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| The Nelson photographed in 1972. |
The Nelson was built in 1861 on the corner of Chorley Old Road and Gaskell Street by a man named Philip Howarth. A joiner by trade Howarth was for many years the licensee of the Elephant and Castle on Kay Street.
The premises were a beerhouse but Howarth applied for a full licence at the first opportunity. His chance came at the annual licensing session held in August 1862. A successful application would mean he was able to sell wine and spirits as well as beer, but Howarth was one of 17 applicants. At the hearing he stated the Nelson had been built with the intention of it becoming a public house rather than just a beerhouse. He pointed out that many mills had opened in that part of Chorley Old Road and a large number of houses had been constructed in the area. However, the magistrates rejected Howarth's application along with the other 16. (Bolton Chronicle, 30 August 1862). The Nelson would have to wait another 99 years before obtaining a full licence.
Philip Howarth died in October 1862 aged 56 and the pub passed to his wife Charlotte whom he had married in 1858, but by 1875 the pub was being run by John Leather.
Matters at those new mills didn't always run smoothly. In September 1877 there was a strike amongst the cotton workers of Bolton. A number of trade unions used pubs to pay strike money to people out of work. The Nelson Hotel was one of those used by the Self-Actor Minders Association. Other pubs used by the association to pay out strike money in the dispute were the Cross Guns at Deane, the Cotton Tree on Lever Street, the Park at Moses Gate, the Derby Arms on Churchgate and the Pack Horse at Astley Bridge. Strike pay was 10 shillings a week plus an extra shilling per child.
In the early days of the Nelson, before the construction of houses around Gaskell Street, there was a cricket ground attached to the pub. The Bolton Chronicle of 22 August 1863 reported that players used to meet in the Nelson before matches and that the pub was used as an unofficial clubhouse. It was common for players to turn up at the pub before the game for a drink and then leave their belongings inside before going off to play. However, the paper reported that two young men, Joseph Bradley of Halliwell and Alfred Stones of Chorley Street, were charged with stealing a waistcoat, a return railway ticket, an ancient coin and a silver pencil case, the property of Mr Frederick Topp, a cotton spinner from Farnworth. The pub's landlady, Mrs Charlotte Howarth, challenged the men about the waistcoat when Mr Topp returned to the pub at the end of the game. Bradley produced it from beneath his coat claiming it had been taken for “a lark”. Both he and Stones were apprehended by the police on the Monday following the match and they were kept in custody until the hearing three days later. The Mayor, who was presiding over the bench, discharged the men stating that the degradation they had suffered from being locked up before the hearing ought to be enough punishment.
Cricket wasn't the only sport featured at the Nelson. In the 1890s Bolton Harriers frequently began their cross-country runs from the pub.
By 1880 the Nelson was owned by a local brewer, Joseph Sharman. A native of Derbyshire, Sharman began brewing at the Crompton's Monument at Mill Hill, a pub owned by his aunt, before building the Mere Hall Brewery, a few hundred yards away from the Nelson, in 1874. In 1880, Sharman converted his business from that of a sole trader into a limited company and the Nelson was one of the original 10 pubs. As part of the transition Sharman received £25,000 in cash – the equivalent of over £3 million in 2019. He lived at the Hollies, just a few yards away from the Nelson on Chorley Old Road on the site of what is now Gaskells Nursery, so the Nelson was effectively his local pub. Sharman lived at The Hollies until his death in 1916.
Sharman's grew to become a sizeable enterprise with 58 pubs and 25 off-licences but the business was bought out by the Leigh brewery of George Shaw & Son in 1927. Sharman's brewery was closed and the Nelson was a Shaw's pub for three years until 1930 when the brewery was taken over by Peter Walker and Robert Cain Ltd of Liverpool and Warrington. Walker Cain, as it became in 1946, merged with Joshua Tetley & Son Ltd of Leeds in 1960 to become Tetley Walker. It was as a Tetley pub that many older readers will remember the Nelson. Finally, in 1961, it was granted a spirits licence when a raft of Bolton pubs successfully applied for full licences.
The Bolton branch of the Campaign For Real Ale published a list of all the town's pubs in 1982. At that time the Nelson was a keg-beer Tetley pub. Indeed, it was never one for the real ale purist. However, the pub's interior was a classic design of lounge on the right of the front entrance and a vault to the left that could be reached by a separate entrance in Gaskell Street. That vault later became a pool room.
Tetley's gradually got out of the pub trade during the nineties. The Nelson was one of a small number of pubs that ended up in the hands of an individual rather than a pub group. It became notable for distinctive bright blue shutters both upstairs as well as downstairs which suggested that the licensee didn't live on the premises. However, opening times became sporadic and WhatPub's suggestion that the Nelson closed in April 2019 appears to be an estimate albeit a fairly accurate one.
In August 2020 planning permission was granted to convert the pub into flats.
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