Bowling Green, 97 Eskrick Street, Bolton

Follow @LostPubsBolton

The Bowling Green pictured in September 2009, a couple of years before it closed. Copyright Google.

The Bowling Green was situated on Eskrick Street near the corner of Elgin Street.

The pub was in existence in the 1860s and the first evidence we have is when its bowling green was advertised in the local press. In those days it was part of the Halliwell township rather than Bolton.

A report in the Bolton Evening News of 16 December 1869 stated that the Bowling Green was the venue for a meeting of the Stanley Lodge of the Bolton Operative Conservative Association. The association was one of the first property constituted Conservative organisations in the country dating back to at least 1837. Indeed, the emergence of Operative Conservative Associations – first at Newton-le-Willows in 1832 and then throughout south Lancashire – saw the word 'conservative' adopted by what had traditionally been known as the Tory party. [Peterloo – The Case Re-Opened by Robert Walmsley, 1986].  Operative Conservative Associations tended to recruit factory workers, normally foremen of what may be termed as 'middle management' These were people whom the Tories saw as potential supporters even though the vast majority would not have had the vote. But in times where the lower orders were agitating for social change it kept an element of factory workers on their side. This 1869 meeting at the Bowling Green saw the presentation of a portrait of the late Earl Of Derby by Mr Edward Eskrick to the chairman and vice-chairman of the lodge.

In September 1875, a man was ordered to pay costs and sureties following an assault at the Bowling Green. Andrew Lowe, described as “a respectable looking man” of Halliwell, was accused of assaulting Matthias McDonna, a member of the Halliwell Local Board. McDonna has gone to the Bowling Green to meet a friend. He was only at the pub for a few minutes before Lowe approached him using foul language. McDonna replied: “You are a foul-mouthed man.” Lowe's response involved throwing a volley of punches to McDonna's face and head. In his defence Lowe claimed that McDonna had begun the exchange by calling into question his character on entering the pub. However, the magistrates found him guilty but decided against a custodial sentence. [Bolton Evening News, 2 September 1875].

In 1876 the pub, along with land used as its bowling green, was sold at an auction for £3719. That's the equivalent in 2019 of over £430,000. It was put up for auction again in 1882 but withdrawn before the sale could take place. It was sold again in 1890 when the purchasers were Magee, Marshall and Co. Magee's retained the pub until 1958 when the company was taken over by Greenall Whitley. However, supplies continued to be taken from their brewery at Cricket Street, off Derby Street, until its closure in 1970.

Bev Mortimer posted an image of the Bowling Green on Pinterest [see here]. She claimed that steps to the side of the pub led to a separate bar where you could buy a jug of ale presumably for off sales. This was a common feature in a number of pubs. The Prince Rupert had a similar arrangement and that was even the case at Yates's Wine Lodge on Bradshawgate until the 1980s. 

The pub's bowling green closed in the 1970s. Lock-up garages were initially built but they were replaced by new houses in the 1980s.

The Greater Manchester beer drinkers' monthly magazine What's Doing reported in its September 1987 issues that the Bowling Green was being transferred from Greenall's managed pub portfolio to a tenanted operation along with the Boars Head on Churchgate and the Cotton Tree on Prince Street. All three pubs were believed to be losing money. However, part of the deal with the Bowling Green was a refurbishment involving the installation of a hexagonal bar. The pub reopened in 1988 when this Bolton Evening News feature  reported that the new tenants were Allan and Lynn Fletcher. The Fletchers were to remain at the pub until around 2002 before moving on to the Dunscar Conservative Club. Their daughter Sharon Pendlebury posted on the I Belong To Bolton Facebook group that her dog Bowler used to come downstairs at the end of each evening with his favourite toy for everyone to throw around.

Greenalls got out of brewing in 1991. It then got out of the pub business in 1999 with the sale of its tenanted pubs to Japanese bank Nomura. Its managed pub division was bought by Scottish and Newcastle.

The Bowling Green was eventually sold on again to Punch Taverns. The pub closed in 2011 and was de-licenced in 2012. The building was converted to an Islamic centre and is unrecognisable from its previous existence. Compare the photo below from 2018 with that at the top of the page.

Copyright Google

Peacock Inn, 137 Great Moor Street, Bolton

Follow @LostPubsBolton

The Peacock was situated at 137 Great Moor Street, just a few doors up from the junction with Crook Street and on the block leading up towards Motive Street.

The pub dated back to the 1830s and the first mention we have is in 1840 when a meeting was advertised to take place on vacant land to the rear of the pub – roughly where the Aldi supermarket now stands. The meeting was called by Chartists who wished to petition Queen Victoria to give a pardon to rioters jailed following a recent disturbance in the town. However, John Robertshaw, who owned the land, gave instructions that under no circumstances could the meeting be held there. After five hours, the Chartists met in the dark on land opposite the nearby Britannia [Manchester Courier, 15 February 1840]. 

By 1841, George Holden is listed as the licensee but his tenure was drawing to a close and on the list of Great Bolton alehouses for 1849, William Rostron was in charge. His name is given as Rawsthorn on the 1861 census.

By 1871 the pub was run by Isaac Turner. He was 67 years old and was assisted by his daughter Sarah Jones and her husband Thomas. Like many who have entered the licensed trade before and since, Isaac’s background was in another vocation. He was a handloom weaver in Cannon Street in 1841 and by 1851 he was working as a yarn dealer in Back Blackburn Street. Blackburn Street was the portion of Deane Road closest to the town centre. By 1881, Isaac was retired and was living with his son in Ralph Street, Halliwell.

The Peacock was auctioned in 1875. The pub, brewhouse and a cottage to the rear of the pub in Edgar Street realised a total of £700. [Bolton Evening News 23 March 1875]. Two years later the new owner, Henry Franks, put in an application to make alterations to the premises. However, the plan was turned down by the planning committee who called in the sanitation committee over the condition of the yard and back premises of the pub. [Bolton Evening News, 23 June 1877].

In 1882 the Peacock was threatened with closure. Licensee John Miller had been fined 40 shillings plus costs for keeping the Peacock open outside permitted hours and also for permitting drunkenness. Later that year, at the annual licensing hearing known as the Brewster Sessions, the police objected to the pub's licence because of that infringement and only an appeal enabled it to remain open.

In 1885, there was a court case featuring two former landlords. Henry Franks left the licensed trade to become an upholsterer. The pub – by then owned by Atkinson's brewery based not far away on Commission Street - was rented to Henry Blackburn for a sum of £32 a year up to 12 May 1885 and £38 a year thereafter. Franks took £25 from Blackburn in respect of fixtures and fittings. It was this sum that Blackburn was claiming back from Franks in the court case. He claimed to have been told by Franks that the pub sold three or barrels of beer whereas in fact it was only selling one barrel every ten days. Blackburn also claimed it was frequented by “very low characters”. [Bolton Evening News, 19 August 1885]. The court threw out his claim.

The Peacock was run for a number of years by the Knowles family. Samuel Knowles was the licensee by 1891 and he lived at the pub with his wife Margaret and two adult children, Faith and John. Knowles had both worked in the cotton industry. Samuel Knowles died in 1898 and Margaret took over assisted by John who also worked in a nearby ironworks. She died in 1912. But in 1905, Mrs Knowles appeared in court over the alleged sale of alcohol to a child under the age of 14. To support their case the prosecution called the child's mother, Bridget Everon, who said she'd recently had a conversation about the child with Mrs Knowles in which she told the pub landlady that she had been informed by the council that the child – a girl - must remain in school until she was 14. She was still 13. Mrs Knowles denied the conversation and claimed she couldn't tell that the girl was under the age of 14. The magistrates accepted her plea and the case was dismissed. [Bolton Evening News, 20 July 1905]

It was around this time that the Peacock was bought by Groves and Whitnall. Based on Regent Road, Salford, the brewery expanded out of its traditional base and bought a large number of pubs from 1898 onwards. Around £12,000 was spent buying suitable public houses between 1898 and 1900 alone. The Peacock was obviously seen as suitable if only to give the brewery a presence in Bolton. It was a small pub – not much bigger than a shop and in the middle of a terrace.

But the Peacock was to only last as long as Groves did. The Salford brewery was taken over by Greenall Whitley in 1961 – the same year the Peacock became a fully-licensed pub. Greenalls closed the former Groves and Whitnall brewery in 1971. The Peacock closed in 1973. Along with a number of properties in the area it was demolished and the extension to Trinity Street was constructed in its place. The exact site of the pub is the traffic island in the middle of the main road at the lights outside Aldi (see below).

Great Moor Street used to continue down to the left of Hargreaves House all the way down to Bradshawgate. The construction of Trinity Way led to the truncation of Great Moor Street and the demolition of a number of properties. The construction of  the original Sainsbury's store (now Mecca Bingo) in 1990 further truncated Great Moor Street. This image was taken in June 2018 and is copyright Google Street View.

Flying Flute - Maxim's - Fleece Hotel, 26-28 Bradshawgate, Bolton

Follow @LostPubsBolton

1970s

The Flying Flute – formerly Maxim's and the Gaiety Bar – was originally known as the Fleece Hotel. The pub dated back to the 18^th century and is named on the Bolton licensing list for 1778 when Francis Wryley was the landlord. However, an article in the Bolton Evening News at the time of a refurbishment in 1972 claimed there was a pub named the Star once on the site before the Fleece.

The current building is at least the second and may well have been the third. The present building is listed and its entry can be seen here. 

For over 40 years in the nineteenth century Thomas Telford was the landlord. Telford began his working life as a coachman but turned to the somewhat saner career of running a pub in the early 1830s.

Under Telford's stewardship the Fleece became a regular meeting point for lodges of the Independent Order of Foresters. He was treasurer of the Bolton district for over 25 years as well as of the Bolton branch of the Amalgamated Engineers Society.

However, Telford was also a controversial character. In September 1841 he was accused of the manslaughter of Charles Wilcock of Bridge Street at the Millstone on Crown Street. The Millstone had an upstairs concert room with singers and variety acts playing on a nightly basis. In 1841 it was run by Telford's nephew Samuel Horrocks. On the night in question Wilcock was sitting at a table near the concert room's piano but he began to make noises to the annoyance of some of the other patrons. After twice being warned he was told by Telford that he would be taken out. “You'll have to eat more porridge then,” a witness claimed Wilcock said. Telford grabbed Wilcock and took him down five steps to a landing that led to a dozen further steps that led to the ground floor. Some witnesses claimed Telford pushed Wilcock down the steps. However, at least two people claimed Wilcock lost his footing and that caused him to fall to the bottom. He died the following day of his injuries and Telford was immediately arrested. The verdict certainly wasn't unanimous. A jury of 17 men found him not guilty of manslaughter and instead returned a verdict of accidental death. One of the dissenters was a local vicar, the Reverend William Jones who proclaimed to the other jurors: “Before I would have returned such a verdict I would have eaten my breeches.” [Bolton Chronicle, 4 September 1841].

In 1850, Telford was back in court following a burglary at the pub. However, the burglar was none other than his 15-year-old son, also named Thomas Telford. Thomas senior testified that the youth had been so troublesome he was no longer allowed to live at the house. Telford junior got into the pub and stole a saw, a plane and some copper nails and sold them to a pawnbroker named Charles Nuttall. The youth chose to be sentenced by magistrates rather than committed for trial. He was sentenced to spend a month at the New Bailey prison in Manchester and was whipped.[Bolton Chronicle, 20 November 1850].

Thomas Telford ran the Fleece until 1863. He retired to Bridgeman Street where he lived until he committed suicide in May 1870. He had been in some pain after suffering from bronchitis and edema for upwards of four months. In the early hours of Sunday 15 May one of his daughters told him the rest of the family were going to bed. Five minutes later when she went back in to his bedroom she discovered he had slit his throat.

Telford was succeeded at the Fleece by John Ward who moved from the Royal Hotel, Derby Street. Prior to that he was a quilt and skirt manufacturer. Ward fancied himself as something of a poet and his ads for the Fleece in the Bolton Evening News often took the form of a rhyme with topical news items inter-weaved with a promotion for the pub. Here was his New Year ad that appeared in the Bolton Evening News of 30 December 1868.

Welcome to 1869

War seems to be threatened by Turkey and Greece

The progress of peace to retard,

Yet all is “serene” at the Bradshawgate “Fleece,”

The hostel of Mr JOHN WARD

The season's arrived when a good Christmas cheer,

Is alike strongly courted by all;

Then from those who would seek choicest Spirits or Beer,

JOHN WARD would solicit a call

His house is improved at enormous expense,

His patrons' favours to gain,

And he promises that, in return for their pence,

They shall not spend their money in vain.

The “Fleece” Inn, Bradshawgate.

Like his predecessor, Ward had problems with one of his offspring. He placed an ad in the Bolton Chronicle of 15 September 1866 warning readers that he would no longer be responsible for debts incurred by his 16-year-old son James.

Ward was one of a number of pub landlords to dabble in politics and was defeated as Conservative candidate for the Bradford ward seat on Bolton council on one occasion.

He died suddenly in December 1874 and was succeeded by his widow. She retired in 1876.

In 1877, the Fleece was sold for £5050. At the same auction the Golden Lion on Churchgate went for £3000. The purchaser of both pubs was Joseph Sharman, a local brewer who had moved from the Crompton's Monument pub on Mill Hill Street to a purpose-built brewery close to Mere Hall. Sharman had begun to build up a local tied estate and the purchase of the Fleece and the Golden Lion, two prominent long-established pubs in the centre of town, was a feather in his cap.

Three years later, Sharman converted his business to a limited company, Joseph Sharman and Co Ltd. The brewery, beer stores in Green Street in the town centre and 10 pubs were to be transferred from his own name to the limited company. Sharman received £25,000 in cash plus 200 shares worth £35 each. Apart from the Fleece and the Golden Lion, the other pubs were:

Mount Pleasant, Mill Street 

Queens Arms, Deansgate

Nelson, Chorley Old Road 

Mount Street Arms, Mount Street 

Elephant and Castle, Kay Street 

Lawsons Arms, Sharples

Rising Sun, Churchbank 

British Oak, Union Street. 

Of those ten pubs, the Nelson – built 1861 - and the much older Golden Lion (now the Churchgate) are still open. The Lawsons Arms is now the Three Pigeons but has been closed since 2011 pending a refurbishment.

Joseph Sharman was also the licensee of the Fleece for a short time and he introduced American billiards to the pub in 1880.

The Fleece was rebuilt in 1907. Whether this was the first or second time isn't known. However, the Manchester Courier ran a classified ad on 8 November 1879 offering the pub 'to let'. It claimed the pub had recently been rebuilt but it gives a good description of how the Fleece looked at that time:

“...contains modern vaults, bar parlours, clubrooms, billiard-room (with two tables), excellent dormitories and every convenience for carrying on the commercial and general trade.”

The 1907 rebuild came as the result of a long-standing plan by Bolton Council to widen Bradshawgate as it approached the junction with Deansgate. This involved the demolition of a number of properties - including the Fleece - and rebuilding them further back.

The pub was demolished in 1907. On 3 September that year the Bolton Evening News ran an advert for an auction being held by local auctioneers Thomas Crompton and Son whose Fold Street rooms were situated close to the Fleece. Over two days Crompton's auctioned off not only the fixtures and fittings of the pub but also the brickwork, the window frames, the plate glass windows and the doors.

While the new Fleece was being rebuilt, trade continued in a small wooden hut. This was offered for sale at Christmas 1910 by which time the new building was complete.

The Fleece remained a Sharman's pub until 1927 when it was acquired by the Leigh brewery of George Shaw & Co. It changed hands again when Shaw's were taken over by Walker Cain of Liverpool in 1930 and became a Tetley Walker pub when that company was formed in 1961.

Derek Sheffield claims on the I Belong To Bolton Facebook group that the pub was nicknamed 'The American Embassy' in the forties. 

However, it was also famed as being frequented by prostitutes. The 'ladies of the Fleece' were notorious even as late as the 1950s.

In 1972, the Fleece had its biggest refurbishment in decades. By now it was owned by Tetley Walker and they decided it needed a new name - the Gaiety Bar.

BOLTON'S newest night-spot, with the old-world atmosphere, the Gaiety Bar, Bradshawgate, opens tonight. Tetley's brewery have scrubbed the exterior and re-built the interior of the former Fleece Hotel to create a pub with an authentic Victorian atmosphere. There has been a pub on the site for well over 100 years, and this is the third name which has been used on the premises. Before the Fleece, the pub on the Ship Gates corner of Bradshawgate, was called The Star. - Bolton Evening News, 20 July 1972.

Towards the end of the seventies the upstairs bar began to put on gigs, particularly on a Thursday when it hosted many local bands. Issues 2  and 3  of local music magazine Town Hall Steps shows that Kaches, JG Spoils, The Reporters, Watt 4, Really Big Men, Warrior, Cliche, Apencil, The Autoze and Night Train were among the acts down to play in the summer of 1981. The gigs continued right up to April 1983 when the Gaiety closed for refurbishment.

Tetley's decided to sell the Gaiety Bar and in May 1980 it became the first pub in Bolton to be owned by the Sunderland-based Vaux Brewery. [What's Doing, the Greater Manchester beer drinkers' monthly magazine, June 1980 issue). The regional brewer was a major force on Wearside; however, it had few pubs in the north-west of England. Vaux saw the Gaiety as their flagship pub in the region and before long they revealed plans for a major refurbishment. A three-week renovation took place in the summer of 1983 and it reopened as Maxim's in June of that year having been knocked into two shops on the same row, one of which was Howard's tobacconist. The name evoked images of Maxim's restaurant in Paris, regarded as the best restaurant in the world for much of the twentieth century. However, the name is more likely to have come from one of Vaux's products, the bottled beer Double Maxim. What's Doing of August 1983 pointed out that the Vaux Samson Ale cost 70 pence a pint when the pub re-opened. That made Maxim's one of the most expensive pubs in the town although 70p in 1983 equates to just £2.30 in 2019.

Maxim's was one of the first pubs in Bolton to gain a permanent licence extension in 1986 when it was granted permission to remain open until 1am. [Bolton Beer Break, Spring 1986 edition].

Five years later, Maxim's underwent another refurbishment involving a four-week closure. [Bolton Beer Break, Spring 1988 issue]. Later that it year it became a Ward's pub although that simply meant a transfer to another part of the Vaux empire, Ward's Brewery being the company's Sheffield subsidiary.

In the summer of 1989 Maxim's hours extension was under threat after licensing officers claimed that food was not for sale. Having hot food on sale was a condition for late opening for pubs and clubs. Often it extended to nothing more than a hatch selling hot dogs and burgers, but the July 1989 edition of What's Doing claimed Maxim's, Maxwell's Plum and the Trotters were all at risk of losing their extensions. All three pubs successfully kept their licensing hours.

Vaux were taken over by financiers in 1999 following a bitter battle that resulted in the brewery being closed. Maxim's became a seventies bar for a short while, Tiger Feet, before changing its name to the Flying Flute.

From 2007 until 2012 the upstairs room operated as Kico playing indie and alternative music until its closure.

The Flying Flute was initially put up for sale in 2014. However, there were no takers and the owners quietly closed it down in November 2017. The building was sold to a company called Raisfuel Ltd whose accounts for the year to 30 April 2018 showed that it paid £336,638 for the property.

In October 2018, it was reported that Raisfuel sought planning permission  to convert the premises into seven maisonettes and one bedsit upstairs with three commercial units on the ground floor. Permission was granted in March 2019 and by the end of that year the three units were being offered to let.

The Flying Flute pictured in April 2017, just over six months before it closed. Copyright Google.