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| Kay Street pictured in 2020 (copyright Google Street View). The Blue Bell was situated approximately where the car park is. |
The Blue Bell was situated at 145 Kay Street close to the junction with China Lane.
The pub dated back to the 1840s. James Graham is listed as the licensee in the Bolton Directory of 1848.
Landlady Jane Mason was in court in 1864 over the serving of beer on a Sunday morning. Undercover police were in the habit of entering pubs on Sundays at a time when the sale of beer was prohibited until after church services had taken place. When police entered the Blue Bell at a quarter to eleven one Sunday morning there were three men in the kitchen, two of them with half-pints of ale. While the police were there a woman walked into the pub placed twopence on the table and asked for a pint. Mrs Mason was fined 10 shillings plus costs. [Bolton Chroncle, 18 June 1864].
Four years later an infant death was recorded at the Blue Bell. John William McNalley, the illegitimate son of Margaret McNalley, a domestic servant at the pub, was found dead on the premises despite having been well when Miss McNalley took him to bed at midnight the previous night. At 4am he was well enough to feed but when the landlady called his mother at 20 minutes past six the infant was dead on her arm. The borough corner's inquest verdict was “found dead”. [Bolton Chronicle, 22 August 1868]
By 1869 the owner of the Blue Bell was a local brewer, William Young. He was sued by tenant Robert Haslam for £30. Haslam had signed an agreement to take beer from Young but he broke the agreement claiming the beer was inferior in quality and short in measure. Young in turn sued Haslam for £19 4 shillings (£19.20) for beer but in court he accepted £15. [Bolton Evening News, 10 July 1869]
Haslam left the Blue Bell in September. He was succeeded by Reuben Bennett whose family were to remain at the pub for the next 56 years. Bennett was a 27-year-old former wheelwright when he took over as licensee. He was landlord for 24 years until his death of a suspected heart attack during a bowls match at the Royal Oak in Bradshaw in 1893. His widow Mary took over the running of the pub and she was still there when she died in 1925.
The Blue Bell was owned for a number of years by Halliwell's Brewery which was situated next to the Alexandra beerhouse on Stewart Street. Founder John Halliwell slowly built up a small tied estate but he died in 1885 and his son Edward took over the running of the company. However, the executors of John Halliwell's estate decided to auction off the brewery along with its 12 tied pubs including the Blue Bell. Edward Halliwell managed to fend off interest from three of Bolton's bigger breweries: Tong's, Magee Marshall and Sharman's but it was to cost him £30,500. The deal included off-licences on Halliwell Road, Morris Green Lane, John Brown Street, Hill Lane, Back Turton Street, George Street and Balshaw Street. [Bolton Evening News, 4 December 1890]
In 1910 the Alexandra Brewery, along with its pubs and off-licences was bought by Magee Marshall.
The Blue Bell closed in 1933. The stretch of Kay Street that included the pub still stands although the building was demolished in the sixties.
China Lane ran from Higher Bridge Street, down the side of Holdsworth's Mill to Kay Sreet.
