Tramways Hotel, 307 Blackburn Road, Bolton

Follow @LostPubsBolton

Tramways Hotel pictured in October 2018. Copyright Google.

On 31 August 1880, Her Majesty's Inspector Of The Board Of Trade, Major-General Hutchinson, joined the Mayor of Bolton, Alderman Richardson, the Town Clerk, Mr Hinnell and the chairman of the Astley Bridge local board, Major-General Hesketh and a number of other local dignitaries on a horse-drawn tramcar driven by a Mr John Metcalf that had pulled up outside the Town Hall. The tram made its way along Newport Street and headed for Moses Gate. It then returned back to Bolton where the three horses at the front of the car were replaced by four for the journey on the remainder of what was Bolton's new tram network. Crowds gathered on all aspects of the route on what was a test run for the town's new transport network.

As the tram made its way towards the border that marked the border with Astley Bridge – then a separate township – it passed a building under construction on the site of an old beerhouse and butcher's shop and which would be named the Tramways Hotel in honour of this new mode of public transport.

Six days earlier on 25 August 1880, Thomas Morris, who had been granted a provisional licence the previous year, agreed to give notice for its confirmation on 30 September. By early November 1880 the Tramways was open. The pub was aimed both at billiards players and at hotel guests who wanted to stay within reasonable distance of Bolton without the bustle of town centre. The full licence of the Red Lion, Deansgate had been transferred to the Tramways and the pub had managed to gain a billiards licence. It employed James Craven, formerly of the Balmoral Hotel, as a marker. Craven marked when, in February 1881, Walter Grundy took on Herbert Wortley in a game billed as the championship of Bolton. Wortley was suffering from a cold and was no match for Grundy who won by 1000 to 397.

While Thomas Morris had applied for the licence of the Tramways he was neither the owner or the licensee. By the time the pub opened James Atkinson was the landlord. Born in Wigan in 1835, Atkinson was a brickmaker by trade and owned the Tanners Hole brickworks in Great Lever close to what is now the junction of Settle Street and Nugent Road. He had also turned his hand to property development and along with Robert Horridge, Barnard Henry and James Holden had formed the Great Lever Building Company. He was living in Sidney Street, off Bridgeman Street, in 1861 and by 1871 he was living with his wife Margaret at Woodside Terrace, Rishton Lane. He was a successful Liberal candidate for the election to the Bolton Board Of Guardians in 1876.

However, all was not well. In an advertisement in the Bolton Evening News of 26 November – little more than a year after the Tramways opened, Atkinson filed for bankruptcy with debts estimated at £4500 – the equivalent of over £500,000 today. This suggests Atkinson, perhaps with some of his partners, built the Tramways but in doing so he perhaps over-stretched himself. In January 1882 the licence of the pub was transferred to one of his business partners, Robert Horridge.

In March 1891, a former self-actor minder named Peter Thompson of no fixed address was found dying in the middle of Blackburn Road outside the Tramways. At his inquest it was heard that the 37-year-old Thompson hadn't worked for some 12 or 13 years but made small sums of money singing or dancing at pubs. When he was found his clothes were saturated with rain and he was helplessly drunk. Any attempts to obtain a name or address out of him elicited the response that he was “the champion singer and clog dancer of Farnworth”. A doctor was called for but Thompson died before medical help arrived [Bolton Evening News, 31 March 1891].

The Tramways remained a sporting pub. Bolton Harriers often started some of their inter-club matches outside the pub. The North End Angling Society were certainly meeting there in 1908 and around that time there is mention of a Tramways in the fixtures for the Bolton Wednesday Football League for 1908 playing against the likes of Market Hall, Farnworth Wednesday and Pawnbrokers. However, this may well have been employees of the local tramways department rather than the pub's customers.

There was unwelcome attention for the Tramways in 1905 when Herbert Taylor, a 22-year-old labourer, was accused of taking bets in the vicinity of the pub and its yard. He was fined £3.

The Tramways became a Magee's house before becoming a Greenalls pub in 1958 on their takeover of Magee's Crown Brewery.

The pub was sold by Greenall's in 1988. It remains licensed premises and there is a bar on site but it is no longer a pub. It has been run for a number of years as a guesthouse/bed-and-breakfast.

Windmill, 60 Deane Road, Bolton

Follow @LostPubsBolton

The Windmill was situated on Deane Road on the corner of Wareing Street. Its early address was given as Blackburn Street which was the name given to the bottom end of Deane Road.

The first mention we have of the pub is in the 1848 Bolton Directory where the landlord's name is given as James Wardle. A James Wardle was living in Kay Street according to the 1841 census where was working as a brewer. There is also a James Wardle listed as a beerseller, also on Kay Street, according to the 1843 Bolton Directory so it is possible that he moved across Bolton a few years later and set up the Windmill. However, the 1849 licensing list gives Henry Isherwood as the landlord – and the pub's name as the Wind Mill.

In 1852 there was an unsuccessful attempt to obtain a full licence for the Windmill. The building was actually owned by the Morris family and rented to Henry Isherwood. Representatives of the late Nathaniel Morris – who died just a few weeks before the licence hearing - applied for a licence which would enable the pub to sell wines and spirits as well as beer. The application was heard along with eight others at the annual Brewster Sessions. However, there was determined opposition. The borough coroner, Mr Taylor, gave a long address against any new licences and presented petitions from a public meeting. His arguments won the day and the magistrates rejected all nine applications.

Nathaniel Morris's widow Margaret applied once again for a full licence in 1854 and this continued on an annual basis even after her death in 1868. In all cases the application was thrown out although Mrs Morris failed to appear at the 1864 hearing. [Bolton Chronicle 29 August 1864]. All the applications by the pub failed and the Windmill remained a beerhouse until 1962.

In November 1873 the Windmill was sold for £1380. [Bolton Evening News, 27 November 1873]. That's the equivalent of £147,000 at 2018 prices. The newspaper report at the time suggested 14 lots of various properties and given that there are no other reports of the Windmill being sold prior to that there's a good chance that these properties were a portfolio built up by the Morrises. The 1841 census shows them living and working as shopkeepers on Bradshaw Street, a narrow thoroughfare at the back of Bradshawgate that can still be seen today running to the rear of the Alma. But the Morrises appear to have invested their money in property and the £5800 realised from the 1873 sale is worth over £600,000 today.

In 1904, the Windmill was one of six pubs to be granted a semi-billiards licence and to continue the sporting theme, in 1908 it was announced as one of a number of pubs from where Bolton United Harriers commenced their Saturday runs. [Bolton Evening News, 12 September 1908. The Windmill run was scheduled for 13 February 1909 with a "3pm start rain or fine"].

The Windmill became a Sharman's house in the early part of the 20^th century. Sharman's were taken over by the Leigh firm of George Shaw in 1927 before becoming part of the Peter Walker company in September 1931. It became a Tetley Walker pub in 1961 and closed in the early-seventies as part of the demolition of that end of Deane Road. New housing was built in the area but it was redeveloped again from 2010 onwards and Bolton College's STEM Centre opened in 2014 on the site formerly occupied by the Windmill.

“On Tuesday evening there was a brief but dashing thunderstorm; the water poured down profusely until the streets, windows and walls smoked and seethed with the heat and the battering.....The sign in front of the Windmill beerhouse on Blackburn Street, Great Bolton, was either struck or knocked down by the electric fluid, or blown to the ground by the high wind which prevailed.” - Bolton Chronicle, 19 June 1858.

An ad from the 1890s for the Windmill. Thomas Haddock (1852-1909) spent the best part of a decade at the pub. By 1901 he was living at Broom Terrace where he was described as a retired publican.

Shamrock, 31 Soho Street, Bolton

Follow @LostPubsBolton

This view of Soho Street dates from 2008 (copyright Google Streetview) and shows Section Street on the left leading to Newport Street with Morrisons supermarket in the distance. That part of the railway bridge on the left just past Section Street marks the site of the Shamrock Tavern. Further railway works as part of the electrification project in the Bolton area means the street has been blocked off just after Section Street.

Not to be confused by a similarly named pub that existed in the nineties on St Helens Road, the Shamrock Tavern was situated on Soho Street, a thoroughfare that once connected Crook Street with Great Moor Street. The street took its name from the Soho Ironworks situated on Crook Street and which later became Hick, Hargreaves & Co. Sainsbury's supermarket has stood on the site of the old ironworks since 2004. What remains of Soho Street runs down the side of the Griffin but only as far as Morrisons.

As its name might suggest the Shamrock served Bolton's Irish community most of whom lived in the Newtown area which is now covered by Morrisons. Newtown was regarded as one of the roughest parts of Bolton.

The pub dated back to the early-1860s.

When all Bolton's beerhouses had to re-apply for their licences in 1869 there were objections from the police. The landlord at that time was Michael Reddy who had taken over as licensee the previous year. At the hearing the police complained that there were three entrances to the pub. More entrances meant more chances of people sneaking in for illegal drinking – usually on a Sunday morning when people were expected to go to church. Police Sergeant Rhodes complained of there frequently being a crowd hanging around near the pub on Sunday mornings and whenever the police approached someone would shout “th' bobby's coming” and whistle. Sergeant Whittle said people frequently hung around outside Reddy's back yard.

Despite the complaints Reddy's re-application was successful largely because he'd had no convictions against him. He had spent 14 years working at the Hulton coal depot next to Great Moor Street railway station and W. F. Hulton, Esq gave a reference in Reddy's favour saying he had risen from labourer to head salesman and always had a good character.

Reddy left the Shamrock in 1870 and James Durkin took over. But in March 1871 Durkin was injured during a knife attack at the house of his father-in-law, James Foley, on Barrow's Court, off Newport Street. (The street existed until around 2013 when it was demolished as part of the development of the Bolton Interchange). Durkin went round to the house one Tuesday evening after hearing that the 63-year-old Foley was drunk and was beating his wife. On his arrival Foley took out a knife and told Durkin he would “stick either Durkin or the old woman”. There was a scuffle in which Durkin sustained a wound near the rib cage of some five or six inches in length [Bolton Evening News, 9 March 1871]. Four months later Foley was tried at the Manchester Assizes. Durkin said he was reluctant to press charges and the judge dismissed the case urging Foley to stay off the drink. [Bolton Chronicle, 29 July 1871] Foley left the Shamrock in September 1871 and moved four doors down to 39 Soho Street where he died in 1876.

Durkin was succeeded as landlord by Mark O'Boyle who spent five years at the Shamrock before moving to the Derby Arms at the bottom of Derby Street.

In 1893, the landlord faced a charge of permitting drunkenness at the pub but this was dismissed. [Bolton Evening News 30 August 1893]. Alterations were made to the Shamrock in 1898. [Bolton Evening News, 29 August 1898].

The Shamrock had already been closed and demolished by February 1904 when the town's chief constable announced at the annual licensing sessions that its licence and those of the Waggon and Horses on Moor Lane and the Temple Tavern on Dawes Street would not be renewed because of their closure. All three pubs had shut down during 1903 for improvements to the railway. The Shamrock was one of a number of properties demolished between Section Street and Wilson Street as the number of tracks on the line from Bolton to Preston was doubled. The railway bridge on Soho Street marks the site of the pub.

A Turbulent Fellow – Patrick Duffy, 17 Sydney Street, was charged with being drunk and disorderly and assaulting Police Constable Lewis on the 20^th inst. Whilst Police Constable Lewis was taking him into custody, the prisoner kicked him seriously on the legs. For the first offence he was fined 5 shillings and costs and for the second he was fined 10 shilling and costs. A further charge was brought against Duffy for striking James Lowe in the Shamrock beershop, Soho Street, on the same night. For this assault another sum of 10 shillings and costs was imposed upon him.

 - Bolton Evening News, 21 January 1875.