Bridgeman Arms, 81 Bridgeman Street

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The original Bridgeman Arms was open from around 1825 and closed down in about 1843. It was situated close to the junction of Bridgeman Street and Crook Street. On its closure the name was used by a beerhouse that had just opened a couple hundred yards away on Bridgeman Street and it is this pub we shall deal with in this article.

The owner of the second Bridgeman Arms was James Leach who would later go on to open the Albert on Derby Street  and would found a brewery at that pub that was to last until the 1930s. In 1841, James owned a shop on the north side of Bridgeman Street, the other side of the road to where the pub was situated. He worked as a carder with his wife Ann running the shop, but they moved across the street and James decided to expand the business through the sale of beer that could be consumed on the premises.

James Leach is listed on the 1851 census as being at the Bridgeman Arms. At the time he was 38-years-old and lived there with Ann (34) and five children: James (14), Alice (12), Selina (10), Levi (7) and Emma (1). The following year they left for the Albert.

By 1853, the pub was being run by a firm named Shaw and Co but by the 1860s it was in the hands of the Williams family. Thomas Williams was hauled before the magistrates in August 1869 accused of selling beer “at improper” hours. That meant a Sunday morning and local Police Constables Dearden and Greenhalgh were often on the prowl looking for pubs selling beer to people who really ought to have been in church. On this occasion PC Greenhalgh saw a woman inside the pub. Thomas Williams was in the cellar where he was observed filling a jug and then a quart bottle with beer. He turned to walk up the cellar steps and saw the constable in front of him. Williams was fined 10 shillings. [1] The bad news was that the conviction imperilled Thomas Williams’ licence as his conviction took place just a matter of weeks before beerhouses had to re-apply for their licences for the first time. Thomas Williams also had a beerhouse in nearby Moncrieffe Street. His son Henry took over the Bridgeman Arms.

Under Henry Williams the Bridgeman Arms was again featured in the Bolton Evening News just a few weeks later, but this time it was for the success of the pub’s leek show. The paper described it as:

“in all respects one of the most successful not only in point of quality but attendance of visitors.” [2]

Thirty-four leeks were on show and a “capital table of prizes” included a number of copper kettles and teapots.

Henry Williams ran the Bridgeman with his wife Mary but by 1881 he had moved to Birkdale just outside Southport where he became the proprietor of the Park Hotel which still [2016] stands close to Birkdale station. He was running the Park along with Sarah-Ann Pennington who is described as his cousin. There was no sign of Mary.

Back at the Bridgeman Arms, a Scot, Thomas Robertson, was landlord in 1881. He had moved on to the Oxnoble further up Bridgeman Street by 1891, the Little John on Lever Street by 1895 and in 1901 he was at the Cotton Tree, also on Lever Street. His daughter Edith married ‘into the trade’. She married James Ferguson in 1904 and by 1911 they were at the Black Lion on Turton Street. 

In 1891 the then landlord of the Bridgeman Arms, Henry Parkinson was fined after being found guilty on one charge of betting and one charge of gaming. The police were on the prowl in 1891 and a series of raids on Bolton pubs resulted in 56 cases brought before the courts. Parkinson was accused of taking bets and of allowing a game of ‘nap’ to take place in his pub. He was fined 40 shillings on both counts – a total of £4 and the equivalent of £450 today. His license was endorsed and he left the pub soon afterwards. [3]

Parkinson was succeeded by William B Lodge. A native of Bradford, Lodge was only 21 when he took over the pub in 1893. He was a plumber’s apprentice in 1891 living with his grandparents in Chorley Street. He married Alice Howarth in 1892 and their son William was born in October of that year. The family moved into the Bridgeman in 1893, but Alice died in 1898 and William left the pub soon afterwards. He died in Blackpool just a year later at the age of 27.

The Bridgeman was an Atkinson’s pub who supplied it from their brewery on Commission Street, off Deane Road. It was sold to Magee’s in the 1890s but was nominally a Greenall’s house when it closed in 1959. The whole of the bottom end of Bridgeman Street was remodelled. Hundreds of nineteenth-century properties were demolished and replaced by an industrial estate.

David Robinson has posted a number of photos and anecdotes from final days of the Bridgeman Arms on the excellent Facebook group I Belong To Bolton. David’s grandparents were the final licensees of the pub before its closure in 1959.

[1] Bolton Evening News, 26 August 1869

[2] Bolton Evening News, 18 October 1869

[3] Manchester Courier, 29 May 1891

Bridgeman Street looking up from the Thynne Street end. The entrance to Sainsbury’s on the right-hand side was carved out of the rear entrance to the old Hick, Hargreaves factory in 2004. A part of the former factory still stands and is visible on the right. Hick, Hargreaves moved out of that part of the complex in the eighties. Brolit Welding and River Street Glass have been there since. The Bridgeman Arms was situated opposite the nearest edge of the building as we look. The beginning of the bus stop lay-by now stands on the site of the pub.

Bridgeman Arms, Crook Street - Bridgeman Street

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There were two pubs that went by the name of the Bridgeman Arms in the Bridgeman Street-Crook Street area. This about the first such pub which lasted from at least 1824 until the 1840s and was situated on Crook Street.

The pub was founded by Richard Makin who first appears as the landlord in the 1824 Bolton Directory. The previous Directory, for 1821/2, had no reference to the pub.

By 1830 the Bridgeman Arms was owned by Jeremiah Hardcastle who died in October of that year. A newspaper report says that he retired to bed one night only to be found dead in his bed at two o’clock the following morning. He died of an apoplectic fit and the verdict given at his inquest was: “Death by the visitation of God”. [1] By 1836 the pub was run by George Hutchinson.

Interestingly, the address of the Bridgeman Arms was given as Bradford Square which was the name given to the area around what is now Trinity Street prior to the construction of the Bolton to Manchester railway line. The railway opened in 1838.

Gordon Readyhough gives the pub’s date of closure as being around 1840 [2]. Certainly it was a landmark on census reports of 1841. [3]   By then it was being run by George’s wife Peggy Hutchinson and there is no indication as to what had happened to George. Its address according to the census was Bridgeman Street though it is listed as the first property after the junction with Crook Street. In those days Bridgeman Street continued across the railway line to link up with what is now known as Lower Bridgeman Street. In that case it may well have been at the junction of Crook Street and Bridgeman Street but backing in on to Bradford Square. That would put it in vicinity of the Albion Hotel on Bridgeman Street. 

Peggy Hutchinson was still running the pub according to the 1843 Directory but it seems to have closed shortly afterwards. However, it isn't beyond the realms of possibility that it changed its name to the Albion. 

The Bridgeman Arms name was subsequently used by a beerhouse that opened in the mid-1840s and was situated at 81 Bridgeman Street.

[1] Manchester Courier, 2 November 1830.

[2] Bolton Pubs 1800 – 2000, by Gordon Readyhough. Published by Neil Richardson (2000).

[3] Lancashire Online Parish Clerk project. Accessed 1 January 2016.

An 1824 Map of Bolton. Bradford Square can be seen in the lower half of the picture.

York Street Tavern, 48 York Street

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The York Street Tavern was one of a large number of beerhouses and pubs – we’ve counted just under 30 - that stood in an area between Bridgeman Street and Lever Street.

The first mention we have of the York Street Tavern was in 1869 when David Sumner was the landlord (by 1871 he was at the Lord Napier on Bridgeman Street). That makes it one of the later pubs in the area. But nearby streets all had their own pubs. Coe Street had two and Foundry Street had two, while Sidney Street had no fewer than four.

York Street itself ran from Bridgeman Street down to Cochrane Street and it contained around 60 houses with Maxfield Street running across it about two-thirds of the way down.

David Sumner was succeeded by Robert Handley and by 1895 the pub was under the control of Mrs Alice Hamer. Subsequent directories list Richard Holt in 1905 and Joseph Wood in 1924.

The York Street Tavern was a rare outlet in the area for John Halliwell and Sons’ Alexandra Brewery at Halliwell, but they fell into financial difficulties in 1910 and had to be rescued by Magees, a much more local business less than a mile away up Daubhill.

It was as a Magees house that the York Street Tavern ended its days in the early sixties. Or to be accurate, a Greenalls house given they took over Magees in 1958 though the Cricket Street brewery didn't close until 1970.

The 30 pubs in the Bridgeman Street/Lever Street area had steadily diminished over the years, but the 1954 Ordnance Survey map still shows 21. There are now just three: the Park, the Queen Elizabeth and the Little John, along with the Irish Club in what used to be the Nightingale.

York Street itself didn’t fare too well following the clearance. Nile Street survived, as did Coe Street and Cochrane Street. Sidney Street was cut to less than half its original length, while Foundry Street was reduced to just a hundred yards or so. But York Street and  John Taylor Street – named after the 28-year-old who became Bolton’s first borough coroner in 1839 – were completely obliterated.

This industrial unit stands on what was once York Street.  For many years it was a branch of Booker Cash and Carry but is now the home of Assembly Solutions Ltd. 

Pineapple, 117 Bridgeman Street

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The Pineapple at 117 Bridgeman Street is unusual in that it bore the name of a fruit. But it was one of no fewer than four Bolton pubs of that name. The one at Astley Bridge survives, but there also Pineapples at Darcy Lever and on Water Street, off Manor Street in the town centre.

The one on Bridgeman Street dates back to the 1860s. The first reference we can find is in the 1869 Bolton Directory when it was being run by James Smethurst. The 1871 census shows James, aged 58, who is described as an iron moulder and beer seller. His wife Mary, 56, is also a beerseller, though in all probability that would mean she ran the pub while he had a job elsewhere. Certainly, James is described as an iron moulder on the baptismal certificates of eight of the couple's children going right back to 1835.

The Smethursts remained at the Pineapple until James’s death at the age of 70 in 1882. Mary went off to live in Little Bolton where she died in 1902, aged 87.

The licensing authorities tried to shut down the Pineapple in 1903, citing it as a ‘disorderly house’. [1] By that time it was owned the Manchester Brewery Company. It had been bought by the Bolton brewery of Wingfield’s in the 1890s, but Wingfield’s were taken over by MBC in 1899 and MBC were a company in crisis. A series of takeovers had financially stretched the company and tied houses such as the Pineapple were seen to have been neglected. The company put Thomas Delaney in charge after winning the fight to remain open. Indeed, it remained open for another 33 years.

In the end, the Pineapple closed due to financial pressures in 1936. The premises, which were situated on the corner of Coe Street, remained standing until the whole area was cleared in the 1950s.

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

Bridgeman Street in September 2014 (copyright Google Street View). Coe Street runs off to the right. The Pineapple stood on the corner visible in the shot.

New Inn, 45 Coe Street

The New Inn pictured shortly before its closure in 1960.

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The New Inn was situated at 45 Coe Street on the corner of the junction with Maxfield Street. It was known as the New Inn presumably to differentiate it from the Coe Street Tavern  just over the road. The Tavern was the senior of the two pubs with the New Inn opening in the 1860s.

William Hamer was an early landlord at this pub-brewery but he left in the mid-1870s and Joseph Mangnall took over. Joseph was a Chorley man and a joiner by trade, but his father had run a pub in Chorley so he was no stranger to the licensed trade. Joseph had married his wife Ann in Belmont and the couple’s son was born in the village, but by 1868 the family were living in Bolton and residing at Bamber Street, off Derby Street, by 1871.

The 1876 Directory shows Joseph Mangnall as the owner of the New Inn, but Ann died in 1882 at the age of just 50 and that may have been the catalyst for Joseph’s exit from the pub.  He re-married in 1886, to Hannah Walker, a widow from Great Lever, but his trade at the time of marriage is described as a joiner. By 1891 the couple were living on St Helens Road with Joseph described as an ‘out of work joiner’. He died in 1900.

As an aside, Joseph’s son James Ernest Mangnall achieved some fame in the world of football. Ernest – he dropped the first name - was educated at Bolton School and was a notable amateur goalkeeper in his youth playing for the Lancashire FA side. He was appointed a director of Bolton Wanderers in the 1890s, but he was approached to become manager of Burnley in 1899. He moved to Manchester United in 1903 where he was responsible for the building of the club’s Old Trafford ground. He led United to their first major honours with two league titles and an FA Cup before leaving in 1912 for a 12-year stint as manager of Manchester City. He wasn’t as successful at City, failing to win any trophies, but he oversaw the club’s move to Maine Road. He was also instrumental in setting up the Central League competition for reserve sides, and the Football Managers Association. [1] [2] [3]

 Joseph Mangnall was succeeded at the New Inn by Thomas Aspden. Thomas was another Chorley man who had spent a number of years living in Breightmet where he had worked as a brewer. There were no commercial breweries in Breightmet at that time so it is likely that he brewed for a number of individual pubs in the area that had their own small breweries.

The 45-year-old Thomas Apsden was listed at the New Inn on Coe Street in the 1891 Census. His wife Sarah was 47 and their daughter 21-year-old Mary helped out at the pub until her marriage to Frederick Beech in 1895. But Thomas wasn’t at the New Inn for long and was described as a ‘retired beer seller’ living on Chorley Old Road in 1901. He lived there until he died in 1922. His estate of £6020 wasn’t bad for a jobbing brewer and pub landlord – the equivalent of over £260,000 today.

The New Inn was sold to Wingfield’s of Nelson Square in the 1890s – perhaps by Thomas Aspden. The Nelson family took over from Thomas Aspden, first William Nelson and then, from 1912, his son Walter.

A series of takeovers saw the New Inn change hands. Wingfield’s were taken over by the Manchester Brewery Company in 1899. They were in turn taken over by the Salford firm of Walker and Homfray’s in 1912. Wilson’s bought out Walker and Homfray’s in 1949 and it was as a Wilson’s house that the New Inn closed. Gordon Readyhough puts this at around 1960. [4]

The properties on Coe Street and its neighbouring streets were all demolished during the late-fifties and early-sixties. The 1954 street map shows that the row of houses opposite the New Inn had already been demolished. Unlike Maxfield Street, Coe St wasn’t entirely wiped off the map, but instead of rows of terraced houses it has hosted an industrial estate for the past 50 years.

[1] Mangnall family. Accessed 16 February 2015  

[2] Wikipedia. Accessed 16 February 2015 

[3] Clarets Mad. Accessed 16 February 2015 

[4] Bolton Pubs 1800 – 2000, by Gordon Readyhough. Published by Neil Richardson (2000).

Coe Street pictured in September 2014 (copyright Google Street View).  The spare land next to the Folsana works has never been built on, but the gates were once on the corner of Maxfield Street. The New Inn was on the far side of that corner.

Oliver Cromwell, 125 Bridgeman Street

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The Oliver Cromwell was situated on Bridgeman Street, on the corner of York Street and Back Coe Street, neither of which are still in existence. It dated back to the middle of the nineteenth century.The Sir Sidney Smith was just three doors away until that pub's closure in 1934.

In September 1854, landlord Ralph Fairhurst fell foul of the recently-passed Sale Of Beer Act. The act forced pubs and beerhouses to close between the hours of 2.30 and 6pm on a Sunday afternoon with another closing time of ten o'clock on a Sunday night. Fairhurst was charged with having a number of persons in his pub at 5.30 one Sunday afternoon. He argued that he was at his wife's funeral at the time in question and had left his brother-in-law in charge. As Fairhurst had no previous complaints against him he given just a 5 shilling fine. [Bolton Chronicle, 2 September 1854]

The Oliver Cromwell was one of David Magee's first pubs. Magee was at the Good Samaritan on Derby Street in 1853 but he snapped up pubs as he tried to find a market for his beers. One of those pubs was the Oliver Cromwell.

In 1869 Magee ran into a problem when the Oliver Cromwell's licence was revoked. This was on the grounds that the licensee, William Burtonwood, was a drunken person and had twice been fined. [Bolton Evening News, 15 September 1870]. The case went as far as an appeal to the quarterly Salford Hundred Quarter Sessions in November 1869 where it again refused. Burtonwood was given notice to quit by Magee and the pub remained closed for over a year until new landlord Edmund Charlesworth was eventually granted a licence in November 1870.

For many years, from the late-1870s until 1916, the pub was run by the Barrow family who lived in nearby Burns Street according to the 1871 census. The pub was initially run by Joseph Barrow, a man who was to become well-known to the police and courts.

In March 1879, Barrow appeared at an inquest regarding the death of a local man, John Andrew Sykes, who lived in John Taylor Street just yards from the pub. Sykes was hit with the double blow of losing his job at Norris's timber yard on Bridgeman Street and being rejected by the object of his affections, a girl working as a servant in a local public house. On Friday 21 March 1879, Sykes walked into the Oliver Cromwell and told those present that he was going to drown himself. He added that he had one penny left to his name and that he would buy a gill – half a pint – of ale with it. Landlord Joe Barrow said that if he had a penny then he should have a full pint and he served him with one. Sykes then asked four other people in the pub to drink with him. He emptied his pockets giving away his pipe, his tobacco and two buttons, one of which Joe Barrow nailed to the wall of the tap room as a memento. Barrow also asked for a lock of his hair, a wish that Sykes was unwilling to grant. Then, rather chillingly, Barrow advised Sykes that as the water was so cold he ought to find a warm-water lodge in which to drown himself. Nobody sought to try and talk Sykes out of his suicide. As Sykes left the pub he said: “Good neet, owd lad. Tha'll never see me any more.” Barrow responded by suggesting to Sykes that he went home to bed but the following morning Sykes' body was fished out of the lodge at Marsden's mill on Cochrane Street at the top of York Street. A verdict of 'temporary insanity' was given. [Bolton Evening News, 25 March 1879; Yorkshire Post and Leeds Intelligencer 25 March 1879].

Joe Barrow liked a bet but it was to get him in trouble on two occasions. In December 1879 he was sued by William Sheppard for £10, the sum being a bet Sheppard had with Barrow over a foot-race between Sheppard and a man named Hall. The race wasn't run but Barrow kept the money, anyway, claiming it was part of a written agreement. But as neither he or his solicitor were able to provide a copy of the agreement the judge found against him. He also ordered him to pay costs on the grounds that he was a pub landlord. “They have these things to bring people to their beerhouses in order to drink,” the judge told his barrister.

But Joe Barrow faced a far more serious charge the following year. On Sunday 17 October 1880 police raided six pubs in the Bolton area. Around 60 officers were despatched to the Oliver Cromwell, the Kay Street Arms and the Black Horse both on Kay Street, the Ancient Shepherd on Bold Street, the Turk's Head on Bridge Street and the Sun Ray on Mill Street. Officers were placed at each entrance of the six pubs to prevent anybody from leaving. Other officers entered the pubs and took away betting books, papers, lists and telegrams. Among the publications found were the Sporting Life and McColl's Turf Calendar. Sixty men were arrested and some of the pub landlords were found with as much as £10 on them – a huge sum in those days. The men were taken to the Town Hall where a large crowd of people gathered and remained until midnight.

When the came case to court at the end of October the number of defendants was reduced to 50 – the charges against ten men in the Ancient Shepherd having been withdrawn. The case against Barrow hinged on PC Gaskell eavesdropping on a conversation about betting odds while he was outside the pub. However, Gaskell couldn't say for sure that the voice he heard was that of Barrow and the case was dismissed.

Joseph Barrow died in June 1893. The Oliver Cromwell was taken over by his sister Ellen Barrow who remained there until she died in 1916. Ellen had previously worked as a servant to the Sparling family on Manchester Road. By 1901, one of the Sparling children, Hannah Sparling (born 1868) was also living at the Oliver Cromwell along with Ellen and Ellen's nephew who was also named Joseph Barrow.

The Oliver Cromwell became a tied of Magee Marshall in 1888 when that firm was formed by merging David Magee's properties and the brewery he had built on Cricket Street, off Derby Stree, with Daniel Marshall's pubs and his Grapes Brewery on Water Street.

When the area between Bridgeman Street and Lever Street began to be cleared in the late-fifties Magee’s saw an opportunity. The fate of the Oliver Cromwell and a nearby pub, the Peels Arms on Sidney Street, had already been sealed and the two pubs were due for demolition. But Magee’s – recently taken over by the Warrington-based Greenall Whitley -  were building a new pub, the Morris Dancers on the corner of Sapling Road and Morris Green Lane. The brewery did a deal with the licensing magistrates whereby the licences for the doomed Oliver Cromwell and Peels Arms were surrendered and a full licence obtained for the MorrisDancers.

The Oliver Cromwell closed in 1962. The building was demolished shortly afterwards. In his reminiscences of the area – see comment below- Fred Spencer, who was born at 1 York Street, writes that the last landlady was Mrs Duffy.

CHARGE OF OBTAINING MONEY BY FALSE PRETENCES. 

A middle-aged man named John Young, described as a millwright, was charged with obtaining 2 shillings and 6 pence, from James Dawson, of the Oliver Cromwell beerhouse, Bridgeman Street, by false representations. Mr John Gordon conducted the prosecution, and Mr Richardson appeared for the defence. It appeared that the prisoner went to the house, represented himself as a millwright just engaged at Messrs Hargreaves mill, and after obtaining lodgings there, borrowed 2 shillings and 6 pence, which he said he wanted to release his luggage from the railway station. The prosecution, however, did not succeed in establishing the fraudulent pretence, and the prisoner was discharged. It was stated that there were a number of other cases of a similar character against him. 

- Bolton Chronicle, 9 May 1857.

INGENIOUS DETECTION OF A BEERHOUSE OFFENCE. 

William Cromwell, landlord of the Oliver Cromwell public house, Bridgeman Street, was charged with opening his house for the sale of intoxicating liquors at improper hours on Sunday morning last. Mr Ramwell defended. Police-constable Greenhalgh said that, at half past eleven o'clock, he, in company with Police-constable Dearden, went to the defendant's beerhouse, and observed three men go into the house by the back door. He saw them come out again, and the officers then went into the house and found defendant's wife with a half-gallon jug and a glass in her hand. She then went downstairs followed by the officers who saw her spill the ale in the jug all over the floor. Upon Greenhalgh attempting to get hold of the jug, she threw what was left of the ale in his face. Police-constable Dearden corroborated this testimony, and the magistrates fined the defendant 20 shillings and costs. 

- Bolton Evening News, 21 January 1869.

Bridgeman Street pictured in September 2014 (copyright Google Street View). The Oliver Cromwell was situated on the right-hand side at the bend in the road and opposite the entry to  Lecturers  Closes on the left.

Article re-written 3 October 2018.

Globe, Bridgeman Street

We dealt recently with the Globe Inn on Higher Bridge Street, but there was another pub by that name over on Bridgeman Street.

Nobody will remember the Globe on Bridgeman Street as it closed in 1869 and the licensing records don’t even report where on the street it actually was.

The Globe was a beerhouse, one of many that sprang up in the town as a result of the 1830 Beer House Act. Anyone could convert part of their home into a beer house on payment of £2. That was still a decent wedge of money in the middle of the 19^th century, but it wasn’t enough to deter many people. By 1854 there were 208 beer houses in Bolton along with 118 fully-licensed pubs. In the following 15 years a further 121 beer houses opened up and it seems the Globe on Bridgeman Street was one of those. [1]

However, a change in the law in 1869 made it much easier for local magistrates to close down beer houses. They certainly went at it. A total of 69 beer houses were immediately closed and the Globe was one of the pubs that came to an end.

Magistrates used any pretext to refuse licenses and pubs such as the Unicorn on Deansgate, the Railway Bridge Inn on Dawes Street and the Pen Street Arms on Pen Street disappeared almost at a whim. On the other hand, the Music Hall Tavern on Gaskell’s Court – a short thoroughfare off Churchgate the entrance to which can still be seen next to the Brass Cat – saw its licence refused because four ‘loose girls’ lived there, according to the police.

But if the magistrates were looking for a reason to close the Globe on Bridgeman Street then they didn’t have to look far. The magistrates threw the book at the pub. The landlord allowed gambling on the premises, the clientele included prostitutes and there was a ‘low singing room and dancing class’ frequented by thieves and what are described as ‘loose characters’.  To add to all that there was what was described as a ‘minor public health objection’ in that the landlord kept pigs at the back of the pub.

The pub shut in 1869. 

[1] Shut Up About Barclay Perkins blog post dated 24 July 2011 and entitled Bolton In 1854. Retrieved 11 October 2014. 

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

Railway Inn, 273 Bridgeman Street

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Bridgeman Street captured in April 2012 (copyright Google Street View). Heywood Park can be seen on the left-hand side in the distance. The site of the Railway Inn was where the apartments are situated next to the park. 

One of the many lost pubs of Bridgeman Street, and one of a number of Bolton pubs named the Railway, this Railway Inn stood at number 273 Bridgeman Street and was the last of a number of pubs in a short stretch as you walk out of town.

The pub dated back to around the 1860s but when it became the Railway Inn isn’t known. The entry in Worrall’s 1871 Bolton Directory shows a beer-house at 273 Bridgeman Street run by one Samuel Yates. Directories of the time only mentioned the names of public houses – i.e. pubs that could sell wine and spirits as well as beer – never the names of beer houses. Not all beer houses were named, either.

The Railway no doubt took its name from the nearby Bolton to Leigh Railway which opened in 1828. The original line rang alongside what is now Lumsden Street, around 100 yards from where the pub stood, but the line was decommissioned in the 1880s. A new line was built that avoided the Daubhill incline and in one respect it was a good deal closer to the club than the original line – it ran directly underneath it!

The Railway was a Magee's house standing right next to the entrance to Heywood Park.  There were no adjoining properties and Reservoir Street ran alongside the other side of the pub.

The pub was closed and was demolished in 1964. Bradford Ward Labour was built on the site. That closed in 2002 and was demolished soon afterwards. Apartments were built on the site.

Albion Hotel, Bridgeman Street

The bottom end of Bridgeman Street pictured in May 2012 (copyright Google Street View). The boarded-up Church Hotel is on the left. Station Street is on the left-hand side of the street running across the picture, Moncrieffe Street runs to the right. The Albion Hotel was actually situated on the other side of the role on the corner of a very brief continuation of Bridgeman Street, with the railway line running behind it.

This isn’t the Albion Hotel on Moor Lane. That’s very much alive and well, thankfully – this is another Albion, a long-lost pub once situated at the very bottom of Bridgeman Street, and although both pubs date back to around the middle of the nineteenth century by the dawn of the twentieth-century only the Moor Lane Albion remained.

Bridgeman Street was once said to be the longest street in Bolton. Initially it ran from Bradford Street all the way up to High Street and was later extended even further up to Adelaide Street.

In 1838 Bridgeman Street was affected by the opening of the Manchester to Bolton railway. This involved digging a huge ditch to accommodate the new rail tracks with Bridgeman Street carried over the line by means of a bridge.

By 1849 the Albion Hotel was in existence as a public house – not a beer house - at the corner of Bridgeman Street and Station Street, a street that still exists to this day. Station Street ran down the side of the old Trinity Station building for just a few yards until it met Moncrieffe Street outside the Church Hotel, but when the old station building was pulled down in 1987 Station Street was truncated just a few yards where it met the main carriageway.

The Albion’s existence became a little more precarious in 1884 when Bridgeman Street bridge was pulled down and the street split into two: the original Bridgeman Street, which ends where it meets Crook Street with the Church Hotel on the corner, and Lower Bridgeman Street which runs on the other side of the railway line.

The pub’s luck ran out in 1899. By then the Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway owned the premises and they decided to pull it down. An 1891 map of Bolton shows the Albion all alone, opposite the Church Hotel and with the railway line running behind it. It was very much in the way. Nathaniel Tyldesley had run the pub for over 20 years and, in his late sixties, he sold out to the railway company

Coe Street Tavern, Coe Street

Coe Street pictured from Bridgeman Street in April 2012 (Copyright Google Street View). Albion Mill can be seen in on the left in the distance. Edbro’s offices on Lever Street can be seen at the far end of the street. One of Coe Street’s two pubs, the Coe Street Tavern, stood on the right-hand side about halfway down this first block.

The area in between Bridgeman Street and Lever Street became heavily-pubbed during the latter part of the eighteenth century. Indeed, it wasn’t unusual for a street to have two or even three beerhouses.

Take Coe Street, for example. The street began to be built up in the early part of the nineteenth century and old maps from 1850 show around half the houses built on the street.

Two beerhouses arrived in the street that century. At number 45 was the New Inn while just across the road, number 52, became the Coe Street Tavern. We’ll take a look at the latter.

The 1853 Bolton Directory shows no beerhouse licences in Coe Street but the 1849 list of Bolton beerhouses show a Coe Street Tavern owned by William Whittaker. By 1877 as the Holy Trinity parish records show the daughter of the landlord, Alfred Rolphs, baptised at the church that year. Their address is 52 Coe Street and Alfred’s profession was given as a ‘beerster’ – or beer seller. He wasn’t in that profession for long and by the time his next daughter, Mary Ellen, was baptised at Holy Trinity in 1882 he was working on the railways and appears to have done so for the rest of his life.

By the end of the century the Coe Street Tavern was owned by the Bolton brewery of John Atkinson on Commission Street, close to where the fire station now is. Atkinson’s pubs were bought by the Manchester brewery of Boardman’s in 1895 and became the property of another Manchester brewery, Cornbrook’s, when they bought out Boardman’s three years later.

The Coe Street Tavern remained a beer house. A number of pubs went for wine and spirits licences but the Tavern remained a beer house until it closed in 1949. Its neighbour across the street, the New Inn, continued in business until 1961 and the whole street was pulled down for redevelopment in the mid-sixties.

Coe Street still exists but it has been part of an industrial estate for almost 50 years.

Victoria, 238 Bridgeman Street

The former Victoria on Bridgeman Street pictured on 21 April 2014. The building is now used as a Hindu mission centre.

The Victoria stood on Bridgeman Street, just a bit further down from Rothwell Street on the left-hand side as you head to town.

The building still stands – as can be seen in the image above – but at one time it was in the middle of a row of shops, including a branch of Boydell’s toy store. Walmsley’s Atlas Forge was just a couple of hundred yards away, while the Derby Iron Works of

W. Crumblehulme & Sons Ltd was situated behind the pub in Rothwell Street. [Images here ]. [1]

The Victoria dated back to the latter part of the nineteenth century. At one stage it had its own brewery but it fell into the hands of local brewers J Halliwell & Son of the Alexandra Brewery on Mount Street. Halliwell’s sold out to Magee, Marshall in December 1910 [2] which meant that supplies came from a brewery just half a mile away. Magee’s sold out to Greenall Whitley in 1958 and the brewery closed down in 1970.

The Victoria had a classic pub layout with two entrances on Bridgeman Street, a central bar and two rooms:  lounge to the left, public bar on the right. By early 1990 the local beer drinkers magazine were suggesting a little crawl of Bridgeman Street as the three remaining pubs, the Victoria, the Lodge Bank Tavern and the Park, all sold real ale.

The Victoria didn’t last for too many years longer. It closed in the 1990s and the building was sold off to become the UK centre of the  Ramakrishna Vivekananda Mission.

[1] St Mark's website. Retrieved 21 April 2014.

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

Sir Sidney Smith, Bridgeman Street

The approximate site of the Sir Sidney Smith, pictured in 2011 (copyright Lost Pubs Of Bolton). The pub was situated on Bridgeman Street at its corner with York Street in between Coe Street and Nile Street. York Street no longer exists. The street in the background is Coe Street.

The Sir Sidney Smith opened in 1808 on the corner of Bridgeman Street and York Street in a part of the town only just being developed.

At the end of the 18^th century the area from Crook Street over as far as Green Lane was known as the Sweet Green orchard while the area from the lower end of Fletcher Street towards what was once Hick, Hargreaves & Co and is now the Sainsbury’s supermarket was the site of a large encampment where gypsies would traditionally stay for a number of years.

The Sir Sidney Smith was the first pub in the area and it took its name from a navy admiral who was active in the late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth century. 

Fast forward 40 years or so from the opening of the pub and the 1849 map shows that the bottom end of Bridgeman Street had now been fully developed. Housing had been built on York Street, Coe Street, Nile Street, Sidney Street and Foundry Street, while Benjamin Hick’s Soho Ironworks was already in production. But there was also competition: the Bridgeman Arms had opened further down Bridgeman Street around 1825, while the Farmers Arms had just opened on the corner of Bridgeman Street and Fletcher Street. Plus there were a number of beerhouses in Coe Street, Sidney Street and Foundry Street.

By 1927 the Sir Sidney Smith was one of 58 pubs owned by the Bolton company of Joseph Sharman & Sons Ltd, whose Mere Hall Brewery was built in 1874 on Mere Hall Street. [1] Joseph Sharman died in 1916 and the company was taken over by George Shaw & Son Ltd of Leigh in 1927. In 1931, Shaw’s was taken over by Walkers of Warrington who immediately began a review of their enlarged tied estate.

About three-quarters of a mile away from the Sir Sidney Smith stood the Ninehouse Tavern on Ninehouse Lane, just off Grecian Crescent. Whereas the Sir Sidney Smith stood in the middle of a heavily-pubbed area, the Ninehouse Tavern was the first pub you came to as you walked down Rishton Lane. As such, it was the nearest pub to housing developments in the area bounded by Settle Street, Rupert Street and Weston Street. Those homes were of a better quality than those at the bottom end of Bridgeman Street, which by then was becoming quite run down with some of the houses approaching 100 years old.Rishton Lane was therefore home to a wealthier class of patron such as skilled workers, artisans and office workers. 

But the Sir Sidney Smith had something that the area managers at Walkers of Warrington decided would be more useful to the Ninehouse Tavern: a full licence. The Ninehouse was a beer house whereas the Sir Sidney Smith was also licensed to serve wines and spirits. It therefore made sense for Walkers to close the Sir Sidney Smith and transfer its full licence to the Ninehouse. [2]

The Sir Sidney Smith closed in 1934. The building was demolished along with the rest of the area in the early sixties before redeveloped as the industrial estate that still stands today. Coe Street is still there but York Street – just after the bend in Bridgeman Street as you go out of town – no longer exists.

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

[2] Moving pub licences is still practised today. In 1998 Thwaites closed the Ancient Shepherd and transferred its licence to a new development named Red On The Square. The venture lasted only a few years and the premises have been sold on two more occasions (it is now home to Blind Tiger). While tales abound of the Ancient Shepherd, in contrast Red On The Square has left little or no mark on Bolton’s collective memory.

Forge Tavern, Bridgeman Street

The corner of Bridgeman Street and  Fletcher Street. The Forge Tavern was situated where the patch of grass is now situated.

The Forge Tavern was situated at 219-221 Bridgeman Street, on the corner of Venture Street. The pub was close to the Farmers Arms (just a few yards away at number 205) and was one of a cluster of pubs close to the Bridgeman Street/Fletcher Street junction.

The pub’s name was taken from the Atlas Forge directly opposite which was built some time between 1866 and 1869. [1]

The streets opposite the Atlas Forge were laid out following its construction and the Forge Tavern was built in the late nineteenth century.

Lloyd Egerton, who often used to stay with relatives in nearby Venture Street in the 1940s, recalls: “At the end of the street was the Forge Tavern. I dread to think how many pints of ale must have been downed at that pub, the workers were allowed to go out in working hours.” [2]

Both 'Delta59’ and ‘Radlad’ back up Lloyd’s claim that workers from Atlas were allowed to go the Forge during the day. [See here]  [3]

The pub was owned by local brewery Magees, situated around half a mile away, but  Magees was taken over by the Warrington firm of Greenall Whitley and the Forge Tavern closed down in the early seventies.

Venture Street and the whole of those properties at the bottom of Bridgeman Street, were demolished around 1972/73.

The Atlas Forge continued production until 1975 and Walmsley’s acted as steel stockholders until it closed in 1984. Mill View Nursing Home was built on the site in 1990.

[1] Wikipedia. Accessed 4 April 2014.

[2] St Mark’s, Bolton.

[3] Rootschat.com

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

Walmsleys Atlas Forge pictured around 1975

Farmers Arms, Bridgeman Street

The Farmers Arms pictured around 1973. The pub is closed and boarded up ready for demolition. Fletcher Street runs down the left-hand side of the pub. The large building on the extreme left was the Windsor, originally a cinema but which, like so many cinemas, ended its days as a bingo hall.

Situated on the corner of Bridgeman Street at the junction with Fletcher Street, the Farmers Arms was in existence by the middle of the nineteeth century. The Bolton map of 1849 shows the building in a sparsely populated area.

In 1886 the licensee of the Farmers, one Henry Tongue, went out of business and a meeting of his creditors took place on 12 March that year. [1] A few months later  - in  August – the Farmers underwent some external renovation work but one man was killed and two were seriously injured after scaffolding erected outside the pub collapsed.[2]

Licensee James Ramwell owned the Farmers in the 1870s but by 1900 it had passed into the ownership of a local wine and spirit merchant, George Munro & Co, whose premises were situated on Deansgate. It subsequently passed to two more wine merchants, Swan’s Vintage Wine Stores Ltd and Thomas L Robinson, both based in Preston. [3]

The Farmers closed in the early seventies. The pub is pictured here  by the Bolton Evening News in a story about the proposed traffic lights for at the Bridgeman Street/Fletcher Street junction. 

The whole area bounded by Bridgeman Street, Fletcher Street as far as Lever Street and up to the Park Hotel was cleared away around 1973-74. New housing was subsequently built on the site.

The site of the Farmers Arms pictured in 2012. The only common denominator between this and the photo at the top of the page is the traffic signal. The Park Hotel - Bridgeman Street's last surviving pub - can  just be seen in the distance on the extreme right of the picture. Copyright Google Street View.

[1] London Gazette, Issue dated 5 March 1886. Retrieved 29 March 2014.

[2] Annals Of Bolton, John Clegg, 1888

[3]Bolton Pubs 1800-2000, Gordon Readyhough, published by Neil Richardson (2000).

Lodge Bank Tavern, Bridgeman Street

Lodge Bank Tavern pictured on 29 March 2011.
Copyright: Lost Pubs Of Bolton 2012

Every pub closure is disappointing as the fabric of our social history is wrapped up in these places. But one of the most disappointing came in August 2010 when the Lodge Bank Tavern closed its doors for the final time.

The Lodge Bank presumably took its name from the Great Bolton Reservoir No. 1 owned by the Bolton Free Waterworks which some 170 years ago occupied the area close to the pub from what is now Rothwell Street up towards the old railway line - part of which can still be seen – and up as far as Gregson Field. In other words a ‘lodge’ with a pub near the corner of one of its banks. Later in the nineteenth century the reservoir was filled in and the Bolton-Leigh railway re-routed from Daubhill into town to run under Heywood Park and land once occupied by the reservoir.

The Lodge Bank Tavern had its own brewery in the nineteenth century and was later owned by Samuel Smith whose brewery at the Dog and Snipe on Folds Road served a number of other of his pubs in Bolton (but who shouldn’t be confused with the Yorkshire brewery of the same name). [1]

Samuel Smith ceased trading in the thirties and the Lodge Bank was then bought by Swales Brewery of Manchester. That perhaps wasn’t so good for drinkers as Swales' beers didn't have a good name amongst many of its customers who nicknamed the brewery's products as ‘Swales Swill’ so it was perhaps a step in the right direction when Swales were taken over by another Manchester brewery, Boddington’s, in 1971.

Boddies in the seventies was the stuff of legend. It was an ‘acquired taste,’ somebody once said, which meant that it tasted different to Tetley Bitter, Double Diamond and Watney’s Red Barrel -it had a discernible taste for one thing - and the beers were as popular as Swales were reviled. It was certainly a far cry from the stuff Boddington’s subsequently brewed in the eighties and nineties which they dubbed ‘the cream of Manchester’. One tale often told was that in the seventies the brewery refused to supply their beers to a customer in the south of England on the grounds that it “didn’t travel well.”

In 1979 the Lodge Bank Tavern closed down and was sold to another family-owned brewer, John Willie Lees of Middleton Junction, to become their first pub in Bolton since the turn of the 20th century. Before the sale went through and the pub could re-open Lees had to get a compulsory purchase order rescinded [2]. The local authority were redeveloping the area and the adjoining properties up to Dalton's newsagent near old railway bridge on Bridgeman Street were all bought and torn down. The railways cuttings were subsequently filled in and Lees also bought some of the land next to the pub to build a beer garden.

By February 1980 the sale had gone through but it was another six months before the Lodge Bank re-opened as Lees decided to completely refurbish it. The re-fit wasn’t to everyone’s liking with one correspondent bemoaning the fact that the old Victorian bar had been ripped out along with windows displaying the pub’s name. When it reopened Mild was on sale at 37p a pint with Bitter at 38p. [3] It also opened with a full licence having been Bolton's last beerhouse. Beer houses were created in 1830 by an Act of Parliament which aimed to make the supply of beer easier and to bring down its price in an attempt to wean the populace off much stronger spirits, particularly gin. For the price of two guineas - £2.10 in today's money - anyone could open a beerhouse and Slater's Bolton Directory of 1843 lists over 300 such establishments in Bolton and district.

New toilets were fitted at the time of the 1980 refurb and a car park was added in 1988 [4]. By then the Lodge Bank was one of three pubs and a club within a hundred yards of each other on Bridgeman Street but first the Victoria went then Bradford Ward Labour Club went the way of so many of the politically-affiliated clubs when it was sold off for housing and finally the Lodge Bank itself closed in August 2010.

Shortly after its closure the pub was sold to Bolton Council and although furniture and bar fittings were stripped the building remained pretty much intact for the next four years. The reason the council bought the pub was as part of an extension to the nearby Clarendon Street school. All the land outside the old school down to the pub was to be bought and the school would either be extended or completely rebuilt. Included in the redevelopment was the old railway cutting right next to the school. But council officials reported in early 2011 that the cutting is full of contaminated material which would have to be treated before the land was built upon. Presumably because of the increased costs the purchase of other land and property was put on hold.

Eventually, the new Clarendon school was built on part of Bobby Heywood's Park across Bridgeman Street and opened in the summer of 2014. The old school burned down in mysterious circumstances shortly after, on 21 July that year.

Meanwhile, the Lodge Bank Tavern building was sold at auction in 2013. In 2014, planning permission was obtained to turn the former pub into two dwellings.

Directly opposite the Lodge Bank Tavern stands the Park Hotel,a 150-year-old pub that is now the great survivor of Bridgeman Street. The Railway, the Victoria, the Forge, the White House, the Farmers, the Lord Napier, the Oliver Cromwell, the Sir Sidney Smith, the Pineapple, the Oxnoble - this small, local’s boozer has seen them all off. It's the last of its kind on what was once a street of pubs.

[1] Bolton Pubs 1800 - 2000, Gordon Readyhough (published by Neil Richardson, 2000)
[2] What’s Doing, the Greater Manchester beer drinkers’ monthly magazine. February 1980.
[3] What's Doing. October 1980
[4] Bolton Beer Break. Summer 1988.

The former Lodge Bank Tavern pictured on 10 November 2014 (copyright Lost Pubs Of Bolton). The  pub building had just been gutted prior to its conversion into two dwellings.