Street was known as the Oddfellows in 1843 and a pub on Bradshawgate carried the name from the 1850s until its closure in 1938. The Loyal Willow Tree lodge was meeting at the pub from at least the 1930s onwards. The lodge was wound up in 1968.

In 1892 the Manchester Courier reported that Mr W Edge, the owner of the Oddfellows, had applied for a spirits licence for the pub. Daubhill was described as “a rapidly growing part of Bolton” and Mr Edge offered to surrender a beerhouse licence at Queen Street in the town centre as well as an off-licence. He even offered the council a patch of land although the article failed to say where. Nevertheless, the council rejected the application.

In February 1895 a soup kitchen was opened at the pub. Poor weather had put many local people out of work and a number of businesses provided relief. The pub's landlord, Joseph Edge, put five shillings towards the cost of food; a local baker, Mr Small, provided bread.

By 1895 the Oddfellows was owned by Magee, Marshall and Co, a local brewery set up a few years earlier at Cricket Street, about half a mile away from the pub. Magees decided to rebuild the Oddfellows and re-construction was completed that year. An article in the Bolton Evening News on the Daubhill area in 1974 gave an idea of what the pub was like before the rebuild. Sarah Jane Brooks, then of Longfellow Avenue but a Daubhill resident for most of her life, remembered the Oddfellows as being a small, four-room beerhouse. However, she pointed out that in the nineteenth century most of the buildings on that part of St Helens Road – including the Oddfellows – were only reached from the roadside by going down several steps. “Everything looked as though it were built in a hole,” she said.

The Bolton Moor Boxing Club was headquartered at the pub from November 1947, but reports at the time suggested that the Oddfellows had been previously used by boxing professionals Arthur Killeen, Joe Greenwood and Jack Lord. Greenwood, who is said to have fought in over 500 bouts, was once described by Nat Lofthouse as being Bolton's greatest ever sportsman.

The pub's landlord for over 30 years was Jack Asma who took over in the late-twenties and was there until September 1960. His daughter Irene was a GI bride – one of a small number from Bolton. During the second world war Irene was a stenographer for General Dwight D Eisenhower at Bushy Park near London. She married an American soldier, Donald H DuBois, in 1944 and featured in a Bolton Evening News article in March 1946 immediately prior to leaving for Tidworth camp along with two other local women who had married American soldiers. The trio then sailed to the United States from Southampton. Later in life, Renee Dubois, as she was then known, featured in a Bolton News article reminiscing about her time growing up in the town. She died in January 2021 aged 97.

Part of the upstairs living quarters at the Oddfellows were damaged by fire in 1971. Temporary manager Brian Walker said the fire was caused by a cigarette that he left on an ashtray in a bedroom. “I went downstairs to answer a ring at the front door and when I came back there was all this smoke,” he said. The fire brigade were also called out to the pub in November 1980 – but for an entirely different reason, A punter playing on the pub's fruit machine thought his winnings were 10p down and tried to reach inside the machine to retrieve a missing coin, His hand got stuck and after 40 minutes of trying to free him the landlady dialled 999. “When we arrived at the pub a man was on his knees on the floor with his hand firmly stuck up the chute,” a spokesman for the fire brigade told the Bolton Evening News. “We took the back off the machine and unscrewed the tube to release him.”

But the perhaps the strangest occurrence involving the Oddfellows and the local fire brigade came in September 1997. Twenty firemen turned up to fight a fire in the upstairs room of an adjoining building – but the 15 people drinking in the pub knew nothing about it. "About 15 people were still drinking in the pub when we got there. There's a solid wall between the pub and the out-building so I don't think they knew it was on fire,” a spokesman for the fire brigade said.

Ad from October 1972

The Oddfellows began hosting regular music nights in the early seventies. Local guitarist Steve Bowie featured regularly, but like many local pubs the Oddies invested in an electric organ and hired someone to play it every weekend. Country and Western nights were added in early 1979 featuring 'Nashville Special' a band who were still playing at the pub in 1983. After a hiatus music was reintroduced on a fortnightly basis from November 1984.

In 1985 regulars got up a petition to have the relief manager Stan Lomax made permanent. Two hundred people signed the 'Save Our Stan' petition and sent it off to Greenall Whitley. “Since he took over this pub has become a really happy place and the place has improved 100 percent,” John Hamilton, chairman of the Oddfellows' sports and social club said. Stan, a local lad, was keen on the idea. “I know 90 percent of the people who come in here and would like to stay as manager if Greenalls will let me,” he said. However, Greenalls had already decided that the pub would be transferred to a tenancy and the petition failed.

John Hamilton's comment about the beer quality deserves a little more scrutiny. It was a keg-only pub for many years but the November 1983 edition of the Campaign for Real Ale's Manchester magazine What's Doing reported that Greenalls had put on their new beer, Original Bitter, although they served it at the Oddfellows through an electric pump rather than a handpump. Certainly the quality of the beer improved enough over the coming few years for the pub to be included in the national Good Beer Guide for 1991.

Greenalls eventually got out of brewing in the early nineties to become a pubco. But in 1999 they sold off the remainder off the remainder of their pub estate. Following its closure in 2021 the Oddfellows was put up for sale and Admiral Taverns got a price of £427,750 + VAT when they disposed of the building in September 2021.

The Bolton branch of Camra have an excellent page on the Oddfellows with links to photographs and articles on the pub. 

Rocket Hotel, New Lane, Bolton

 

The Rocket pictured in May 2012

In March 1960 Bolton Council granted planning permission to local brewery Magee, Marshall and Co for a new pub at New Lane on the Top O'the Brow estate. The following month a licence was granted and construction work began.

The Rocket Hotel opened on 29 November 1961, the first pint being pulled by Mr C. H. Barber, a hotel inspector who had worked for Magees for 61 years. The foaming pint of Magees Mild was handed to the company's chairman, Mr W. B. Shields. According to Mr Shields the pub's name came about because the brewery wanted to get away from traditional pub names. It had been thought that name was a nod to an early locomotive, the Rocket, built by George Stephenson in 1829, or even to the space race that was taking place in the early-sixties. There was also a bus service called the Rocket that began to run from the autumn of 1925 in a five-seat car owned by Henry Martin. The service, from the Royal Oak to Affetside, was so quick that Mr Martin's children nicknamed it The Rocket and the name was subsequently given to the fleet of buses that Mr Martin bought. When Bolton Corporation Transport took over The Rocket in July 1934 they amended the route to run from the Royal Oak to the Starkie Arms at Tonge Moor via Longsight, Harwood Church and Thicketford Road passing close to what was later to become The Rocket pub.

By the end of 1961 the Rocket was advertising for a pianist and in early 1963 live acts were being featured on Friday and Saturday nights. Johnny Dee and the Detours, Frank Barlow, Colin Carey, Hal Williamson, Mike Hale, Mike Wroe And The Pops and Tony Dennett (“Lancashire's Own Joe Brown”) were among the acts seen at the Rocket during 1963 and 1964.

Entertainment ad from March 1963

In January 1970 a fire broke out in the pub lounge. Landlord Clifford Mann had closed up for the night and was watching TV in the living quarters upstairs. His son Norman, aged 17, could smell smoke when he went on to the landing. Mr Mann, his wife Mary and their two sons went downstairs and tackled the fire themselves before the fire brigade arrived. “When we got downstairs we could see from the flashings and cracklings that it was an electrical fire,” he told the Bolton Evening News. However, he insisted that despite serious damage done to the lounge the Rocket would open as normal. “We haven't got any lights back in the pub yet, but we'll be open tonight even if it means by candlelight” he said. “We must remain open.”

It was perhaps with this incident in mind that a number of the pub's regulars came to the aid of a local church after fire damaged part of its premises in March 1972. Fire had wrecked part of the ground-floor rooms at the Independent Methodist Church on Thicketford Road and a number of Rocket regulars helped with the clean-up operation. There was also a whip-round at the pub that raised £10 (the equivalent of over £120 in 2026). What made the gesture somewhat out of the ordinary was that the church was anti-drink, but a number of the Rocket's regulars had past links with the church through its Sunday school and youth club.

“The most obvious thing about it is that these people have got some feelings about the place,” said the church's minister William Owen. Rocket landlord Clifford Mann said it was just a case of people helping each other in a time of crisis. “This is the usual thing among neighbours - if anyone has a fire they help.”

In March 1974, the pub's owners, Greenall Whitley, won an appeal after planning permission was turned down to install betting shops in the car parks of both the Rocket and the Willows Hotel on Willows Lane on the other side of town. Bolton Council objected to the plan on the grounds that the shops would be detrimental to the area and would cause congestion, claims Greenalls claimed were overblown and “in the realms of Alice In Wonderland.” The appeal was heard by a local government inspector who sided with Greenalls. Two betting firms applied to site shops at the Rocket, Arthur Roye in 1975 and D. B. & I. Collins in 1976, but nothing ever came of the plan.

By 1982 the Rocket had been opened for 21 years and for most of that time it had been run by Clifford Mann. But Cliff was now in his sixties and was ready to retire. Originally a Daubhill man he had spent 44 years in the licensed trade and had run a number of pubs in Farnworth before moving to the Rocket. He and his wife Mary were presented with a wall clock to mark his retirement.

Running the Rocket wasn't an easy gig for anyone as it could be one of Bolton's livelier pubs. In July 1967, two youths were charged after fighting outside the pub over the affections of a girl. There was a scandal the following year when the pub's Savings Club was defrauded – by its own treasurer. In 1984 a man was fined after head-butting one of the pub's windows after discovering that his jacket had been stolen from the pub. However, most people's memories of the Rocket are of a good community pub even though the local Camra branch's description was of it “having an enviable reputation that no other pub wanted”.

In 1993 the Rocket became a Burtonwood pub. Ownership changed again in 2005 when it became a Marstons house after they took over the Burtonwood tied estate.

But being a good community pub doesn't necessarily make it pay. In September 2015 plans were lodged by retail group Spar to demolish the Rocket and replace it with a convenience store. Marstons were willing to sell the pub. The plans made reference to anti-social behaviour including one incident where a man was attacked in the pub toilets.

The Rocket closed on 10 January 2016 a little more than 54 years after it opened as a pub. The building was subsequently demolished and the Spar opened on the site in March 2017.

Willows Hotel, 296 Willows Lane, Bolton

 

The church of St George The Martyr was opened in 1880 on land off St Helens Road. Living accommodation for the first vicar, the Rev T. A. Clarke, was provided a few hundred yards away on Willows Lane at an existing 14-room building known as Hawthorn Lodge.

In 1955 the vicarage was quietly sold to local brewery company Magee, Marshall and Co based just off Derby Street. Magees had their eye on a particular issue affecting one of their town centre pubs. Woolworths were looking to extend their Deansgate store and wanted to buy the Three Tuns on Bridge Street, a Magees house directly behind the store. What was particularly useful about the Three Tuns was that it had a full licence. This enabled them to sell wines and spirits as well as beer, and in the fifties these licences were difficult to come by – unless an existing licence was transferred. 

Magees did a deal with Woolworth and sold the Three Tuns; however, they then moved to transfer the pub's licence to their new pub, which they had named the Willows Hotel.

News of the decision to grant the application broke in the Bolton Evening News of 7 March 1956. “We are aware that the number of licensed premises in the town centre is probably too many,” Magees spokesman Mr W.C. Lawson told the paper. “The interesting thing about this is that within 220 yards of the Willows-lane premises there are no licensed houses. Within 440 yards there are three – all off-licenses.” Mr Lawson went on to produce a petition signed by 616 people all of whom lived within 220 yards of the premises. Of those 88 percent were in favour of the new pub, five percent were against and seven percent “couldn't care”. One of the supporters, Cormack Neary, a retired tailor, told the paper “I live behind the house and consider there to be room in the area for an hotel.” Another local resident, Thomas Gardner, pointed out that it was either a 20-minute walk or a bus ride to the nearest pub, the Oddfellows on St Helens Road.

The following night some opposing views appeared on the BEN's letters page. “Surely the members of St George The Martyr Church should have some explanation why the building was sold for this purpose,” wrote one correspondent. Another claimed that the new use for the building came as “a complete surprise.”

In April 1956 the licence transfer was rubber-stamped and Magees announced that the vicarage would open as a public house before Christmas. The lounge, dining room and part of the hall would become the pub lounge; the study would become a smoke room; the scullery and store would make way for a vault, and the kitchen and remainder of the hall would form the bar.

The Three Tuns closed its doors for the final time on 26 November 1956. At midday the following day the Willows Hotel opened with a small ceremony in the bar performed by the Mayor Of Bolton, Alderman Peter Lowe. Guests, including members of the town council, admired the contemporary style of decoration.

At the beginning of 1960 plans were approved to extend the pub. Food was introduced in 1966 and music, in the form of a pianist, was added the following year.

By March 1974 the Willows was owned by Greenall Whitley who had taken over Magee, Marshall in 1958 and closed the brewery in 1970. Greenalls tried to open betting shops on the site of two of their Bolton pubs, the Willows and the Rocket on New Lane at Top O'Th Brow. Initial plans had been rejected by Bolton Council on the grounds that the shop would be detrimental to the area and could bring parking problems. However, Greenalls appealed the decision claiming that the council's case was based on speculation on what might happen placing it “in the realms of Alice In Wonderland.” The appeal was heard by a local government inspector who found in Greenall's favour, but despite interest in June 1974 from a betting firm named Arthur Roye no bookies was ever opened on the site.

December 1975 lunchtime menu

A refurbishment in the autumn of 1975 led to the opening of the Regency Room and the expansion of the Willows' food offerings. In 1979 a single-storey extension to the rear of the pub saw tanks installed. This meant that beer was delivered in vehicles that resembled petrol tankers with the beer being stored in the tanks. But the Willows was never one for real ale-lovers, apart from a period in the late-nineties when Stones Bitter was served on handpump for a while. A 1982 CAMRA listing shows that it served keg Greenall beers on electric pumps.

The nineties saw jazz nights on Thursdays; there were quiz nights, a karaoke, a big screen for live football matches shown on TV. But by 1999 Greenalls had got out of brewing and pubs and the Willows was part of Scottish and Newcastle Breweries tied estate. It was subsequently sold to Admiral Taverns who in turn sold it on to Punch Taverns in 2005.

In 2010 the Willows closed down after just 54 years as a functioning pub. It never reopened and was finally de-licensed in 2014. In a strange quirk it reverted to religious use, albeit this time in the shape of an Islamic educational centre.

Corn Mill Tavern, 120 Blackburn Road, Bolton

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The Corn Mill Tavern was situated at 120 Blackburn Road just two doors down from the Victoria British Queen. The pub dated back to the 1840s but the building itself was older and its name suggests it may once have been in operation as a corn mill.

There is no record of the pub in the Bolton Directories of either 1843 or 1848. The first record we have of the building being licenced is in 1849 when John Seddon is named as licensee on the list of Little Bolton beerhouses.

By 1861 the Corn Mill was in the hands of the Grundy family and it would remain so for the next 20 years. John Grundy was a former crofter from the Waters Meeting area of Little Bolton close to Astley Bridge. In 1851 he and his family were all working at Thwaites bleachworks at Waters Meeting. Ten years later he was the landlord of the Corn Mill. John Grundy died in 1867 and the Corn Mill passed to his son William. He ran it until his death in 1882 at the age of 51.

The Corn Mill was noted not just as a pub but as a brewery. Certainly in 1895 William Green is listed as a brewer at the pub but he also had an office in the centre of town at 42 Silverwell Lane to organise the distribution of the brewery’s products to the wider area. He was one of nine so-called ‘common brewers’ in the town in 1895, i.e. brewers who sold products to other pubs. But while William Green is listed as the pub's brewer its licensee was Robert Rawsthorne. He committed suicide in 1895 shortly before a court appearance to answer allegations of an indecent assault. Shortly afterwards the Corn Mill and its brewery was sold to the much larger concern of Joseph Sharman & Co Ltd. By 1901 William Green was running another Sharman's pub, the Stanley Arms on Egytpian Street, less than a quarter of a mile away from the Corn Mill.

The Corn Mill lasted little more than a decade under Sharman's. There were numerous pubs at the bottom end of Blackburn Road and nearby Halliwell Road and Sharman's also owned the Bowling Green less than a hundred yards away. 

The Corn Mill closed in 1906. Gordon Readyhough writes in Bolton Pubs 1800-2000 that the licence was given up as part of a deal to grant a full licence to the Sunnyside Hotel  at the bottom of Adelaide Street, off St Helens Road. However, press reports at the time of the licensing session make no mention of the Corn Mill although it is entirely possible that magistrates insisted on Sharman's giving up one of its own licences. Sharman's paid £1500 to Bolton Council for the licence of a pub that they didn't own. the Ship Inn, a long-established inn on Bradshawgate that was being demolished as part of a road-widening scheme. The council had bought the Ship under a compulsory purchase order and the Ship's licence was transferred to the Sunnyside.

The Corn Mill eventually became part of Relphs Funeral Service, now Relphs Funeralcare and owned by the Co-Op. The building still stands.