Aquarius Club (Yorkie's Bar, Edbro Social Club, Daubhill Social Club, Daubhill Athletic FC), Tabley Road, Bolton

On the left is the Aquarius Club pictured in 1974. On the right is the site of the Aquarius Club pictured 51 years later in 2025 (copyright Google).

1949 – Daubhill Athletic are formed at Willows Park. The club were banned from playing by the Lancashire Football Association between 1958 and 1961.

1961 – Daubhill Athletic revived and enter the Bolton Combination.

1963 – Daubhill Athletic Social Club is opened. An extension is built later that year.

1965 – Daubhill Athletic cease playing; however, the club remains open. The name Daubhill Athletic was revived by an unconnected Sunday League team between 1976 and 1996.

1969 – The club becomes Edbro Social Club.

1972 – The club is sold again and becomes the Aquarius Club.

1983 – The Aquarius is bought by Tony York and becomes Yorkies Cabaret Club.

1984 – Yorkie's closes down. The club catches fire in July of that year.

In September 1949 Daubhill Athletic Football Club played the first match at their Willows Park ground. The club had been formed earlier that year by Alf Sharrock and his brother Harry after the works team they played for at Swan Lane No 3 Mill refused to allow outsiders to play. Alf and Harry found an old shale pit at the back of Rumworth Park and spent six months moving 400 tonnes of rubbish and making the pit into something suitable for football. On Saturday 24 September 1949 Ald A Booth, JP performed a short opening ceremony before Daubhill took on Knowles Ltd in a first round tie in the Bolton Combination's Brown Cup competition. The visitors' F. Gaskell scored the opening goal in a 1-1 draw.

Alf was nothing if not ambitious and before too long the club had moved from the Bolton Combination up to the West Lancashire League. It also ran a summer football competition in which matches were played in the evening every April onwards. All matches were played at Willows Park with some attendances over 1000 for games in the latter stages of the competition.

A summer league organised for local youths brought Alf Sharrock and Daubhill Athletic treasurer Fred Riley into conflict with the Lancashire Football Association. The LFA were dead against summer football and in 1958 Alf and Fred were banned by the association; Daubhill Athletic were expelled from the West Lancashire League as a result and Willows Park was forbidden from hosting official football matches. Despite that the Daubhill Athletic Cup competition continued to take place. It was contested by scratch teams playing under names copied from top European clubs such as Real Madrid and Red Star.

The LFA ban was to last three years and was lifted in 1961, but plans had been made even before the ban for the construction of a clubhouse. In 1955 Daubhill Athletic was incorporated into a limited company, Daubhill Enterprises Ltd (later the Daubhill Development Company Ltd) and the company rented out garages on the site of The Willows with the aim of raising money to build up financial reserves.

In May 1962 Bolton Council gave the club permission to build its clubhouse which was opened in the early part of 1963 A 60-foot extension was added later that year. However, the football team lasted only four seasons after the LFA ban was lifted and it withdrew from Division 2A of the Bolton Combination in 1965. Apparently, the decision of three team members to emigrate to Australia led to the the team's demise as they could no longer raise eleven players.

Ad from August 1963

Despite the end of the football team Daubhill Athletic Social Club, as it was now called, continued much like any other working men's or political club in the town. There were bingo nights, dancing to artistes at the weekend; a resident rhythm club played modern popular songs and the club had its own compere. Financially it was supported by a daily draw organised by its development association. The 'Athletic' name was eventually dropped and the club was simply known as the Daubhill Social Club in local newspaper ads; however, to locals it was simply as 'The Shed'.

The size of the club made it a popular venue for the finals of darts competitions, both at local and county level, By 1965 the football ground was used every Sunday for dog-training sessions for all breeds organised by the Bolton Alsatian Club.

November 1968 

In 1968 four youths broke into the club and stole £350 in cash and 1000 cigarettes from a dispensing machine.

In 1969 the Daubhill Sports Club became the Edbro Sports and Social Club. Edbro operated engineering works on five sites across the south side of Bolton; it employed over 500 people and ran a thriving sports club that was looking for permanent premises. But although the club operated in much the same way as it had done as the Daubhill Social Club, Edbro's tenure lasted only three years and the premises were sold once again in the autumn of 1972.

The newly renamed Aquarius Club opened on 7 December 1972 with an appearance by popular cabaret singer Sheila Buxton. It was open until 1.30am six nights a week and it wasn't long before there were problems with the neighbours.

In January 1974 Bolton Council brought a case against the Aquarius under the Noise Abatement Act; however, the case was adjourned after the club's owners agreed to install an 'electronic orange' to cut noise levels. The Council agreed to give the club time to see if the equipment worked properly. But the problem didn't end there. Two months later the club's licence was up for renewal. There were 30 objections, mainly from people living nearby who complained about the noise coming from inside the club and from the sound of people driving their cars away late at night.

December 1972

The club paid for the services of a solicitor to fight its case, but what happened next was a PR disaster. Managing director John Hollingsworth wrote to each of the 30 objectors, many of them old age pensioners, threatening to sue them for the legal expenses he had run up fighting their objection.

“A considerable expense was involved by my Company in defending the case which would not have occurred had it not been for your objections,” he wrote

He then suggested that each person might have to pay £30 towards his legal costs – the equivalent of around £300 in 2026. Local councillor Roland Carr suggested that Mr Hollingsworth had no grounds to sue the objectors and the matter ended there. When approached by the Bolton Evening News Mr Hollingsworth admitted sending the letter but refused to comment further.

Ad from February 1975

There was more trouble for the Aquarius later in 1974. Police arrived at 11.15pm on a Sunday night and found over 50 people in the club enjoying a late drink. The club was only licensed until 10.30 on Sundays and in any case drinks could only be sold to members of the Aquarius Sunday Club. Mr Hollingsworth was fined £810 while bar manager George Greenfield was fined £421. Both fines were later reduced on appeal.

Acts appearing at the club during 1975 included Bernard Manning and Wayne Fontana, while the Christmas dance organised at the club by Deane Rangers Football Club included an appearance by Cannon and Ball. The Bolton Organ Society held monthly meetings at the Aquarius that included concerts and demonstrations of new models and those continued for a number of years.

In December 1976 the Aquarius was bought by local pools winner Danny Carr and his business partner Tommy Ivers of Creeme Entertainments. “We want to create a working man's theatre club – nothing too elaborate,” Mr Ivers told the Bolton Evening News (16 December 1976). “We want to concentrate on live entertainment featuring popular acts in the area but we will incorporate a disco as well.” A change of name was an option although that never transpired.

September 1980

By the late-seventies the Aquarius was putting on midweek rock gigs; former Cream drummer Ginger Baker appeared with his band Energy in November 1979, local radio personality Mike Sweeney played at the club with his band the Salford Jets in May 1980 and sixties psychedelic rockers Atomic Rooster appeared there in November 1980.

August 1980

But it's clear that the early-eighties were a difficult time for the Aquarius. People were heading to town rather than staying local and that had an obvious effect on trade.

In March 1981 the company that owned the club, Ledondale (Aquarius) Ltd, applied for planning permission to hold an outdoor market on the site. The application was rejected because councillors wanted to keep such retailing in the town centre and were unhappy about the effect of too much traffic on local access roads. In December 1981 the company applied to demolish the clubhouse and redevelop the land for housing. Again, the plan was rejected, but it was clear the club was struggling.

The Aquarius was also getting the wrong sort of reporting in the local press. In March 1982 police had to call in reinforcements to break up a fight in the club's car park; in July of that year police were called to reports of fighting both inside and outside the club, and just a few weeks after that a man was glassed in the face after protecting a teenage girl who was being pestered by another boy.

In December 1982 the Aquarius received a blow when its late licence was revoked. Ironically, given that the club's then owners were fined in 1974 for opening late on a Sunday, this time they lost their late licence for not being open often enough. Their licence at that time required the club to be open six nights a week; however, they were only opening on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays. The late licence had been in operation since the Aquarius opened in 1972.

In February 1983 Ledondale sold the Aquarius to theatrical agent Tony York. He was planning to spend £100,000 on what he was calling Yorkie's Cabaret Bar as soon as he could obtain a late licence. He would be open six nights a week with one night set aside for a possible “stag” presentation. “The theme will be New York and there will be plenty of razz-matazz,” he told the Bolton Evening News (10 February 1983). “We want a decent club here and I am full of confidence that we will succeed.”

Unfortunately he didn't. By June 1984 and after being open for little more than a year, the club was up for sale once again. It was destroyed by fire the following month and in December thieves broke in to the derelict building and stole a one-armed bandit and a fridge worth a total of £400. The rest of the club was eventually demolished and housing built on the site by the Irwell Valley Housing Association which was granted outline planning permission in December 1985 to build 29 homes and 31 flats for elderly people.

Willows Hotel, 296 Willows Lane, Bolton

 

The church of St George The Martyr was opened in 1880 on land off St Helens Road. Living accommodation for the first vicar, the Rev T. A. Clarke, was provided a few hundred yards away on Willows Lane at an existing 14-room building known as Hawthorn Lodge.

In 1955 the vicarage was quietly sold to local brewery company Magee, Marshall and Co based just off Derby Street. Magees had their eye on a particular issue affecting one of their town centre pubs. Woolworths were looking to extend their Deansgate store and wanted to buy the Three Tuns on Bridge Street, a Magees house directly behind the store. What was particularly useful about the Three Tuns was that it had a full licence. This enabled them to sell wines and spirits as well as beer, and in the fifties these licences were difficult to come by – unless an existing licence was transferred. 

Magees did a deal with Woolworth and sold the Three Tuns; however, they then moved to transfer the pub's licence to their new pub, which they had named the Willows Hotel.

News of the decision to grant the application broke in the Bolton Evening News of 7 March 1956. “We are aware that the number of licensed premises in the town centre is probably too many,” Magees spokesman Mr W.C. Lawson told the paper. “The interesting thing about this is that within 220 yards of the Willows-lane premises there are no licensed houses. Within 440 yards there are three – all off-licenses.” Mr Lawson went on to produce a petition signed by 616 people all of whom lived within 220 yards of the premises. Of those 88 percent were in favour of the new pub, five percent were against and seven percent “couldn't care”. One of the supporters, Cormack Neary, a retired tailor, told the paper “I live behind the house and consider there to be room in the area for an hotel.” Another local resident, Thomas Gardner, pointed out that it was either a 20-minute walk or a bus ride to the nearest pub, the Oddfellows on St Helens Road.

The following night some opposing views appeared on the BEN's letters page. “Surely the members of St George The Martyr Church should have some explanation why the building was sold for this purpose,” wrote one correspondent. Another claimed that the new use for the building came as “a complete surprise.”

In April 1956 the licence transfer was rubber-stamped and Magees announced that the vicarage would open as a public house before Christmas. The lounge, dining room and part of the hall would become the pub lounge; the study would become a smoke room; the scullery and store would make way for a vault, and the kitchen and remainder of the hall would form the bar.

The Three Tuns closed its doors for the final time on 26 November 1956. At midday the following day the Willows Hotel opened with a small ceremony in the bar performed by the Mayor Of Bolton, Alderman Peter Lowe. Guests, including members of the town council, admired the contemporary style of decoration.

At the beginning of 1960 plans were approved to extend the pub. Food was introduced in 1966 and music, in the form of a pianist, was added the following year.

By March 1974 the Willows was owned by Greenall Whitley who had taken over Magee, Marshall in 1958 and closed the brewery in 1970. Greenalls tried to open betting shops on the site of two of their Bolton pubs, the Willows and the Rocket on New Lane at Top O'Th Brow. Initial plans had been rejected by Bolton Council on the grounds that the shop would be detrimental to the area and could bring parking problems. However, Greenalls appealed the decision claiming that the council's case was based on speculation on what might happen placing it “in the realms of Alice In Wonderland.” The appeal was heard by a local government inspector who found in Greenall's favour, but despite interest in June 1974 from a betting firm named Arthur Roye no bookies was ever opened on the site.

December 1975 lunchtime menu

A refurbishment in the autumn of 1975 led to the opening of the Regency Room and the expansion of the Willows' food offerings. In 1979 a single-storey extension to the rear of the pub saw tanks installed. This meant that beer was delivered in vehicles that resembled petrol tankers with the beer being stored in the tanks. But the Willows was never one for real ale-lovers, apart from a period in the late-nineties when Stones Bitter was served on handpump for a while. A 1982 CAMRA listing shows that it served keg Greenall beers on electric pumps.

The nineties saw jazz nights on Thursdays; there were quiz nights, a karaoke, a big screen for live football matches shown on TV. But by 1999 Greenalls had got out of brewing and pubs and the Willows was part of Scottish and Newcastle Breweries tied estate. It was subsequently sold to Admiral Taverns who in turn sold it on to Punch Taverns in 2005.

In 2010 the Willows closed down after just 54 years as a functioning pub. It never reopened and was finally de-licensed in 2014. In a strange quirk it reverted to religious use, albeit this time in the shape of an Islamic educational centre.

Pike View Hotel, 321 Derby Street, Bolton

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The Pike View pictured in 2008

The Pike View Hotel was situated on Derby Street on the corner of Swan Lane*. There are two theories as to how the pub got its name. The most likely is that it was named after a view of Rivington Pike which was uninterrupted until properties were built on the other side of Derby Street. But there is also a theory that it was named due to its proximity to The Pike, Robert Heywood's former home not far away from the pub on High Street and which would have been clearly visible until the 1880s.

The Pike View dated back to the 1850s and the first mention we have is in a report in the Bolton Chronicle of 23 May 1857. Thomas Boardman, described in court as “half-witted”, was accused of causing a disturbance at the pub. However, it emerged that other customers would often torment Boardman after he'd had a drink. They would pluck at his hair and pinch him, much to his annoyance, and this disturbance was the result of such provocation. Boardman's father said he'd been run over at the age of seven and suffered from fits. He was blind in one eye and had lost the use of one arm. The landlord of the Pike View said he didn't know what to do and on the face of it the locals could be accused of behaving callously towards someone with obvious disabilities. While some people were in favour of Boardman being allowed in the pub others were against it. The magistrates decided there was no case for Boardman to answer and dismissed the case.

In 1862, landlord Samuel Partington applied for a spirit licence. He was refused and it was over 40 years before spirits were sold at the Pike View. When he applied again the following year a meeting at the Temperance Hall was told that eight of the 16 applications for new spirit licences came from pubs between the Pike View and the Flag Hotel as housing development continued along Derby Street and beerhouses applied for spirits licence to satisfy what they perceived as a demand for those drinks.

Samuel Partington died in 1872. His daughter Elizabeth Partington, a dressmaker by trade, took over the licence after his death but she sold the pub at an auction in 1875 shortly before her marriage to John France. An assumption could be made that Mr France wasn't interested in the licensed trade, hence the sale; however, by 1881 the Frances were living in Bollington and running a pub.

The purchaser at the auction was Robert Dobson of the Parkfield Inn  on Crook Street. The Parkfield had its own brewery and Dobson supplied the Pike View with beers from the Parkfield until his death in 1888.

Ads for the 1875 auction made reference to a club room at the pub and the Pike View was used as the meeting place of a number of organisations over the years. The Welcome Stranger Lodge Number 53 of the Loyal Order Of Female Druids met at the pub in 1859 and at least two early football clubs used it as its headquarters. In the 1881-82 season Pike View Rangers were based there. The Bolton Evening News reported in its edition of 20 March 1882 that the Rangers were involved in a local derby against a side named Willows Rangers. It was a home game for Pike View, although the location of their ground isn't revealed in the report. The visitors were triumphant by scoring three goals to Pike View's one goal and a disputed goal. A team was still active at the pub in the 1893-94 season although by now they were simply known as Pike View. The Evening News of 21 October 1893 reported that they were held to a 2-2 draw by Rumworth St George's which was most likely a church team based at St George The Martyr on Church Avenue. Although there was an organised league in Bolton at that time, made up mostly of church teams, most clubs played friendly matches and an extensive list of results in the paper show the teams that were active in the Bolton area at that time: Bolton Orlando, Bark Street Alliance, St Luke's Choir, Arden Street Rangers, Alma Swifts, Dixon Green Rovers, Deane Association and many others. By 1895, Daubhill Wednesday of the Lancashire Wednesday League were based at the Pike View and were active into the twentieth century.

The 1895 Bolton Directory shows that a Percy Orrell was the manager of the Pike View. Percy had been brought up in the pub business – his father was Thomas Orrell, a local councillor who ran the Railway Hotel on St Helens Road. Census records from four years earlier show that Percy was indeed a public house manager but that he was just 19 years old. He didn't live on the premises but in nearby Howcroft Street along with his wife Mary and their young son. Mr Orrell later left the Pike View and joined the Duke Of Lancaster's Own Regiment. He was killed in the Boer War at Faber's Spruit in 1900.

There was a large increase in the population of the locality around the Pike View towards the end of the 19^th century. In 1885 the Bolton to Leigh railway, which for 57 years had run a couple of hundreds yards behind the pub, was re-routed with the opening of a new line that ran between Daubhill station and Great Moor Street via a cutting that ran beneath Crawshaw Lane (later Ellesmere Road) and Higher Swan Lane. The old railway line had followed an incline from Swan Lane down to town and the new route removed that. The old line was pulled up and houses built between Adelaide Street and High Street. Auburn Street, Essingdon Street and Bowness Road were among the streets that were constructed in the 1890s and all survive to this day. Employment in the area was boosted by the newly-built Swan Lane Mills. Number 1 mill was built in 1902 with Number 2 mill following three years later. This double-mill was the largest in the world at that time.

With the area booming the Pike View underwent alterations in 1898 but in 1904 another application was made for a spirit licence. By now the pub was owned by Magee, Marshall and Co whose Crown Brewery at Cricket Street was just a quarter of a mile away. However, in order for the application to be granted Magee's had to offer up the licences of one fully-licensed pub, one beerhouse and one off-licence. The fully-licensed Elephant and Castle on Blackhorse Street was sacrificed along with the Jolly Carter  beerhouse on the corner of Derby Street and High Street and an off-licence at 68-70 Rosamond Street.

Magee's owned the Pike View until they sold out to Greenall Whitley in 1958 although their tied estate was served by the brewery at Cricket Street until its closure in 1970.

The Pike View served real ale up to 1979. According to the issue of Greater Manchester beer drinkers' magazine What's Doing in July of that year, a refurbishment brought about the installation of cellar tanks and the removal of handpumps. The article mourned the pub's loss as a real ale outlet describing is as “a traditional, well-kept local”. A number of pubs went back to real ale over the ensuing years, but not the Pike View.

Plans were afoot in 1987 for the first-floor living accommodation at the pub to become a branch of the Royal Antediluvian Order of the Buffaloes. This followed the closure of the RAOB's former premises, the Crown Hotel on Derby Street which was demolished to make way for extra parking at Cambrian Soft Drinks, the Greenall's subsidiary that succeeded Magees in their occupancy of the Crown Brewery. However, the application was withdrawn and the Buffs moved instead to the Ram's Head on Derby Street.

Greenalls got out of brewing in the early nineties and the Pike View became part of Admiral Taverns. As with just about all the pubs on the so-called 'Daubhill mile' trade at the Pike View slowly diminished. It lasted longer than most with the end coming in 2009. The premises subsequently became a fast-food outlet.

* Not to be confused with Higher Swan Lane. Swan Lane used to run from Derby Street to Settle Street but when Bridgeman Street was extended from High Street to Adelaide Street at the end of the 19^th century Swan Lane was split in two. The section from Derby Street to Bridgeman Street kept the original name but the section from Bridgeman Street was re-named Higher Swan Lane. It was extended to Lever Edge Lane as houses were built along the section beyond Settle Street in the early years of the 20^th century.

Stags Head, 200 St Helens Road, Bolton

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The Stags Head, St Helens Road in an image taken as part of a set for Tetley Walker around 1974, Image Gerard Fagan, Bolton Lancs Bygone Days Facebook group.

The Stags Head at 200 St Helens Road was one of two pubs less than three-quarters of a mile apart to bear that name. The name itself is derived from the crest of the Hulton family who owned Hulton Park on Newbrook Road from 1167 (some say 1353) until 1993. [1]

The Stags Head on Daubhill was the younger of the two pubs by over 30 years. The first mention of the pub was in 1836 when Peter Boardman (1785-1858) the owner. Mr Boardman was previously at the Hulton Arms at Four Lane Ends. Indeed, the Boardman family remained in control of the Hulton Arms and were farmers in the area between the pub and Hulton Park.

The Bolton to Leigh railway line - the second-oldest in the world - was opened in 1828 with Daubhill station at the junction of St Helens Road and Deane Church Lane opening in 1831. With no other pubs in the area the Stags Head was an opportunity to cash in on passenger traffic coming to and from the station. It was also a sizeable building and would have offered accomodation to railway travellers arriving from outside the area. 

As the 19^th century progressed the pub gained a local clientele as the previously rural Daubhill area became industrialised. The giant Sunnyside Mills complex was built in 1865 and streets of terraced houses were built on both sides of St Helens Road.

Although there has been speculation that the current building was the second Stags Head a map from 1846 shows the building looking much the same shape as it still does today. [2] The railway ran behind the pub and then across St Helens Road before heading on to Great Moor Street station. Although the line was diverted in the 1880s this small branch line carried goods wagons across the main road to sidings at Sunnyside Mills as late as 1969. The map also shows a tramline on the other side of the pub running from the railway line, across what is now the Asda car park and across St Helens Road to stone quarries on the other side of the road.

The pub was known in some local directories as the Antelopes Head. In the days when most people were illiterate and pubs were known locally by their signs rather than any lettering it was an easy mistake to make. An inquest held at the pub in 1841 into the death of Christopher Ince on the Bolton to Leigh railway made reference to the pub as “the house of Mr Peter Boardman at the sign of the Antelope”. [3] But by 1843, newspaper references were referring to the pub as the Stags Head.

In 1865 a subscription bowling green opened close to the pub. Known at the time as the Stags Head bowling green it was situated on the other side of the railway line on land now occupied by the offices of the Park Cakes bakery. Access to the green was via Wilton Street or Bertwine Street which ran down the side of some early-nineteenth century cottages that stood raised up from St Helens Road until they were demolished around 1969. This small hill was the original 'Daub Hill' from where the area got its name.

The bowling green lasted until around 1953. Warburton’s Soreen malt loaf bakery, which later became Park Cakes, was built on the site. The Bakewell Tin and Metal works were right next to the green with the Daubhill Brick Works (opened 1883) not far away. Another bowling club, the Beaumont ,stood off Deane Church Lane until the late-sixties. 

A tollgate was in operation near the Stags Head. The toll allowed traffic to travel along the road between various gates on payment of a fee. It closed in the 1870s.

Tong's Brewery took over the Stags Head in the early part of the twentieth century. Prior to that the pub had brewed its own beer. It became a Walker's pub in 1923 and a Tetley Walker house in 1960.

The pub was refurbished in the 1960s though it kept its revolving doors until another refurbishment in 1986.

Tetley Walker had been part of the Allied Breweries (later Allied Lyons) group since 1961. The brewery had the idea in the early eighties of transferring pubs into a new subsidiary called Peter Walker Ltd. The pubs were done up in a 'traditional' style and in 1986 the Stags Head's became a Walkers pub. [4]. Other examples included the Howcroft on Pool Street, the Ainsworth Arms on Halliwell Road, the Sally UpSteps (Stanley Arms)  on Chorley Old Road, the Cross Guns on Deane Road and the Church in New Bury. In the autumn of that year £100,000 was spent and the range of Walker's ales introduced.

By 1995, the Peter Walker concept was being put out to grass and the Stags Head gained an alternative identity as Mr Q's, a sort of sports bar aimed at drinkers aged 18-25. However, it retained the Stags Head name on the front of the building.

Allied Lyons got out of the pub business and in 1999 its chain of Mr Q's pubs was sold to Punch Taverns. Punch owned the Stags Head for just ten years and presided over its decline. One day in 2009 landlady Jackie Heyes looked out of the window and saw a 'For Sale' sign outside the pub. Ms Heyes had signed a five-year lease with Punch only a few months earlier after it had been closed for six months. Although she had her partner Ian Matthews managed to raise £200,000 it was well short of the £295,000 asking price. [5] 

The pub was sold to a local firm Mayble Ltd, based at the Gibbon Street Garage further down Daubhill. It closed at the beginning of September 2009.

But while that may have signalled the end of the Stags Head as a pub it wasn't the end of the building. Mayble Ltd converted the former pub in to the Manor House, seemingly a suite of offices. A local business, the retail chemist chain Freshphase Ltd claimed on its March 2016 accounts to be using 200 St Helens Road – the former Stags Head pub – as its head office. The Manor House has also been hauled over the coals for using the premises as a wedding/conference centre, despite not having applied for planning permission. An application (95030/15) was made by a Mr Ali, based at 177 St Helens Road in 2015.

But despite the Manor House being used as offices and as a wedding reception centre, by April 2017 it was still appearing on Bolton Council's list of empty properties. It was said to have been an empty building since it closed as a pub in September 2009. As anyone living in the area will testify, that simply wasn't true - certainly at that time. It was later used as a Covid vaccination centre and is still being used as offices. Mayble Ltd is now a subsidiary of Abbeydale Holding, a Daubhill-based firm that has owns a number of dispensing chemists. 

The Stags Head pictured around 1970. The signage over the top of the pub contains its old Walkers livery which pre-dated that company's merger with Tetley's in 1960.

The Manor House, as the Stags Head now is, pictured in July 2016 (copyright Google Street View).

[1] Historic England.  Accessed 25 April 2017.

[2] National Library of Scotland. Accessed 26 April 2017. 

[3) Manchester Courier, 18 December 1841.

[4] What's Doing, the Greater Manchester beer-drinkers' monthly magazine. September 1986.

[5] Bolton News, 23 July 2009. Accessed 26 April 2017. 

JimSant's piece for Bolton Revisited about the Daubhill area is well worth a read. Accessed 26 April 2017.

Waggon and Horses, 69 St Helens Road, Bolton

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The Waggon and Horses was situated at 67-69 St Helens Road at the top of Bright Street. The was initially at number 69 but it soon expanded into the premises on the corner of the street.

The first mention we have for the Waggon and Horses is in an 1869 Bolton Directory when the landlady is Ann Owen and the address is just given as ‘Daubhill’. Directories were often soon out of date and this one was by the time it was published. But ‘Bernice’ on Rootsweb wrote in 2003 that her great-great grandfather, James Ormrod, started the Waggon and Horses but lost the pub in a bad business deal. [1]

James and Jane Ormrod are listed as running an un-named beerhouse in Daubhill in 1861. On the 1841 Census return they lived next door to the Rams Head further down Derby Street though they weren't in the licensed trade. Indeed, their premises later became part of the enlarged Ram's Head pub.

In 1861, Ann Owen was at the Sir Sidney Smith on Bridgeman Street with her husband John in 1861 but she seems to have moved to Daubhill a few years later. She married a local man, Paul Dootson, in 1867 and they had a son, also named Paul, in 1868. The senior Paul died in 1877. 

So, Ann Owen must have moved to the Wagon and Horses around the mid-1860s. There were huge social changes in Daubhill at this time. Henry Lee had bought a small weaving shed in the area in 1860. He joined forces with his brother Joseph Lee, Henry Tootal Broadhurst and Robert Scott to form Tootal Broadhurst Lee Ltd. Between 1862 and 1867 they built Sunnyside Mills which worked in the textile industry until 1980.

The construction of the mills led to a huge influx of new inhabitants into the area. Houses sprang up on the opposite side of St Helens Road and when the Bolton to Leigh railway line was diverted under Ellesmere Road further housing was built in Olive Street, Barbara Street and Florence Street. [2]

The 1891 Census returns for Sunnyside Street, a small row of houses at the bottom of Adelaide Street, shows that many of its inhabitants were born in Wigan. However, there were also people born in Blackpool and Cornwall and there was even the Lopes family from South America.

By the time of the 1871 census Ann was at the Waggon and Horses with her sons John Owen (born 1849), James Owen (born 1854) and the oddly named Owen Owen (born 1856). Paul Dootson was with his mother in Daubhill. 

In 1881 Ann Dootson was running the pub with her sons, Richard Owen and Owen Owen. Both were brewers at the pub. Ten years later, Ann had retired and was living with Owen Owen in nearby Joseph Street. James Owen was running the pub along with his wife Mary.

The family’s tenure at the Waggon and Horses was over by the end of the 19^th century. The 1901 census shows James Owen as living in Bertwine Street. Anne Dootson had moved to Stewart Street in Halliwell where she died in 1902. Owen Owen appears to have gone back into brewing. By 1911 he was living at a house in Smethurst Lane but still gave his occupation as an ale and porter brewer.

The Waggon and Horses was taken over by Henry Maxfield who remained at the pub for the first 20 years of the twentieth century. Maxfield was living in York Street, off Bridgeman Street in 1871 and was working at that time as a blacksmith.  He remained in the profession after moving to St Helens Road later in the 1870s. He lived just across the road from the pub at number 76  St Helens Road in 1881 and was a few doors along at number 97 in 1891. It is highly likely that he was one of Ann Dootson’s customers and took over the pub when the family left.

Maxfield remained at the Waggon and Horses until he died in 1923 aged 72. The pub was then taken over by an Irishman, James Higgins, who was previously a coal miner living in nearby Southend Street. Higgins died in 1941.

The Waggon and Horses was taken over by Magee, Marshall and Co during Maxfield’s tenure.

In his reminiscences of the area, local historian Norman Kenyon said that he often drank at the Waggon and Horses although he and his father-in-law Bill Morgan occasionally drank at the Railway, further down St Helens Road which Bill thought was a better class of pub. [3] 

Wholesale redevelopment of the area bounded by St Helens Road, Adelaide Street, Barrier Street and the old Bolton-Leigh railway line took place in the early-1970s. All properties within those boundaries were demolished and light industrial units were built in their place.

The entrance to Lantor’s car park was formed out of the former Bright Street. The Waggon and Horses was on the right-hand side at the top of the street. (Image copyright Google Street View, July 2016). These premises were occupied for many years by  Bentwood Brothers Ltd.

[1] Rootsweb. Accessed 9 December 2016. 

[2] There is a preponderance of streets with girls’ names in the area: Olive, Florence, Barbara, Adelaide, Georgina, Ivy, Bertha, Doris, Bella, Minnie, Daisy, Alexandra and Caroline are all represented. Most of the streets still exist.

[3] Bolton, Daubhill and Deane: A Sentimental Journey, by Norman Kenyon. Published by Neil Richardson (1998).

Farmers Arms, 251 Derby Street, Bolton

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The former Farmers Arms pictured in August 2015 (copyright Google Street View)

The Farmers Arms stood at 251 Derby Street on the corner of Haslam Street (known as German Street until the start of the First World War).

The pub seems to have dated back to the early- to mid-1860s. There is no mention of it on the 1849 Bolton Licensing list [1] nor on the 1861 census. But by 1868, Richard Beckett was running the pub though he had gone by 1870 when Richard Walker was in charge. Richard was described as a “painter and beerseller” on the 1871 census.

Later in the 1870s the Farmers Arms was taken over by Isaac Openshaw. He moved from the Brewers Arms on Atherton Street, just off Cannon Street. Isaac was a brewer – he had named his previous pub after his trade – and like most pubs the Farmers had its own brewery. Certainly, Isaac Openshaw made his fortune at the Farmers Arms. He left shortly before 1900 and by 1901 he had retired to Southport. He died in 1922 leaving an estate valued at £8197 – the equivalent of over £400,000 in today’s money.

In the 1920s, the Farmers was run by Harry Fletcher. Harry was born into the pub business. His father Ellis Fletcher ran the Ninehouse Tavern off Rishton Lane for a number of years.

The Farmers was bought by the Bromley Cross brewery of Hamer’s and was a rare outlet for the company south of the town centre. The only other pub Hamer’s owned in the vicinity was Uncle Tom’s Cabin on Lever Street.

Hamer’s were bought out by Dutton’s in 1951. Dutton’s became part of the national combine Whitbread in 1964. The Farmer’s Arms closed in 2001 and was converted into offices.

[1] Pubs Of Bolton Town Centre 1900-1986, by Gordon Readyhough. Published by Neil Richardson (1986).

Royal Hotel, 189 Derby Street

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Number 189 Derby Street, the former Royal Hotel pictured in August 2015 (copyright Google Street View), situated in between the ginnel and the entrance to Sass Beauty.

The Royal Hotel was relatively short-lived pub which ran from the early-1850s until the early-1870s.

The first record we have is when Edward Wroe applies for a full licence for the pub, which was situated at 189 Derby Street, just a few doors up from the Albert Hotel.

Edward Wroe was at the Wheatsheaf on Blackburn Street (now Deane Road) in 1851, but by 1854 he was at the Royal Hotel. At the annual licensing sessions in August of that year he applied for a full licence to serve wine and spirits alongside beer. There were no fewer than 22 other such applications, seven of which were for pubs either on Derby Street or nearby. The magistrates received a petition of some 3000 signatures opposing the granting of any further licences and the chairman of the bench, Robert Walsh, a staunch teetotaller who was strongly opposed to the sale of alcohol, calculated that there was one pub for every 106 people in Bolton. “One for every thousand would do,” he insisted. All 23 applications failed.  [1]

By 1869 the Royal Hotel was in trouble. On 31 March that year the following advertisement appeared in the Bolton Evening News:

“To Let, that Well-Accustomed BEERHOUSE and BREWERY, known as the Royal Hotel, Derby Street. Fixtures, Brewing Utensils, etc, to be taken at a valuation. Apply to Wm Horrocks on the premises.”

William Horrocks had placed a similar advert a couple of months earlier on 28 January in which he referred to a “change in occupation”. He was soon able to take up his new job as Abraham Ogden, a 25-year-old turner from Thynne Street answered the ad and took over the pub. We know this because by August of that year he was up before the court accused of selling beer outside licensing hours. Opening times were quite liberal at that time, but the police were always on the lookout for licensees opening illegally on a Sunday morning. Mr Ogden was caught and was fined 10 shillings plus costs. [2]

This was bad news especially as, like all Bolton’s beerhouses, the Royal had to re-apply for its licence the following month. The magistrates were looking for any excuse to close pubs and in the case of the Royal they had the police on their side. Constables Dearden and Greenhalgh were the bane of pub landlords in Bolton. It was this duo who frequented pubs – often on a Sunday morning- and together they brought numerous landlords to court, including poor Abraham Ogden who had only been at the Royal for a matter of months.

When the Royal’s application was heard, Constable Dearden described the pub as “objectionable” and complained about the low walls to the rear. Low walls enabled easy access, especially on a Sunday morning. He also claimed to have seen cards being played in the tap-room on at least two occasions. Card games were usually played for money. Constable Greenhalgh weighed in by saying the house was “troublesome”. That was it. The Royal’s fate was sealed and the pub closed down later that year. [3]

By 1876, the Royal was a tripe shop. By 1905 it was the premises of a clogger, Albert Rooney. By 1924, Mr Rooney was sharing number 187 Derby Street while 189 was owned by a rubber dealer, Miss Emma Brooks. By the seventies, numbers 187 and 189 were occupied by Lindley’s Removals and in the eighties the whole of that property became the Bantry Club. It is currently a cosmetic laser clinic.

[1] Manchester Courier. 2 September 1854. The other unsuccessful pubs were:

Flash Tavern, Weston Street

Albert, Derby Street

Robin Hood, Ashburner Street

Buck and Vine, Kay Street

Peel Hotel, Higher Bridge Street

Windmill, Blackburn Street

Queen’s, Bradshawgate

Albion, Moor Lane

Derby Arms, Derby Street

Queen Elizabeth, Pitt Street

British Queen, Trinity Street

Oddfellows Arms, Trinity Street

General Sale, Crook Street

Three Tuns, Great Moor Street

Greengate, Hammond Street

Elephant and Castle, Kay Street

British Oak, Derby Street

Anchor, Bright View [Bury Old Road]

There were also applications for one un-named beerhouse in Derby Street, two proposed new pubs in Derby Street and a proposed new pub in Lum Street.

[2] Bolton Evening News, 12 August 1869

[3] Bolton Evening News, 17 September 1869.

Jolly Carter, 281 Derby Street

Derby Street runs across the centre of this 2012 image (copyright Google Street View). High Street runs off into the distance. The Jolly Carter was situated on the right-hand corner as we look, where the sign is. The Rams Head still stands on the opposite corner though it is now an Asian food shop.

The Jolly Carter was situated at 281 Derby Street on the corner of Derby Street and High Street, directly opposite the Rams Head.

James Green was a carter living on Derby Street in 1841. Aged 36, he lived with his wife Mary, also 36, and their five children. Business must have been good because the Greens were able to afford to employ a servant. While the image of domestic help is somebody working in a large house in an Upstairs, Downstairs setting it is surprising just how many tradespeople in more modest households utilised servants in the nineteenth century. Pubs were full of them.

James Green branched out into the beerselling business around 1842 and like many who converted their homes into beerhouses in the middle of the 18^th century he named his pub after his ‘other’ job and called it the Jolly Carter.

The Greens remained at the pub well into the 1850s; however, they were gone by 1861 when the pub was being run by John Smith. He was a coal miner living at Edge Fold with his wife and baby in 1851. Like James Green he remained in his other job working as a coal miner while his wife, Mary, ran the pub.

The Jolly Carter appears to have struggled as landlords came and went. But Derby Street at that time was a competitive market. The pub was bought by local brewers Magee Marshall & Co whose Cricket Street brewery was about 200 yards away from the Jolly Carter.

The problem for the Jolly Carter was that Magees owned a number of other pubs on Derby Street. Magees houses the Rams Head, the Crown and the Pike View were all nearby and Magees wanted a full licence for one of those pubs, the Pike View, enabling it to sell wines and spirits as well as beer. Licensing magistrates were loath to simply upgrade a beerhouse’s licence to a full licence. They expected some horse-trading to take place as they wanted to reduce the number of licensed premises. A brewery had to be prepared to give up other licences before the magistrates could be expected to grant a full licence.

In 1904, Magees applied for a full licence for the Pike View. In return they said they were prepared to give up the licence for the Jolly Carter, a beer off-licence at 68-70 Rosamund Street, as well as the Elephant and Castle on Blackhorse Street, a fully-licensed pub since 1804. The magistrates granted a full licence to the Pike View and the Jolly Carter closed.

The old beerhouse became a shop and for a number of years it was a tripe dressers owned by Vose and Sons who merged with a number of other Lancashire tripe shops in 1920 to form United Cattle Products (UCP). It was a poodle parlour in the seventies and was demolished along with the rest of the row in the 1980s.

As for the original Jolly Carter himself, James Green decided that he had to choose between selling beer and being a ‘lurryman’ as carters were also known. He was a carter by trade and in 1861 he was living at 74 John Street (now University Way) and was still working as a carrier of goods. He remained in the trade until his death in 1873 at the age of 68.