Alma Inn, 152-154 Bradshawgate, Bolton

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The Alma pictured on 29 September 2020

UPDATED WITH DETAILS OF THE PUB'S SURVIVAL

On 8 September 2020, the Alma Inn released a statement announcing that the club would not re-open following a brief period of closure. It had last traded four days earlier but closed for a deep clean after a member of staff tested positive for Covid-19. Just hours before the pub announced that it had closed all Bolton pubs were given notice to shut that day because of spiralling coronavirus infection rates on the town. They were to remain closed for another 24 days. The Alma's licensee was given 14 days to quit by the pub's owner Marston's brewery and with no prospect of the local lockdown being lifted in Bolton at that time it looked as though it had closed for the final time.

The Alma dated back to around the mid-1850s. The first record we have is in 1856 when Aaron Crankshaw is charged with selling beer at unlawful hours. In this case it was at 2.15 on a Sunday morning. Police saw five men coming out of the door and three others were inside. Crankshaw claimed the first five were cabmen while the other three were friends of his and weren't drinking. Magistrates found him guilty and he was fined 10 shillings (50p). [Bolton Chronicle, 9 February 1856]

Crankshaw was the founder of the Alma and he hadn't been at the pub very long at the time of his conviction. Born in 1809, he was described on the 1851 census as a 'whitster' living on the other side of the River Croal in Little Bolton. However, he also worked as a piano tuner and in 1853 he was the organist at St Peters's church in Halliwell. The following year sees him at the Baths Tavern on Lower Bridgeman Street but he moved to what was to become the Alma around 1855.

In the 19^th century it was common for pubs to be named after military figures or great patriotic events. The Battle Of The Alma was fought in September 1854 during the Crimean War. An expeditionary force of British, French and Egyptian troops defeated Russian forces defending the Crimean peninsula at the Alma river. The victory was commemorated by naming pubs the Alma and a number still carry the name. The British named settlements in New Zealand and in Canada after the battle while the French named a new crossing of the Seine in Paris the Ponte d'Alma. The allies' victory was commemorated for some years afterwards. In September 1855, the first anniversary of the battle was celebrated at The Haulgh by the firing of cannon and the burning of effigies of Russian diplomat Prince Gorchakov and his wife at the Anchor on Eagle Street. 

Aaron Crankshaw named his new pub the Alma. However, his tenure wasn't a long one. By 1861 he was a bookkeeper at 137 Blackburn Road although an advertisement from 1886 shows that he was now the landlord of the nearby Rifle and Volunteers, a pub owned by his family. He was also the secretary at that time of the Halliwell Football Club.

Perhaps the reason for Aaron Crankshaw's departure from the Alma was that the pub was struggling. By 1860 it was in the hands of James Pollitt who had a second job as a labourer at the Union Foundry. In February of that year he was involved in an accident at the foundry when a large cylinder fell and hit him in the eye. He was taken to the infirmary and treated by the house surgeon but was sent home the same day despite being not yet out of danger. [Bolton Chronicle, 11 February 1860].

Worse was to follow for Pollitt. In July 1860 he and his daughter Harriet were up in court over the serving of beer after hours. Police claimed Miss Pollitt was seen one Sunday morning serving a quart of beer to an old man who took the beer home. She swore in court that it wasn't her, but her father was found guilty of allowing beer to be served at prohibited hours and Harriet was then charged with perjury. Her father had to bail her out to the tune of £20 although there are no reports as to Harriet's fate when the case finally came to court. [Bolton Chronicle, 7 July 1860]

The Pollitts left soon afterwards and were succeeded by Robert Walkden who remained at the Alma until his death in 1864 at the age of 61. Under his guidance the pub became a meeting place for branches of the Ancient Noble Order of Oddfellows. Walkden had previously been the keeper and messenger of the Bolton Exchange Newsroom, a post he held for 27 years.

In 1871 the Alma was at the centre of a court case involving the building's owner James Hardman and Abraham Hayes, the landlord of the Nelson on Nelson Street. Hayes had been engaged by Hardman to help find a new tenant for the Alma. A Mrs Lovatt was engaged but she refused to meet Hardman's demand for three years' rent up front – the sum of £90. Hayes then approached Bedford Brewery of Leigh and they agreed to meet Hardman's rental demand. The pub would then be sub-let by Bedford's to Mrs Lovatt. Hayes paid £1 to Hardman to bind Bedford's to the deal on the understanding that this deposit would be returned to him when the deal was complete along with a small fee. Hardman claimed that the agreement was for the £1 to be forfeited if the £90 wasn't paid the following the day, but the judge found in Hayes' favour and Hardman had to repay the £1 plus costs. [Bolton Evening News, 18 March 1871]

Bedford's rented the pub from Hardman for a number of years – a Bolton Evening News ad from 1883 has them looking for a tenant without utilising any middle man, but the arrangement was at an end by the end of the 19^th century.

The entrance to the Alma may have looked a lot different had plans put forward in 1883 come to fruition. Bedford's wanted to move the front entrance to the corner of the building and remove the outside entrance to the cellar claiming it would improve the thoroughfare; however, the magistrates threw out the proposal. [Bolton Evening News, 8 March 1883]

In April 1907 a labourer named William Holden of Water Street was sent to jail for one month with hard labour over the theft of a canary worth £2 from the Alma. Holden was drinking in the pub one night but when he left landlady Mrs Sanderson noticed that the canary was missing. Holden was apprehended by PC Lyon and told the officer that he would find the bird at the house of Herbert Hunt, a watchmaker residing at 13 Manor Street. When PC Lyon went to Hunt's house Mrs Hunt claimed Holden had given the bird to her as a present. [Bolton Evening News, 24 April 1907]

In 1911, the Alma's licensee William Wadeson was fined £10 after police found gambling taking place at the pub. [Manchester Courier, 24 November 2011]

In the fifties the pub was popular with bus drivers and conductors working at Bolton Corporation Transports' Shiffnall Street depot (the building still stands as the Excellency wedding venue).

The Alma became a Magees pub in the early part of the 20^th century. Magee Marshall's were taken over by Greenall Whitley in 1958 although production continued at their brewery on Cricket Street, off Derby Street until 1970. Greenall's name was mud in Bolton mainly because their beers were considered inferior to the Magees beers it replaced in their pubs. However, the beer kept in the Alma was good enough for the pub to be included in the Good Beer Guides between 1974 and 1979.

Despite this the Alma closed in the summer of 1979 and was put up for sale by Greenall's. However, the June 1980 edition of What's Doing, the Greater Manchester beer drinkers' monthly magazine, noted that the pub had been sold to Burtonwood's Brewery of Warrington who had spent £13,000 on the living quarters alone. It reopened later that year. Burtonwood's had plans to install handpumps and there were hopes they would begin selling light mild. As recently as the 1950s light mild was the drink of choice in Bolton. Mild is generally seen as a dark beer these days but What's Doing pointed out that in Bolton light milds had always outsold dark milds by a factor of five. However, tastes had changed and What's Doing's September 1982 edition reported that Burtonwood's Light Mild was no longer on sale in the Alma less than 18 months after arriving on the bar. The reason given was a lack of demand.

The landlord of the Alma at this time was Tom Boyle. He had been at the pub in the seventies but left in 1977 for the Dog and Pheasant in Westhoughton. He returned as landlord when Burtonwood's re-opened the pub and his cellarmanship ensured a return to the Good Beer Guide for a number of years in the early- and mid-eighties. Toms wife Edna put on pub food including 'Alma pots' – small ceramic pots of moussaka, curry or chilli con carne served with rice or chips and a side salad. In those days there was a good steady lunchtime trade from local offices and works and you could still drink alcohol partway through the working day without being frowned upon by puritanical management.

The Alma taken in the early-80s shortly before it was knocked into the Bolton Fine Arts shop next door. Image taken from a posting by Bert Kerks on the I Belong To Bolton Facebook page.

For much of its existence the Alma was a small pub on the corner of Bradshawgate and Lomax's Buildings. The building next door was occupied in the early twentieth century by James Richards & Sons, wire workers, before being converted into a shop. By 1983 it was occupied by Bolton Fine Arts. When the building came up for sale that year it was bought by Burtonwood's to be converted into an extension to the Alma. During the conversion a large range built by the local firm of W. Crumblehulme & Sons Ltd.was discovered in the shop premises. The range remains part of the pub.

In the summer of 1988 the Bolton Beer Breaks magazine was reporting that the Alma was trying a novel way to attract customers with the installation of a satellite TV system, one of the first pubs in Bolton to do so. A rotating satellite dish at the rear of the pub moved to pick up transmissions from various satellites. Music videos and sports events were most popular and following the expulsion of English clubs from European football after the Heysel disaster of 1985 coverage of the European Cup was only available at pubs such as the Alma.

In the early nineties the Alma's clientele began to change. The pub had been a stopping-off point for punters on their way to Sparrow's rock disco (formerly Sundowners and now part of Level). In 1992, rock discos ended at the Swan's Malt and Hops bar which was subsequently converted to Barristers real ale pub. The Malt and Hops' former customers gravitated towards the Alma and for 28 years until its closure it was the home of Bolton's rock and metal community. Live music was introduced and hundreds of gigs put on largely of bands playing original compositions. An outdoor area that was originally used by smokers following the ban on smoking in pubs in 2007 was partly covered and a stage installed to accommodate more acts. It wasn't uncommon for over a dozen bands to play over the course of one day using both indoor and outdoor stages.

The rest of the row that the Alma was situated on was demolished in the early nineties and a retail unit built in its place. That unit, along with a unit built at Bradshawgate's junction with Trinity Street, was demolished in 2018. 

But on 9 October 2020, the return was announced of former landlord Jim McGranthin. A posting on the pub's Facebook page read: 

"With great happiness I'm proud to announce the Alma Inn will once again be reopening, under new management. After a monumental effort from Sophie, whilst working with the brewery, police and licensing, we've been able to secure and ensure the physical survival of the Alma's legacy and will be doing our utmost to rebuild, return and then maintain the pub and its reputation back to what it was once known for."

The Alma, March 2011