The One Horseshoe was situated on Manor Street and when it opened in the late-eighteenth century it was known simply as the Horse Shoe. It was a departure point for a number of stagecoaches. The 1824 Pigot Directory stated that the ‘Accommodation’ departed for Manchester every morning at 8, while the 1836 Directory listed coaches for Haslingden and Ramsbottom leaving every Monday afternoon at 4.
The One Horseshoe was to play a role in the development of two sizeable Bolton brewing concerns: Atkinson's and Magee, Marshall. In 1864 it was bought by William Atkinson. A native of Leeds, Atkinson was living in Water Street in 1861 where he worked as a common brewer. At that time it was common for pubs to brew their own ale but a common brewer brewed for outlets that didn't have their own breweries. Either Atkinson made enough from brewing to buy his own pub or he needed a guaranteed outlet for his products but he enjoyed a seven-year spell at the pub.
But the final year of Atkinson's tenure at the One Horseshoe was marked by a court case that resulted in its temporary closure. In May 1870 Atkinson was charged by PC John Hopkins with refusing to admit police to the pub at a quarter past one on a Tuesday morning. PC Hopkins claimed to have seen five or six men leave the pub after which a woman came to the door and looked out. After she went back inside PCs Hopkins and Bedford knocked on the door. “Who's there?” the woman shouted. “It's the police,” replied PC Hopkins. PC Bedford knocked loudly on the door with his stick but the two policemen waited outside for 15 minutes without the door being answered. In his defence William Atkinson claimed he was the last person up and that he went to bed at midnight but he insisted neither he nor Mrs Atkinson had heard the policemen knock. The bench considered that the case was proved and fined Atkinson 20 shillings (£1) with 14 days' imprisonment if he failed to pay the fine. [Bolton Chronicle, 4 June 1870]. Worse was to come. In August 1870 the annual licensing hearing suspended the pub's licence and it only re-opened at the end of September following an appeal. [Bolton Chronicle, 1 October 1870].
In March 1871 Atkinson left the One Horse Shoe and the licence was transferred to Samuel Smith. Smith before being taken over three months later by John Wardle, formerly of the nearby Dog and Partridge. By then Atkinson had bought the Commission Street Congregational School which he converted into a wholesale brewery. He died in 1879 but his son John Atkinson had followed him into the brewing business. The firm was converted into a limited company, John Atkinson & Company Ltd, in 1882. By that time it had 27 beerhouses and eight off-licences. It was to last until 1896 when it was taken over by Boardman United Breweries Ltd of Manchester.
Wardle was a different type of landlord to Atkinson. For one thing he was a prominent Conservative. He was urged to become a candidate for the Church Ward at the 1871 local elections when he was put forward by another pub landlord, James Pitney Weston of the Star Inn on Churchgate although he refused the nomination.
John Wardle spent less than two years at the One Horseshoe but the next landlord, Ellis Marshall was there for 18 years from 1873 until his death in 1891. He had previously been at a nearby beer-house, the Same Place Again in Independent Street. Ellis Marshall's brother was a local brewer named Daniel Marshall who ran the Grapes Hotel and brewery on Brown Street as well the Horse Shoe Brewery on Water Street to the rear of the One Horseshoe. It is likely that he bought the One Horseshoe and installed Ellis as the licensee.
In 1885, Marshall merged his business with Magee's, a firm owned by the three sons of Daniel Magee. The One Horseshoe became one of the first Magee, Marshall pubs when the limited company of Magee, Marshall and Co. Ltd was formed three years later in 1888 Daniel Marshall had a 27 percent stake in the new company.
In January 1879 Ellis Marshall put on a substantial supper for 150 of the poor and distressed people of the neighbourhood. The streets to the rear of the One Horseshoe were among the poorest in the town.
Ellis Marshall committed suicide at the One Horseshoe in 1891. The Bolton Evening News of 28 May reported that his son was accustomed to being woken so he could go to work but as his father failed to do so this morning he went to see if he was ill. He found Ellis's body hanging “suspended by a hook by means of a riding rein”. He had been seen the previous evening going about his business as usual and nobody suspected anything strange in his behaviour. However, his wife had died several months previously and he had been low-spirited since then. Ellis's son, also called Ellis, took over the pub but he died in 1899.
In their book Looking Back: Photographs and Memories of Life in the Bolton Area 1890-1939, Anne Bromilow and Jim Power recount the tale of a landlord of the One Horseshoe who became known locally as ‘Elephant Man’ after he stored six elephants in the pub’s cellar after a circus arrived in Bolton. The landlord isn’t named, nor is the story dated and the elephants were obviously not fully grown as their heights are given as being between 5ft and 5ft 6. They only just fit into the pub’s cellar and were presumably there alongside vented barrels of beer. However, the landlord was worried about the authorities finding out about the elephants – hardly surprising – and he also stated that their arrival at his pub with hundreds of children in tow created something of a stir on Bank Street.
The One Horseshoe became a Greenall Whitley pub when that company bought out Magee, Marshall's in 1958. However, it continued to be supplied from Magee's brewery in Cricket Street.
When the One Horseshoe closed in 1966 the premises were bought by Gentleman John’s wallpapers. It was later occupied by Manor Carpets before becoming Bar Peru in the nineties. Later, it was known as Nicholas Bar.
Article updated 15 November 2020 with added historical information.
Manor Street pictured in April 2012 with Bank Street just beyond the bridge over the River Croal. Bar Nicholas in the foreground was One Horseshoe from the late-eighteenth century until 1966. Image copyright Google Street View.
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