Wheatsheaf, 76 Blackburn Street (76 Deane Road)

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The Wheatsheaf pictured in the 1960s

The area of Bolton at the bottom of Deane Road was originally known as Blackburn  Street from the junction with Cannon Street down to turn and then  Pikes Lane from Mayor Street up to Deane.

Blackburn Street was the home to a number of beerhouses with the 1853 Bolton Directory listing no fewer than eight with one fully-licensed public house. One of those eight beerhouses was the Wheatsheaf, situated near the town end of Blackburn Street.

Like so many pubs at the time, the Wheatsheaf brewed its own beer. But there was a disaster at the pub in April 1875 when an explosion killed one man and one child and completely destroyed the pub. Adjoining premises were also badly damaged.

The landlord at the time was a man named William Greenhalgh who faced criminal charges following the incident, which was caused by a boiler used in the brewery. At the inquest the jury found that Greenhalgh had been negligent in the management of the boiler, which was in a poor condition. But they did not feel justified in returning a verdict of manslaughter against him. [1]

The Wheatsheaf was re-built and by the 1880s it was under the control of Mark O’Boyle, who was landlord of the Derby Arms on nearby Derby Street. He also owned the Shamrock on Soho Street on what is now the site of Morrisons supermarket.

The Wheatsheaf was bought by Magee’s and was a Greenall’s house when it was closed in the seventies. [2]

The site of the pub was used for parking for many years until Bolton College was built on its site in 2010.

[1] Annals Of Bolton, James Clegg (1888).

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

Bolton College, re-located from Manchester Road to Deane Road and completed in 2010. The Wheatsheaf was one of a number of buildings that stood on this site.

Commercial Hotel, Victoria Square

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A splendidly atmospheric view of the Commercial Hotel on what looks like a bleak autumn day but which was actually taken on 21 June 1954. Image from the Bolton Library and Museums collection. Copyright Bolton Council. 

Of all the pub closures in Bolton few can have been as controversial at that of the Commercial Hotel, which stood on the corner of the Victoria Square. The pub closed in April1972 after a bitter battle which even reached the debating chamber at the Town Hall.

That debate and the pub's subsequent demolition marked the end of a local landmark that began life in 1809 as the Commercial Tavern. In those days, what is now Victoria Square was then the New Market Place and the Commercial was popular with stallholders and customers from the nearby market.

The Gatty family, William and Ann, were in charge during the early years. William Gatty was listed as the innkeeper from 1814 to 1817 but the 1818 Pigot’s Directory shows Ann Gatty as the proprietor.

The Gattys were succeeded by the Padburys with Thomas Padbury listed as the proprietor in 1821 and he was succeeded by Samuel Padbury, presumably his son.

The Padburys made their mark and it could be argued that the Commercial’s elevation to one the position of one of the principle inns in the town was largely due to their efforts. The hotel was attractive enough to host a regular season of balls and assemblies in the 1820s, at its Assembly Rooms.[1]

The Commercial also hosted a subscription library, which could be regarded as one of the predecessors to Bolton Library, with newsrooms for the manufacturers, professional people and gentry of Bolton. While this was by no means the first reading library in the town, in 1824 it became the highly respectable, reforming Exchange Newsroom and was regarded as the natural resort of gentlemen of all political colours. [1]

The Exchange Newsroom outgrew the pub and moved to a building on the other side of what was then the Market Square – now the Town Hall Square. The Exchange Newsroom became Bolton Library in 1853. Its former premises still stand as a betting shop having been a branch of the Nationwide Building Society until 2009.

The 1841 Census shows John Walmsley as the proprietor at the Commercial but he moved on and business began an association with the Brandwood family that lasted for over 30 years.

John Brandwood was the licensee and his standing as the landlord of one of the principal inns in the town meant that he was able to move in high circles.

For many years Brandwood was the president of the Bolton Licensed Victuallers Association. He became a local councillor: a Liberal representing Derby Ward from 1858 to 1867. One election, in 1861, saw two seats up for grabs and was unusual in that all four candidates represented the Liberal Party. Brandwood and Councillor Constantine were elected but it is worth pointing out that in brief note to the election in his book Annals Of Bolton, John Clegg noted that the two defeated candidates represented “the teetotal interest”.

However, Brandwood must have fallen out with the Liberal Party. In the 1867 election he stood as an Independent candidate and was defeated by two Liberals. He later jumped to the Conservatives but was defeated  in 1873 when he came fourth out of four candidates in Exchange ward, two Liberals defeating the two Tories. [2]

Brandwood died in February 1878 in his 66^th year. His name lives on in Brandwood Street and its eponymous primary school situated off Willows Lane. The Commercial was taken over by Brandwood’s daughter, Sarah Ann and her husband, John Priestley, who married just a few months after John Brandwood’s death. Priestley also became a councillor spending three years representing the Conservatives from 1879 to 1882 in the same Exchange ward that had rejected his father-in-law just a few years earlier.

Sadly, Priestley died a young man. The former chemist turned licensed victualler died at the Commercial Hotel in June 1885 at the age of 43.

The Commercial was eventually taken over by Magee Marshall and by the early seventies it was in the hands of Greenall Whitley, who had bought out Magee’s in 1958.

Greenall’s put the Commercial up for sale in 1971. Even at that stage pubs in the area close to the Town Hall were finding it difficult to attract custom. The nearby Crown and Cushion was closed around the same time the Commerical was put up for sale. Would the decision in 1969 to close off Newport Street, Oxford Street and Victoria Square mark the end for an already struggling pub? Perhaps it made no difference. 

But the decision to sell the Commercial caused an outcry in the town. It was bought by Mothercare who proposed to demolish the pub and replace it with a retail store. The issue was brought up in the Town Hall where Councillor Hanscomb told those opposing the plans not to be “silly and sentimental”. As is often the case, the Commercial would have thrived had those in opposition to its closure chosen to patronise the pub.

The Commerical closed in April 1972. It was demolished in November of that year and in August 1974, Mothercare opened on the site. The retailer remained there for 36 years until 2010 when it closed the store and sold the site to Barclay’s Bank. [3]

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

[2] Annals Of Bolton, John Clegg, 1888

[3] Bolton News, 16 December 2009. Retrieved 16 November 2014.

Due to its proximity to the Town Hall, the Commercial was one of the most-photographed pubs  in the town. Here are a few images from the Bolton Library and Museum Services collection. All images are copyright Bolton Council. 

1910

1957

A night-time shot from 1958

1967

Railway Hotel, corner of Trinity Street and Newport Street

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The Railway Hotel on the corner of Trinity Street and Newport Street pictured in 1937 by Humphrey Spender for the Bolton Worktown project (copyright Bolton Council). 

A number of railway stations in Bolton had pubs built nearby and they were almost inevitably named the Railway or the Railway Hotel. Moses Gate and Bromley Cross stations still have their Railway pubs. The Railway on St Helens Road and the Railway Inn on Bridgeman Street were both named in honour of the Bolton to Leigh line – the world’s second oldest – which ran close to both pubs. The Railway next to Great Moor Street station lasted long after the station was closed, but the opposite was true of the Railway Hotel on the corner of Newport Street and opposite the old Trinity Street.

The Railway dated back to the 1860s and was originally a beerhouse named the Railway Tavern. It gradually expanded into two neighbouring buildings and in 1879 it gained a six-day public house licence (which meant it couldn't open on a Sunday) when a pub named the Talbot (or Old Dog) on Brown Street surrendered its licence. Seven-day opening only arrived in 1935 when the Railway took over the licence of the Cross Keys on Cross Street.

As befits its name, the Railway operated as a hotel for a good part of its existence. There was also an upstairs function room.

Norman King reminisces about the Railway on the Bolton Worktown website. He says that in the fifties and early sixties a man named Jack Francis used to sell newspapers from a window ledge outside the Railway. Later, Jack’s son Stu Francis gained fame as a comedian and children’s entertainer as the presenter of the BBC television programme Crackerjack (“it’s Friday, it’s five o’clock….”). Mike Wilson adds that new management moved into the Railway following Jack’s death and refused to allow newspapers to be sold from their property, even if it was only from a small part of their window ledge.

The Railway was owned for many years by Threlfall’s brewery and passed into Whitbread’s hands when they took over the Salford brewery in 1967. Within six years the Railway had closed down. The pub was demolished soon afterwards for a number of years until the late eighties the site was an empty patch of land.

By the mid-eighties plans were advanced to replace the former Trinity Street station building with a new construction across the road. The plan wasn’t popular and readers of a certain age will forever compare the current building somewhat unfavourably with the far more grand building that once stood on Trinity Street bridge. Anecdotal evidence of the time from staff at the station suggested that subsidence and strain put on the bridge were apparently the reasons for the change. A new bus station was also to be built replacing a number of bus stops that had previously been sited on Newport Street a little further down from the Railway (buses to Astley Bridge were amongst those running from there).

In 1987, Bolton Interchange was opened incorporating the site of the Railway as well as the former buildings behind it on Newport Street.  After the interchange was completed the clock from the old Trinity Street railway station was placed on land formerly occupied by the pub.

This view, taken from the old Johnson Street footbridge in 1973, shows the rear of the Railway Hotel just prior to its demolition. Also shown is the Holy Trinity church, which was converted into flats in 2014 after being empty for a number of years.Taken from the Bolton Library and Museums collection  (copyright Bolton Council).

A 1960s view of the corner of Newport Street and Trinity Street showing the Railway Hotel. The photo would have been taken from the offices at the corner of the Hick, Hargreaves factory on the corner of Crook Street. Taken from the Bolton Library and Museums collection (copyright Bolton Council).

A May 2012 view of the corner of Trinity Street and Newport Street with the clock from the old Trinity Street station building on the site of the former Railway Hotel. (copyright Google Street View).

Hawthorns, Club Indie-Go, Crompton's Mule

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Hawthorns pictured in 2009 (copyright Google Street View).

In December 1978, Crompton’s Mule restaurant opened in a former grain store and garage on Spa Road. [1]

The restaurant was an early outlet for Theakston’s beers but by the early-eighties the local real ale magazine reported that it had been selling Draught Bass. That was withdrawn from Crompton’s Mule towards the end of 1982. [2]

Hawthorns pictured during its piano-bar days in the 1980s.

The change to Hawthorns came in July 1984. By this time it was owned by veterans of the local nightclub scene who decided to try something different. Initially, Hawthorns was a piano bar, complete with large grand piano – which wasn't merely for decorative purposes. A pianist was employed to tinkle the ivories most nights of the week. Again, real ale was tried but it proved to be short-lived. [3] [4]

A change of management came in April 1993 when Hawthorns came under the auspices of the people who ran Oscar’s Café Bar underneath The Wellsprings on Le Mans Crescent. The club had moved on from being a piano bar and was now a nightclub playing mainstream pop music, but it was a little off the beaten track. The change of management meant that for the three nights a week it opened – Thursday to Saturday -Hawthorns became an outlet for rock and indie music and like Oscar’s, Hawthorns had a live music policy with bands on most nights it was open.

A refurbishment in 2003 led to a name change to Club Indie-Go, though the music policy remained unchanged.

The end for Club Indie-Go came at the beginning of January 2006 under the most unfortunate of circumstances. The gable end on a neighbouring building collapsed and building inspectors forced the club to close. At first the closure looked to be temporary: "I have been informed that we will have to stay closed this weekend which is a huge disappointment," Gay Nuttall, who ran the club told the Bolton News. [5]

The building’s owner, Tasos Pattichis, said: "It is my main priority to make the building safe so that the club can start again as soon as possible.”

It never reopened. The building was demolished in 2011, not just Club Indie-Go and the adjoining, structurally unsound business, but the whole of that block. The land - now cleared for any potential development - remains empty. Gay Nuttall ended up in Canada.

[1] Bolton Town Centre, A Modern History. Part One: Deansgate, Victoria Square, Churchgate and Surrounding Areas, 1900-1998, by Gordon Readyhough.  Published by Neil Richardson (1998).

[2] What’s Doing, the Greater Manchester beer drinkers’ monthly magazine. November 1982 issue.

[3] What’s Doing, August 1984.

[4] What’s Doing, September 1984.

[5] Bolton News, 12 January 2006. Accessed 10 November 2014. 

Two fliers reproduced here from the Hawthorns Facebook group. At the top, a December 1993 for both Oscar's and Hawthorns reflects the breadth of live music on offer at the two venues. You could often catch two gigs on the same night. Note the John Cooper Clarke gig at Hawthorns on 23 December. JCC had appeared at various folk clubs in Bolton prior to taking on the mantle of 'punk poet' in the late-seventies. He also appeared in the upstairs room at The Gaiety bar (now the Flying Flute) along with Ed Banger in December 1978. By late-'93 he was down on his luck, but a recent surge of interest in his work sees him playing larger venues. Oscar's played host to more 'mature' acts such as The Lost Boys or veteran blues guitarist Victor Brox. The flier below is from March 1994.

Bridgewater Arms, Manchester Road

The Bridgewater Arms pictured in 1964 shortly before its closure (image from the Bolton Museums collection, copyright Bolton Council). Manchester Road can be seen in the foreground with the pub and its neighbours set back slightly from the main road. The street running along the side of Worthington’s garage is Starcliffe Street, which still exists, though in a slightly truncated form. Video footage of the area around Gravel Hole and Moses Gate can be seen in this extract from the video, Bygone Bolton.

The Bridgewater Arms was in a part of Bolton named Gravel Hole situated right on the outskirts of Great Lever close to Moses Gate. The pub should not be confused with the Bridgewater Hotel that still stands on Buckley Lane in Farnworth.

Gravel Hole was actually nothing more than a hamlet – a small collection of buildings on the main road from Bolton situated just before the current turn-off down to Little Lever and stretching for a couple of hundred yards along Manchester Road.  The Gravel Hole colliery was situated in the valley below.

In the late-1820s a Mr E Darbyshire opened a bowling green in the Gravel Hole area and that appears to have been one of the catalysts for the opening of two nearby pubs, one of which was the Bridgewater Arms.

William Burton was one of the first landlords in the 1830s and he was succeeded towards the end of that decade by Thomas Tunstall, who moved into the Bridgewater around 1839.

By 1853, John Shaw was the licensee having moved from the other pub at Gravel Hole, the Bradford Arms. The Shaws were in charge for over 20 years with John succeeded by his son, David, when John died in 1865.

The pub was a meeting place for a number of organisations. The trustees of Farnworth Grammar School met at the pub from 1856 to 1861, while the Rising Spring lodge of the Odd Fellows were meeting there in the late-1870s.  [1]

By the 1920s, the Bridgewater had its own bowling green which was situated to the rear of the pub. That remained until the pub closed.

The end for the Bridgewater came in 1966. The Farnworth and Kearsley By-Pass was planned in 1961, permission was granted in 1965 and building began almost immediately. The Bridgewater closed that year and was soon demolished.

The by-pass opened on 21 December 1967. [2]

[1] Online copy of a pamphlet recording the history of Farnworth Grammar School and published to mark the school’s 250^th anniversary in 1965.   Accessed 31 October 2014.

[2] Lancashire County Council article written in 2000 giving details of the planning and construction of the Farnworth and Kearsley By-Pass. Accessed 31 October 2014.

The Gravel Hole area pictured in May 2012 (copyright Google Street View). The whole area has changed beyond recognition. The site of the Bridgewater Arms was roughly where the grass is next to the entrance for the road leading to Darcy Lever.

The Gravel Hole area pictured in May 2012 (copyright Google Street View). The whole area has changed beyond recognition. The site of the Bridgewater Arms was roughly where the grass is in the foreground next to the entrance for the road leading to Darcy Lever.

Three Tuns (Old Three Tuns Hotel), Moor Lane

The Old Three Tuns can be seen boarded up in the distance on this 1973 photograph from the Bolton Library and Museums Service collection (copyright Bolton Council).

There were three pubs in Bolton by the name of the Three Tuns. One was on Bridge Street, one on Chapel Street, off Folds Road, and this one on Moor Lane opposite what is now the fire station.

Having multiple pubs with the same name wasn’t uncommon. Bolton had two Nags Heads – the Higher Nags and the Lower Nags– two Millstones, two pubs named the Hen and Chickens, two Dog and Partridges and there was a whole host of pubs named the  Bowling Green.  

The full name of this pub was the Old Three Tuns Hotel. Having ‘Old’ as a prefix usually denoted it was the original. Not so in this case. The Three Tuns on Chapel Street was in existence by 1800, the Old Three Tuns on Moor Lane followed a few years later in 1804.

The pub was a meeting place for the St John’s Lodge of the Freemasons. The lodge was formed in 1815 in Chowbent (or Atherton as it is now known). Unusually, it had its headquarters in a number of towns moving from Chowbent to Tyldesley and then to Halshaw Moor (now Farnworth) before basing itself at the Three Tuns in 1836. The lodge’s itchy feet were in evidence yet again when it upped sticks just two years later and it met at three more Bolton pubs before returning to the Three Tuns in 1842. It remained at the pub for the next 31 years. One of the oldest lodges in the country, St John’s Lodge number 348 still exists and meets these days at the Masonic Hall on Silverwell Street. [1]

The part of Moor Lane around the bottom end of Deane Road gave us two of  Bolton’s oldest sporting institutions. Bolton Wanderers were formed at Christ Church school and were headquartered at the nearby Britannia Inn before moving to Burnden Park in 1895. Meanwhile, in 1908, Bolton United Harriers were formed at the Three Tuns.

One of the pub's landlords who went on to greater things was Frank Whittle. He ran the pub in the early-sixties before the licensed trade took him off to a further seven pubs in various parts of the country. Frank ended up in Stowmarket, Suffolk, where he served as a local councillor and was the town’s mayor in 2007-08. [2]

The Three Tuns was a Magees pub for much of the twentieth century. It was then bought by Greenall Whitley as part of their takeover of Magees in 1958 and the pub lasted until 1973. Council plans for the southern limb of the inner relief road meant it was bought under a compulsory purchase order and demolished soon after it closed.  

[1] Lane's Masonic Records. Retrieved 25 October 2014.
[2] Leigh Journal. 14 May 2008. Retrieved 25 October 2014.

Jolly Waggoner, Deane Road

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The Jolly Waggoner, pictured around 1975. Image from the Bolton Library and Museum Services collection. Copyright Bolton Council.

The Jolly Waggoner was originally a shop at the gable end of Balshaw Street, which ran down the side of the pub.

In the early-1840s a local character named Joseph Atherton owned a donkey and cart and had a business selling cockles and mussels on the streets of Gate Pike, as the area at the bottom of Deane Brow was known. ‘Cockle Joe,’ as he was known, eventually moved to the top of Balshaw Street where he opened a shop and traded as a greengrocer and fishmonger. He was still known as ‘Cockle Joe’ even after expanding his product range and he was later joined in the business by his son Amos, nicknamed ‘Yam Cockle’.

An un-named beerhouse had previously been run by Richard Marsh in the 1840s from his small house in Balshaw Lane, but that had closed by 1853. The Farmers Arms closed in 1869 while the Split Crow beerhouse had also closed. In the early-1870s Cockle Joe sold his shop and on the addition of an extension the premises were converted into two separate businesses. These fronted the main road, then known as Pikes Lane but later re-named Deane Road. One of the businesses was a butcher’s shop while the rest of the premises, on the Balshaw Street side, became a beerhouse.

The licensed premises were originally known as the Red Herring Inn, perhaps as a nod to Cockle Joe, who by now had moved to the top of Gilnow Lane. 

In 1875, John Bennett became licensee. Bennett was a popular local figure, a jovial character who drove his lorry and three horses around Gate Pike and it was from Bennett that the pub took its new name – the Jolly Waggoner.

The pub was an early Magees outlet. Hazel Morgan was born at the pub in 1934 – her parents were managers there for 38 years. Her recollections of the pub are contained here on the Bolton Revisited site. 

One of Hazel’s anecdotes worth repeating concerned her bridesmaid, Midge, a chimpanzee belonging to Edgar and Phyllis Charlton who owned the pet shop at 148 Derby Street. Hazel’s husband, David Harrison, worked for the Charltons. One night, as Hazel and David slept at the Jolly Waggoner there was a screech of brakes from the street outside. Midge had escaped from the shop on Derby Street and had run down to Deane Road where she narrowly escaped being run over by a lorry. More recollections of Midge can be seen here and here. 

The Jolly Waggoner was among the first of a huge raft of Bolton beer houses to obtain full public house licenses at the start of the sixties. A large number of pubs successfully applied in 1961, but the year before, in 1960, the Jolly Waggoner was one of a small number that tested the water with an application.

By then it was a Greenall Whitley pub. The image at the top of the page was taken around 1975, according to the Bolton archive records. That would have been five years after Greenall’s had closed Magee’s brewery on Derby Street though it is possible that the photo was taken earlier than 1975.  An earlier image can be seen here in the Bolton News archives.The pub had long since expanded into the adjoining retail premises.

Greenall’s eventually got out of brewing and the licensed trade. Its tied estate was split up and by the time the Jolly Waggoner closed in 2006 it was owned by Hyperhold Ltd, a small operator of pubs and bars that has since gone out of business. 

The Jolly Waggoner was sold de-licensed. It initially became a cybercafé and business centre but is now in use as a restaurant.

The Jolly Waggoners pictured in 2012

Split Crow, Pikes Lane

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Fern Street runs off to the right on this April 2012 image (copyright Google Street View), Deane Road runs to the left. The boarded-up Jolly Waggoner can be seen in the distance, the Lilian Hamer home is in the foreground. The Split Crow was close to the corner with Fern  Street, roughly where the patch of grass is.

The Split Crow is one of those long-lost pubs that even failed to make it into any of Gordon Readyhough’s books, so brief was its existence. We have the early-twentieth century Methodist historian Hannah Cottrell to remind us that it ever existed.

In the early-twenties Mrs Cottrell set out to write a history of the Methodist church on Fern Street, off Deane Road. As an illustration  she sets out a vision of the area of Deane known as Gate Pike in the early-1840s immediately prior to the arrival of Methodism.

Gate Pike was a hamlet situated roughly halfway between the outskirts of Bolton and Deane church, at the foot of Deane Brow. It consisted of just three streets: Balshaw Street, Markland Street (later Gate Street) and Moss Street (later Fern Street). The area still exists around by the former Jolly Waggoners pub and the Lilian Hamer old people’s home.

Mrs Cottrell describes some of the characters who lived in the area at the time and the nicknames they were given. There was ‘Owd Woof’ who ran the corner shop at the top of Balshaw Street; Joseph Atherton – ‘Cockle Joe’ – who sold cockles and mussels from a wheelbarrow. ‘Cockle Joe’ was succeeded in the business by his son Amos, nicknamed ‘Yam Cockle’. A clogger named Aspinall was known as ‘Old Sootum’, the Heaton family were known as the ‘Yettons,’ ‘Saut Bob’ was the rag-and-bone man and ‘Owd Hardneck’ the army pensioner.

But as a Methodist it was the plethora of drinking establishments that Mrs Cottrell took aim at. Owd Woof sold beer at his shop; a man named Dick Marsh sold beer at his cottage at the top of Balshaw Street; there was the Farmer’s Arms, the Gibraltar Rock, the Cross Guns and the Split Crow, all within a short walk from each other.

For a small community of perhaps a few hundred people that is a lot of places to sell beer. The Methodists’ promotion of the abstinence from alcohol meant that as they expanded from their chapel at Ridgway Gates in the centre of Bolton, a small self-contained community such as Gate Pike where beer was widely available meant it was a target for the establishment of a Methodist presence. Indeed, the place was known to them as ‘Hell’s Mouth’.

“Swearing, drinking and gambling were excessively indulged in by many of the men whose wives and families were miserably neglected. Their running dogs, fighting cocks and pigeons received far more attention and consideration than did their little children.” [1]

The Split Crow was situated on land now occupied by the Lilian Hamer home. It was in the middle of a row of three houses on Pikes Lane, which later became Deane Road. Next door, on the corner of Moss Street (was William Worthington’s butchers shop where calves and sheep were slaughtered in the cellar.

The Methodists arrived in the area in the spring of 1843 when they rented a cottage, 34 Balshaw Street. The Split Crow was already in operation by then having sprung up in the aftermath of the 1830 Beerhouses Act.

The pub closed some time in the 1850s. By then the Methodists had moved from Balshaw Street to Moss Street (renamed Fern Street around 1869) where they built a small chapel in 1843. In a twist of irony they bought the Split Crow. It reverted back to a private residence and became the chapel-keeper’s house of the Wesleyan chapel.

In 1927 the Methodists moved to a new church a few yards away on Deane Road on land now occupied by Bolton Blinds. The old Fern Street Wesleyan church was converted into a cinema, the Plaza, and number 336 became part of the cinema complex. The Plaza became the Windsor in January 1937 and closed in 1962. [2]

The Lilian Hamer old people’s home was built on the site in 1973. That closed in 2009 and remains vacant. An attempt to sell the home for £325,000 failed in 2010.

[1] Gate Pike: The Story Of 80 Years’ Methodism, 1843-1923, by Hannah Cottrell (Mrs Albert Openshaw). Originally published by Tillotsons (Bolton) Ltd (1924). The book is a comprehensive history of the Wesleyan church up to that time and includes a history of the bottom part of Deane from Deane Brow and Gate Pike down to Chamber Hall closer to town.

[2] Cinema Treasures website. Retrieved 23 October 2014.

African Chief, Moss Street

Here’s an interesting photo. It’s from the Bolton Libraries and Museum collection. (Copyright Bolton Council) but not much is known about the image.

‘The African’ – African what? It looks as though it may have been a pub sign, in which case it could have been the African Chief on Moss Street. The vehicle in the picture and the dress of the man walking up the street and the men further up all suggest it is later than the turn of the century so it would have been taken some years after the pub closed, which was in 1908.

The African Chief dated back to the 1860s when it was owned by Charles Seddon of the St George’s Hotel, St George’s Road. [1] By 1871 it was one of two beerhouses in Moss Street: one at number 4 owned by George Davison and one at number 5 owned by David Orrell. This latter establishment is more likely to have been the African Chief.

A number of Irish families lived in Moss Street in the 1880s and 1890s. In 1881, the Irish-born William Thompson and his wife Mary kept the pub. Another Irishman, Francis Lenaughan, would soon succeed him. Other Irish-born residents in the street included the Queenans and the Linehans. [2]

The African Chief became an Atkinson’s pub and in 1898 it came into the hands of the Manchester brewery Cornbrook’s after they took over Boardman’s brewery who had bought out Atkinson’s in 1895. Cornbrook’s obviously decided to sell the African Chief as it was owned by Hamer’s when its licence was refused in 1908.

So is the photo of the African Chief? It’s possible but by no means certain. A look at a map of the area in 1893 shows Moss Street coming to an end by Victoria Mills but all we really have to go off is an incomplete sign.

Moss Street was partly redeveloped in the twenties and Moss Street Baths were built in 1924 on the site of the former Richmond Terrace and Richmond Place. The baths remained open until 1987.

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

[2] About Laurence Queenan. Retrieved 20 October 2014.

Red Lion, Crook Street

The Red Lion was situated at the Derby Street end of Crook Street, just four doors along from the Flying Horse.

The pub dated back to the 1840s, probably the latter end of that decade. It first appears in the 1849 licensing records when the licensee was James Nuttall.

The Red Lion was owned by William T Settle whose brewery was based near the Rose and Crown pub, off Turton Street. However, in the early days of its ownership the brewery was known as Booth’s. William T Settle was born out of wedlock to Robert Booth and Rachel Settle. The couple later married and had two more sons, Albert and Daniel. Meanwhile, William T Settle went to work in the Rose and Crown’s brewery as a 14-year-old and later took over the business. He expanded the tied estate and installed his brothers at two of its pubs, Daniel at the Rope and Anchor on Kay Street and Albert at the Red Lion.

One day, during a visit to the pub, William and Albert got into an argument during the course of which Albert remarked that the name of the brewery – Booth’s – didn’t correspond with William’s surname of Settle. William picked up a stool, smashed the window with the Booth’s brewery name on it and said “It will have Settle’s Ales on it tomorrow”. All the pubs were subsequently changed to Settle’s.

Settle’s remained in control of the Red Lion until 1951. The brewery and its pubs were then sold to Dutton’s of Blackburn.

The Red Lion last for just two more years before being closed in 1953. It remained standing for some years afterwards but it was demolished in the mid seventies.

This image of the slip road to Aldi looking towards the bottom of Derby Street was taken in May 2012 and is copyright Google Street View. The site of the Red Lion was on the left of the image roughly where the slip road starts. 

Grapes Hotel, Victoria Square

The Grapes is on the right of this photograph taken from the clock tower of the Town Hall around 1900. Nearby shops included Hyde Brothers, T Hindle, the  British and Colonial Meat Company and Charles Bowker. Photograph from the Bolton Library and Museums Service collection. Copyright Bolton Council.

The Grapes was situated on Victoria Square, though when it opened in 1840 the square was actually the New Market Place

During the early part of the nineteenth century, like in so many of the old-established pubs in Bolton, this pub played host to numerous political discussion groups [1]. The politics discussed depended on how well-furbished the pub was. The Ship on Bradshawgate was quite plush and was frequented by the town’s businessmen, as was the Swan Hotel. The customers in those pubs were more likely to lean towards the Tory Party. The George and Dragon on Oxford Street played host to a Liberal debating society, while in the poorer part of Bolton, the Dog Inn – also known as the Talbot – on Brown Street was a meeting place for more left-wing radical politics. [2]

In the Grapes’ early days it was adjoined by a portable theatre which had been placed there before the pub opened. Parish’s fit-up travelling theatre performed Margaret’s Ghost there in February 1836. The California market was subsequently situated next to the pub. [3]

Gordon Readyhough describes the Grapes as “a typical town centre pub”. Entrances were in Victoria Square and in Exchange Street which still runs down by the side of the former site of the pub. [4]

The Grapes closed in 1960 and was demolished in the same year. Shops were built on the site. A Wimpy bar was on part of the site for many years. That was succeeded by Kingburger and now a café named Tiffany's In The Square.  

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

[2] Malcolm Hardman’s book Classic Soil: Community, Aspiration, and Debate in the Bolton Region of Lancashire, 1819-1845 goes much deeper into the local politics of that time.

[3] Arthur Lloyd’s theatre history site.  Accessed 14 October 2014.

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

Oscar's, The Wellsprings, Le Mans Crescent

An Oscar's gig guide from the spring of 1994. Members of Lost Boys are now in Glam 45.

Oscar’s opened in 1989 in the cellar of The Wellsprings, an office block built on the site of which a large stone building that once housed Bolton Central Library.

The old library building opened in 1893 but closed in 1932 when the library service moved to the newly-built Civic Centre across the road. It remains there to this day. Its former premises was the Victoria (Civic) Restaurant from 1948 to 1951 before housing National Insurance and local government offices until they moved to Elizabeth House when that was completed in 1971. It was subsequently used as the Bibliographic Services unit of the library until it was demolished in the mid-eighties. The Wellsprings was built in its place. [1]

Part of the entrance to Oscar’s was on the site of the Town Hall Hotel, a former pub that closed in 1933.

Oscar’s was initially a café bar but it soon gained a reputation as a live music venue and it had live acts on most nights of the week as the above leaflet shows. It’s hard to imagine a pub having so much live music on these days with only the Alma Inn or the Dog and Partridge coming close.

The pub was run by the same management team that ran Hawthorn's on Spa Road. 

Oscar's closed around 2004, supposedly when the lease ran out. Far from the premises being taken up by another pub lessee the premises were given over to a ladies-only gym.

A night-time view of The Wellsprings from March 1996 can be seen here.  

Another gig poster from the 1990s can be found here. 

[1] Bolton Town Centre, A Modern History. Part One: Deansgate, Victoria Square, Churchgate and Surrounding Areas, 1900-1998

Bush Hotel - Star Inn - Star Concert Room, Churchgate

The Bush Hotel – formerly the Star and before that the Cock Inn - on Churchgate pictured in 1938. The Bush is in front of Theatre Royal’s canopy as we look. The Venue currently stands on the site.

The music hall was the most popular form of mass entertainment for the working-class public of Britain in the nineteenth century. In his book Popular Leisure And The Music Hall in 19th century Bolton written in 1982, Robert Poole claims the first music hall in Britain was at the Millstone on Crown Street in Bolton where landlord Thomas Sharples opened a singing and supper room around 1830. That claim has been challenged by some who believe the music hall began in London at least two years earlier or that its origins were in the coffee taverns of the late-18^th century. Even so, music hall didn't become a cultural phenomenon until around 1850 by which time Thomas Sharples had been in business in Bolton for 20 years. It has been claimed that Sharples was once a ventriloquist travelling from pub to pub with his dummy before he took over the Millstone (Moran family reminiscences, Bolton Evening News, 25 April 1882).

The Millstone still exists today and given the size of the pub – twice the size now as it was before it was extended in 2000 - such a supper room can only have been held upstairs.

No doubt the size of the Millstone hindered Thomas Sharples and his ambitions. Bolton's centre was Churchgate and we know that by 1838 Sharples had also taken on the Cock, a pub that had existed since at least the 1770s and allegedly got its name from the cock fights held there. It was a little more genteel by now and it was popular with churchgoers who would dine there on a Sunday lunchtime after attending service at the nearby Parish Church.

The Bolton Chronicle of 4 August 1838 reported that the Albion Lodge No. 46 of the United Odd Fellows held their annual dinner at the pub - “an excellent dinner provided by the worthy host and hostess, Mr and Mrs Sharples.”

However, not all functions held at the Cock were as civilised as the Odd Fellows. The Bolton Chronicle of 6 July 1839 reported that Robert Ogden was charged with being disorderly and indecently assaulting a number of females at the pub. The incident happened during a christening when Ogden introduced himself into the assembled company and, as the paper put it “took indecent liberties,” with some of the females. “To preserve their chastity he was given into custody.” He was fined 20 shillings (£1) plus costs.

By June 1840, the Cock had become the Star and Thomas Sharples laid the corner stone for the new music room. Ever the showman he put on a ceremony in order to extract the maximum publicity with singers performing the national anthem prior to coins from the reigns of George II, George III, George IV, William IV and Queen Victoria all being deposited beneath the stone.

The Bolton Chronicle was impressed. In its edition of 13 June 1840, the paper said:

“This room, we understand, when completed, is intended as a lounge, music room and museum, and in addition to a great number of interesting and valuable curiosities, will be the repository of Mr Sharples's valuable selection of paintings. For size, we believe it will exceed any other room in the town.”

The Chronicle kept its readers abreast of progress and on 9 September 1840 it gushed at the show Sharples put on for the opening night of the Star's music room. “It was enrapturing beyond conception,” said the paper.

Even the transfer two months later of two Oddfellow lodges, “Welcome Traveller” and “Orthodox”, from the Millstone, was accompanied by a show. Members of the two lodges walked in procession the short distance from the Millstone to the Star and as they approached the pub Thomas Sharples set off fireworks to welcome them. Mrs Sharples then put on a meal for no fewer than 300 people.

Like many music halls and concert room there were a variety of acts, some of which involved wild animals. On 11 February 1844, Matthew Ferguson, the keeper of the menagerie, was killed by Barney, one of the Star’s leopards. One version claims that Barney didn’t take too kindly to Ferguson’s liberal use of the whip and attacked the keeper. Some 28 years later, on 4 January 1872, the Bolton Evening News made reference to the incident but put a different spin on the circumstances. It claimed Ferguson had had a drink and decided to play with Barney at which point the animal turned on him and mauled him to death. There was no-one else present at the time. Ferguson was discovered some time later with Barney standing over him and moaning. Thomas Sharples had Barney destroyed and the animal was stuffed before being put on display in the pub's museum.

Sharples was refused a licence to put on theatrical performances so the entertainment was of the kind that would typify music hall for the next 70 years or so. A programme from 1845 detailed F A Canfield, the American Samson and wonder of the world, the Southern Minstrels, and gymnastic pantomimists Nunn, Walker, Honey and Steward.

Such was the fame of the Star that Thomas Sharples put on a special train from Manchester in September 1845. Patrons could enjoy a trip to Bolton where they could take in the curiosities of the Star's museum followed by a concert in the saloon “and all for the small charge of a shilling,” he told the Bolton Chronicle.

In July 1852 three people were killed following the collapse of one of the walls in the Star’s concert room. A fire six days earlier had made the wall unsafe and it was in the process of being demolished when it collapsed on to some cottages in nearby Wigan Lane. The inhabitants of Wigan Lane were, as the Bolton Chronicle of 24 July 1852 put it: “Irish people of the lowest orders” and the buildings were inhabited almost to the point of overcrowding. Michael Larkin, whose age was given as between 40 and 50, Mary Curley aged 38, and a ten-year-old child, Nabby Kilgallen, all died having been buried by the collapsed wall, Michael Larkin had been eating his breakfast, Mary Curley had been outside in Wigan Lane and Nabby Kilgallen was in bed. The collapse happened at ten o'clock in the morning, a time when the vast majority of the inhabitants of Wigan Lane were out at work thereby avoiding a greater death toll. A verdict of accidental death was passed by the jury at an inquest the same evening. Most of the cottages in Wigan Lane were destroyed and the other inhabitants were rehoused by the authorities.

At that stage the Star had the reputation of being one of the most popular and attractive concert rooms in the country. It also contained a museum the wonders of which were famed far and wide – 262 items including paintings, wax figures and a piece of pressed iron from Hick’s foundry on Bridgeman Street. Most were destroyed along with the stuffed effigy of Barney the tiger.

William Sharples had by now taken over the business from his father. Thomas Sharples retired to a house on Chorley New Road where he died in 1853, aged 50.

A month after the collapse of the wall, in August 1852, William Sharples tried to sell the Star, but those efforts were affected by the decision of local magistrates to suspend the licences of both the Star and the Millstone. Without a licence the Star was much less of an attraction to would-be purchasers. When it came up for auction it failed to realise its reserve price of £1100 and was withdrawn from sale. The month after the auction, in October 1852, both the Star and the Millstone regained their licences.

The Star's vaults were still open but the site of the former music room was empty. William Sharples offered to build a room on site to be used by the council as a library, but the offer was rejected.

In 1861, William Sharples bought the axe that was reputedly  used in the beheading of the Earl of Derby outside the Man and Scythe in 1651. He died in July the following year aged 38. His widow Ruth Rigg Sharples died four months later aged just 30. More on the axe here.

William Sharples remained at the Star until his death. His estate of £6000 would be worth around £700,000 today so the pub game had been good to him. For the next seven years it was run by a relative, John Smith, but by 1870 it was in the hands of a man who did much to bring back the glory days of the Star: J. P. Weston.

James Pitney was born in Somerton, Somerset, in 1831. He got into the entertainment industry while still a teenager. Indeed, the 1851 Census has him living with his family at Shoreditch, Middlesex – occupation: “clown”. By 1857 he was using the name James Pitney Weston. That Christmas he played the clown in a comic pantomime at the Theatre Royal, Norwich, and was credited with arranging the comic scenes. Reviews of the time described him as "the Clown of all Nations".

By 1860, Weston was the manager of the Theatre Royal, Bolton, just a few doors along from the Star. That year he wrote a pantomime especially for his theatre entitled The Storm King's Dream, Or, Harlequin Rainbow and the Fairyof the Sunlit City of the Sea.  Initially he lodged at 19 Bath Street with his wife Mary Ann and sister-in-law Rose Blake, but by 1871 he was living on Churchgate.

From 1870 Weston was initially the lessee of the Star, but in 1872 he bought the pub, its concert hall, the nearby Angel Inn and the Theatre Royal for £4900.

Bolton's theatreland evokes images of something akin to London's West End but it was nothing of the sort. In 1871, a barman at the Star abducted Christine Masper, a girl under the age of 16. He was sentenced to three months imprisonment although as the Bolton Evening News pointed out in its issue of 14 March 1871, had she been the heiress to any money or property, he would have received between three and 14 years' penal servitude.

The attached Angel Inn was part of a betting scandal in 1873 which found the Star's manager Robert Blake in court. There was also an attempt to remove the licences of both the Star and the Angel in 1873 as part of a Victorian crackdown on anything that might be considered immoral. That included bawdy music hall songs. Fortunately, the police were on Weston's side and he escaped without censure.

Weston only ran the Star for seven years, from 1870 to 1877. However, he over-stretched himself financially not so much in Bolton but elsewhere. He also owned a number of other theatres in the north-west including the Liverpool Palace Of Varieties which he renamed the New Albert Theatre and where he appeared himself as Hamlet in 1874. He also bought the rights to London dramas and adapted them for his own theatres. (See An Illustrated History of British Theatre and Performance: Volume Two - From the Industrial Revolution to the Digital Age by Robert Leach, published by Routledge, 2018).

In 1877 Weston decided to sell his Bolton properties. He moved to Dawes Street where he oversaw the conversion of the former Temple Mill to the Temple Opera House. He was forced to deny claims he was going to America but in May 1878 James Pitney Weston was declared bankrupt. The order was later annulled but it was the end of his time as an impressario. Weston moved to the Rochdale area and he was lodging with the Swindells family by 1881. His wife Mary Ann died in 1884 but Weston remarried in 1890. He married 23-year-old Rose Emily Pannett in Salford declaring his own age to be 55. In reality he was at least four years older. He described himself at that time as a caterer.

The Bolton Evening News of 29 October 1902 announced the death of James Pitney Weston in Leeds the previous night. The paper admitted he'd had “a chequered career” since he left Bolton. Weston would have been 71 years old at the time of his death and he was employed by Messrs Dotteridge and Longton, theatrical proprietors, in Leeds.

The Star remained as lively as ever. In October 1882, William Smethurst was sentenced to three months' hard labour after attempting to bite off the ear of Thomas Almond following an argument in the music room.

One Saturday night in August 1891 the pub's landlady called the police to remove from the lobby a group of men who were refusing to leave. Police forcibly removed 22-year-old William Henry Lyons of Waterloo Street but he began a disturbance on the corner of Bradshawgate and the police went to take him into custody. A crowd gathered and were called upon by Lyons to help free him. This they tried to do and blows rained down on the police officers. They got Lyons as far as Mealhouse Lane where the crowd began throwing bottles and other missiles. Thomas Chisnall of Lorne Street, Moses Gate, called for the crowd to “kick the officers' heads off” [Bolton Evening News, 3 August 1891]. Police eventually got Lyons to the town hall and they also arrested Chisnall and another man, James Walkden. In defence, Lyons' solicitor “pleaded for mitigation on account of having had some drink, and also having lost his hat.” Lyons was fined a total of 40 shillings. The two other men were also fined.

In 1895, the Star lost its music licence. Magistrates heard from police that the pub was the scene of frequent disorder. Detective Bootham stated that on 14 April 1894 he visited the Star. There were two music rooms in the pub. Downstairs there were 70-80 people, mostly elderly and listening to a singer. There was good order. Upstairs there were about 200 people aged between 22 and 55 one-third of whom were female. About four or five young men were creating a disturbance, several rows were in progress, there was a good deal of cursing and shouting and nobody was listening to the music. It was also stiflingly hot. The ceiling of the Star was only eight feet five inches high “where professional evidence would ought to tell them it should be 12ft high.” [Bolton Evening News, 31 January 1895]. Council regulations for the minimum height of rooms in houses constructed at that time recommended rooms should be 9ft high. The pub's owners, local brewer John Atkinson and Co, stated they would take off the pub's roof and raise the height of the ceiling. However, the magistrates declined the licence and music at the Star came to an end. The following year, landlord John Parkinson was up in court for flouting the ban. Police had visited the Star 23 times and found a piano being played by what turned out to be Mr Parkinson's son. There was also singing and police claimed on one occasion a couple were seen dancing. Parkinson claimed the room wasn't a music room but one where refreshments were consumed and magistrates dismissed the case. The Star applied for a music licence in 1897 and twice in 1902, but the applications failed on both occasions.

The Star was renamed the Bush Hotel in 1903. A successful application was made for a billiards licence. By now the pub was owned by Cornbrook's, a Manchester brewery. Atkinson's had sold out to Boardman's United Breweries in 1895 and three years later Boardman's were taken over by Cornbrook's.

The Bush Hotel ended its days as a Bass Charrington pub. Bass bought Cornbrook’s in 1961 and perhaps it is telling that just two years after they took over the Bush, the nearby Derby Hotel and the Theatre Royal all three were closed and demolished to make way for the redevelopment of Churchgate.

The site of the Bush and the Theatre Royal was converted into a supermarket, first known as Lennon’s, then Kwik Save and finally Foodsave, but in 1996 the premises were converted into a pub, The Brasshouse. This in turn became Number 15, a live music venue, and then Club Kiss before closing again in 2008. In September 2014 it reopened as The Venue, described as an over-25s cabaret bar. 

Isaac Clowes, an odd looking fellow, complained of a waiter at the Star Inn taking his hat on Tuesday night. He took his seat in the front of the gallery at the Star Concert Room, when several persons called out “turn that felly eaut wi' th' grey hat on.” When requested by the waiter to take off his hat he refused upon which she took it off and carried it to the bar and detained it. Mr Taylor: “It was a shocking bad hat, I believe; people laughed so hard at your beaver that they could not go on with the performance.” Complainant - “It was ta'en off my head; it was a hat I thought a deal about; the waiter took my hat off forcibly; I didn't ask for it on my way out.” Mr Taylor exhibited the beaver placing it on his head in court amidst universal laughter. Complainant: “I think it looks a very tidy hat. They had no right taking my hat off.”....Mr E. Ashworth: The complainant says there are no rules up in the room that persons are not to go there with white hats on. Mr Taylor: “It's charged as a wilful trespass and there is no damage done to the hat.” The case was dismissed. – Bolton Chronicle, 25 January 1845.

Stealing Wearing Apparel – A woman named Mary Taylor, who for a long time past has been representing herself as “Miss Gleaves” sister to Mrs Sharples of the Star Inn, and thereby succeeded getting board and lodgings for which she has never paid, was charged with stealing wearing apparel from two places at which she had been lodging. A short time back she stole several articles from the house of Mrs Bleakley, from whom she had been lodging in Bark-street; and she succeeded in practising a similar trick soon afterwards from the house of Mrs Heywood, Churchbank. She was committed to the New Bailey for two months. – Bolton Chronicle, 29 December 1855.