Quiet Woman, Bury New Road (Bradford Street), The Haulgh

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The site of the Quiet Woman/Bradford Hotel in 2014

The Quiet Woman existed as a beerhouse from 1836 to 1871. It was the predecessor to the Bradford Hotel. 

Little is known of the pub's early days although Richard Fogg (1783-1858) appears to have been a pivotal figure. Fogg was a bleacher living at Top O'Th Haulgh according to the 1841 census. However, the Bolton directory for 1843 has him down as a beerseller at The Haulgh and it seems likely that it was at the Quiet Woman.

By 1851, Fogg was still a beerseller but his address was given as Fogg's Houses in The Haulgh. The appendix of 'Houses' to a name suggested the whole of a row was owned by the same person. That was perhaps stretching the point a little as there appears to have been just the pub and an adjoining cottage that made up Fogg's Buildings.

Fogg died in 1851. The Bolton Chronicle of 3 July 1858 reported that on the day of his death the 75-year-old Fogg had brewed as usual at the brewery attached to the pub. At around eight o'clock that night he began to complain of a pain in his bowels. He went to bed at ten o'clock and died at midnight.

Fogg's wife Betty remained at the pub until 1868 when she decided to sell up. The premises were sold along with an adjoining cottage for £270 to a farmer at The Haulgh named John Marsh. The transaction was the subject of a court case in 1869 when Marsh was successfully sued by an estate agent named George Ferguson for outstanding legal fees worth £12 2 shillings. [1]

It seems that Marsh didn't run the pub himself. Rather he installed Robert Bowcock as licensee. In April 1870, Boocock was accused of permitting drunkenness at his house. PC Mosely claims to have seen six men in the front room of the Quiet Woman. All were drunk, some more than others. Three women were in the kitchen and a man named Brennan had blood flowing from his mouth. Brennan claimed that the men had come in to the house already drunk but that the three women were powerless to throw them out. However, evidence was also given that there was not enough drink in the house for the men to be drunk and that Brennan had entered the house with the intention of fighting its occupants. Even so, the court, presided over by Mayor Joseph Musgrave found that the case was proven and he fined Bowcock 20 shillings (£1) plus costs. [2]

Bowcock left soon afterwards and George Holden took over. But in January 1871 the pub was up for sale once again. It closed down shortly after it was was sold and was soon demolished. The Bradford Hotel was erected in its place and opened later that year.

[1] Bolton Evening News, 8 May 1869.

[2] Bolton Evening News, 21 April 1870.

Bradford Arms/Bradford Hotel, Bradford Street

Site of the Bradford Arms, now occupied by four townhouses. April 2014.

The Bradford Hotel – or the Bradford Arms as it later became known – was situated at 107 Bradford Street, The Haulgh.  

The pub was first licensed in 1880 after the transfer of the licence of the White Bear on Deansgate.  [1]

That part of The Haulgh had recently been built up.  An 1850 map of the area shows a sparsely populated Haulgh New Road, as Bradford Street was then known. Radcliffe Road was known as Haulgh Lane and the area further along the lane, heading back towards town near Castle Street on the right-hand side was a tree-lined area known as Top O’Th Haulgh.

By 1891 Haulgh Lane was named Bradford Street and the Bradford Hotel had been built and named after the street on which it stood.  A large saw mill stood next to the pub towards Bury Road with Highfield House and its gardens standing across the road.

By the 1920s the Bradford was owned by William Tong & Sons Ltd whose Diamond Brewery stood at the top of Blackshaw Lane at the junction with Deane Road.  Tong’s was taken over by Walker Cain Ltd of Warrington in 1923 before becoming a Tetley pub on their takeover of Walker’s in 1960.

The pub had lost the ‘Hotel’ suffix some years earlier and was now the Bradford Arms. There have been at least three other pubs in the area by that name: one less than half a mile away at the top of Bridgeman Place closed in 1936, while a pub of the same name on Foundry Street closed in 1960. There is still a Bradford Arms on Buckley Lane in Farnworth.

A contributor posted this picture of the Bradford Arms to the 70s Bolton Facebook group. [2] The group of men outside the pub are Bolton Wanderers fans waiting for some Burnley fans who were drinking inside. The photograph was taken on 4 April 1988 prior to a Division 4 match between the two sides at Burnden Park. Fighting broke out shortly after the picture was taken and continued all the way up Bradford Street to the town centre. 

The end for the Bradford came in 2004. The pub struggled on through the nineties and the first decade of the millennium and was undergoing a refurbishment in December of that year when a fire broke out in a first floor room. A workman on the site was alerted to the fire when his radio cut out and managed to escape. [3]

The pub remained empty for over three years before being demolished in 2008. Developers then submitted plans for four townhouses on the empty site which was sold with planning permission the following year. The townhouses were completed in 2012.

Here's a picture of the pub for sale in 2008.

[1] Pubs Of Bolton 1800-2000, by Gordon Readyhough. Published by Neil Richardson (2000).

[2] Facebook. 70s Bolton.

[3] Bolton News, 11 February 2008. Full report here.