New Bridge Inn - Printers Arms, 15 Churchbank, Bolton

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The New Bridge Inn was originally known as the Printers Arms. It was situated on the left-hand side going down Churchbank close to where it becomes Churchgate.

There is no mention of the pub in any directories from the 1850s and the first mention we have is in 1869 when it was being run by Wilson Inman.

By 1871, John Butterworth was in charge. Born in 1832, Mr Butterworth was a cotton operative in Simpson Street in 1861.

The 1876 Bolton Directory shows Thomas Derbyshire as the landlord. At that time it was still known as the Printers Arms, possibly as a nod to the vocation of a former landlord.

The landlady in 1895 was Mary Ann Witter. She had taken over the pub with her husband Thomas a couple of years previously having run the Peacock on Kay Street for a while. By this time it had been named the New Bridge Inn presumably to commemorate the rebuilding of the bridge on Churchbank that ran over the River Croal. The pub was the last building before the bridge. 

The New Bridge was owned by Wingfield’s Silverwell Brewery whose brewery premises stood on Nelson Square. Wingfield’s later became part of the Manchester Brewery Company who wanted to rebuild another of their pubs, the Crofters Arms on St George’s Road. In what became a confusing deal the Crofters was sold to Bolton Council who then sold it on to Magee, Marshall and Co. But the council would only give planning permission to Magee's for the rebuilding of the Crofter's if the licence of the New Bridge was given up. The confusing aspect is that the New Bridge was still a Manchester Brewery pub. Nevertheless, the Crofters was re-built and the New Bridge closed in 1907. The final landlord was George Jackson, a Yorkshireman who was originally a saddler by trade.

The building subsequently became a boarding house. It was demolished in the sixties along with three other properties along that row.

[Click here for more on Wingfield's Silverwell Brewery]

Bull and Wharf, 12 Church Wharf

The Bull and Wharf on Church Wharf. The image is undated. However, in the background you can see Bolton Parish Church, apparently unfinished, which would date the photo to around 1870.

The Bull And Wharf was built towards the end of the eighteenth century. Originally known as the Black Bull, it changed its name to the Bull And Wharf to reflect its position on Church Wharf at the start of the Manchester, Bolton and Bury Canal. [1]

The canal was built from 1791 to 1805 though the Bolton ‘terminus’ – along with that in Bury - was opened as far as Oldfield Road in Salford in 1796. It was extended to the  River Irwell in 1808. [2] The total cost was £127,700 or the equivalent of just over £8million today.

Two years after canal's opening six packet boats made the journey from Bolton each Monday with four boats on other days. The journey to Manchester took three hours and passengers were carried along the route. 

The Bull and Wharf’s position meant it was an ideal stopping-off point for passengers either at the start or the culmination of their journey. Between July 1833 and June 1834, 21,060 passengers travelled from Bolton to Manchester, 21,212 people travelled from Manchester to Bolton, and 20,818 intermediary passengers hopped on and off the boats en route between the two points. [3]

The Commercial Directory for 1819 and 1820 suggests the Bull and Wharf was nicknamed the ‘Boat House’. Samuel Hamer was in charge at the time. John Gorton had taken over by the time Pigot’s published their directory of 1828.

An Orange Lodge was active at the Bull and Wharf around that time.  Frank Neal’s book Sectarian Violence: The Liverpool Experience, 1819-1914 lists all Orange Lodges active as at November 1830 and says that lodge number 147 met at the Bull and Wharf on the third Saturday on every month. (There were also lodges at the at the Three Arrows in Old Hall Street, the Unicorn in Little Lever, the Brown Cow in Horwich and the Hare and Hounds at Breightmet.) [4]

The Bolton arm of the canal was abandoned in 1941, but the Bull and Wharf continued to serve the immediate community for a further 23 years. By then it was owned by Shaw’s Brewery of Leigh, who inherited the pub when they took over Joseph Sharman’s Mere Hall brewery. Sharman began brewing at the Crompton’s Monument just a short distance away and may even have supplied the Bull and Wharf prior to his move to the Mere Hall brewery in the 1870s.

Shaw’s were taken over by Walker’s of Warrington in 1931 and Walker’s merged with Tetley of Leeds in 1960. It was as a Tetley pub that the Bull and Wharf ended its days.

The needs of the car saw the end for the Bull and Wharf. Plans for a by-pass into the centre of Bolton were proposed in the early-sixties. The pub closed in 1964 and was demolished in 1966. Its site is now covered by St Peter’s Way.

The Bull and Wharf can be seen in this photograph taken by Humphrey Spender in August 1937. One of the comments on the image suggests the pub is the large three-storey building in the background. 

Some images of the general area around the Bull and Wharf can be seen here. 

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

[2] Manchester, Bolton and Bury Canal Society. Retrieved 5 September 2014. 

[3] On the Manchester, Bolton and Bury Canal, Alec Waterson. Published by Neil Richardson (1985).

[4] SectarianViolence: The Liverpool Experience, 1819-1914. Retrieved 5 September 2014.

Rising Sun/Imperial Hotel, Churchbank

Not a great image, but the Imperial Hotel can be seen behind the lamp post on the right. When this photograph was taken in the 1950s the pub had already been closed for around 20 years and was being used as a boarding house for performers at the Grand Theatre and the Theatre Royal which can be seen in the distance.

The Rising Sun was situated at 3-5 Churchbank, just outside the parish church, although in some directories of the time it is described as being on Churchgate. Then, as now, Churchbank was merely an extension of Churchgate.

The Rising Sun was certainly in existence in the 1770s and Bolton Old Band was formed at the pub in 1803. This was originally a reed band – it converted to brass in the 1850s – and practised at the pub with the then landlord playing clarinet. Four band members were either innkeepers or were later to become innkeepers including Thomas Sharples who open the notable Star Inn and Concert Room, just a few yards away from the Rising Sun, in the 1840s.

The Bolton Old Band certainly had its characters in the early nineteenth century. It was accompanied by a resident fiddler whose fondness for what were described as “drink and company” eventually got him the sack. There was a piccolo player who regarded playing the flute for dancing as beneath him while the bassoonist also earned money playing at the circus where his daughter performed. There was also a serpent player who was a strict Methodist and Sabbatarian. The serpent was a wooden instrument with a twisted body and a metal mouthpiece which was very hard to blow. This particular player once stayed out so late playing on his serpent one Saturday night that he didn’t get home until dawn was breaking on the Sunday morning. He was so full of remorse at having thus broken the Sabbath that he buried his serpent, swearing never to play it again. [1]

It isn’t known for how long the Bolton Old Band was linked with the Rising Sun but the band became a well-known outfit and some of its members were travellers in one of the carriages at the opening of the Bolton and Leigh Railway in 1828 playing at both ends of that historic first journey.

Here’s a nineteenth-century gig review of sorts, of the band’s appearance at the Bolton Floral and Horticultural Society’s show of 1829 as reported by The Gardener's Magazine and Register of Rural & Domestic Improvement:

“The Bolton old band was in attendance, as usual, and performed several interesting airs, in very creditable style.”

The band was attached to Bolton Volunteer Regiment under Colonel Fletcher and lasted until around 1884. [2]

John Hamer was listed as the landlord of the Rising Sun in 1818 and John Entwisle was licensee in 1824. During Mr Hamer’s tenure the Rising Sun was first used as host to a Masonic lodge. The Lodge Of Antiquity began to meet at the pub from 1816 and used it as its headquarters until 1855.  The St John’s Lodge also met there, from 1873 to 1874. [3]

By the end of the nineteenth century the Rising Sun had become the Imperial Hotel but it closed in 1934 and its full licence was transferred to the Kings Arms on Chorley Old Road. [4]. The premises became a guest house and was popular with performers at the Theatre Royal and the Grand Theatre on nearby Churchgate.

Since the end of the sixties the building has been used as offices and studio space. In a neat link given the Rising Sun’s involvement with the Bolton Old Band the premises are now (2014) the headquarters of the Talent Pool recording studio. Talent Pool was recently set up by Booth’s Music whose shop was opened by James Booth just 150 yards up Churchgate in 1832. It is entirely possible that the likes of Thomas Sharples and his colleagues in the Bolton Old Band would have bought their instruments from Mr Booth’s shop before assembling for practise at the Rising Sun.

The image is of the premises in April 2014 (copyright Lost Pubs Of Bolton).

[1] Leisure In Bolton, 1750-1900, Robert Poole, 1982

[2] IBEW. Retrieved 18 April.

[3] Lane’s Masonic Records.