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.

Noble Street Tavern, 87 Noble Street, Bolton

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Noble Street pictured in August 2015 (copyright Google Street View). The Methodist church dominates a truncated street that at one time ran all the way down to Deane Road but which now runs for barely a quarter of its former length. The Noble Street Tavern stood where the hedges are in the distance.

Once known as the ‘Hark Up To Glory’ the Noble Street Tavern dated back to the 1860s. A James Heywood is listed as the landlord of an un-named, un-numbered pub on Noble Street which is believed to have been the Noble Street Tavern.

By 1876 the pub was numbered 87 Noble Street and was known as the Noble Street Tavern. It was owned by Robert Grime. By then the Noble Street Independent Methodist church had opened nearby in 1872. For the four years prior to moving into its rather grand premises it had existed on Blackburn Street (later known as Deane Road) as a mission of the Folds Road Methodist church. A small street named Temperance Street separated the pub from the church’s Sunday school building.

The Noble Street Tavern was taken over by Robert Wood of the Prince Arthur brewery on St John Street in the 1880s. 

By 1906, the pub stood directly opposite the church’s Sunday School building with the church next door. Only a narrow thoroughfare named Temperance Street separating pub from church. Temperance Street and Noble Street Independent Methodist church still stand. The Noble Street Tavern had its licence refused in 1906. It was converted into a residential property before being demolished with much of the rest of Noble Street in the 1960s.

The site of the pub is now the Jehovah’s Witness church car park. Temperance Street and the Noble Street Independent Methodist church still exist.

Lord Nelson, 121 Derby Street, Bolton

The Lord Nelson was the first pub on Derby Street and was situated on the corner of Shaw Street. It was certainly in existence by 1800 some 30-odd years after Derby Street was built and it pre-dated by about three years the second pub, the Pilkington Arms. The Corinthian masonic lodge were meeting at the Lord Nelson in 1800. [1]

The first landlord we have on record is John Stones who was at the pub in 1818. By 1836 it was under the control of Abraham Entwisle who had previously run the Cross Keys on Cross Street. However, by the time of the 1841 census it was occupied by Alexander Hardie. He sold the pub to William Maude in May 1842. [2] Maude was a brewer who ran the Derby brewery across the road from the Lord Nelson just a few doors up from the Derby Arms. But he didn’t last very long at the Lord Nelson. The 1843 Bolton Directory shows that Jonathan Kershaw was at the pub. Maude was declared bankrupt in 1849, though by 1853 he was back in business running the Britannia on the corner of Derby Street and Moor Lane. [3]  Meanwhile, Hardie moved into Back Derby Street where he manufactured cotton for a while, but he was hounded by his creditors and hauled before a debtors’ court in 1843. [4]

Jonathan Kershaw died in 1847 and his wife Betty took over as licensee, but she was up in front of the judge the following year after being found guilty of serving beer on the morning of Good Friday, 1848. Good Friday was treated as a Sunday – as it was until only fairly recently – and pubs were not allowed to open in the morning. Mrs Kershaw was fined £1 – the equivalent of over £100 today. She left the pub shortly afterwards. [5]

By 1861 the landlord of the Lord Nelson was James Flitcroft who  in 1854 had applied for a full public house licence at a previously unlicensed building on Derby Street. Not only was Flitcroft a pub landlord but he owned a construction business. He had eight children and all those old enough worked in his various businesses. Three of his sons were bricklayers while one of his daughters worked as a barmaid at the Lord Nelson.

For almost a decade from c 1875 onwards the Lord Nelson was run by Joseph Ashton, the son of the landlord of the nearby Halfway House. Joseph was to die in 1883 at the early age of just 41.

Frederick Morton Barker was at the Lord Nelson by 1900. Born at 33 Moor Lane in 1875, Fred Barker moved to the Lord Nelson shortly after his marriage to Hannah Brockbank in December 1899. He had moved across the road to the Derby Arms by the time Hannah died in 1914 at the age of 39 and he continued at the Derby for some years afterwards. Fred died in 1943 at the age of 68 by which time he had retired and was living in Harpers Lane. One of his daughters, Madeline Wadsworth (1903-1987), was Bolton organiser of the WRVS and was awarded the MBE in 1972.

By 1924 the Lord Nelson’s landlady was Emily Briggs. She had recently succeeded her late husband John Briggs (1869-1922). The couple had previously been at the Farmers Arms in High Street, Turton and were farmers at Entwistle before that. [6]

The picture at the top of the page was taken in the late-1920s one of a series of images of Bolton pubs that had been taken over by the Leigh brewer, Shaw’s. In 1927 they had taken over Sharmans who owned 58 pubs in the Bolton area including the Lord Nelson. Shaws were bought out in 1931 by the Liverpool company of Walker Cain who also owned a brewery in Warrington. It was from this Warrington brewery that the Lord Nelson was supplied for the rest of its existence.

The Lord Nelson was demolished in 1966. The whole of those properties on Derby Street from Shaw Street to Hammond Street were cleared as part of slum clearances. More housing was built in its place.

[1] Lane’s Masonic Records. Accessed 15 January 2016.

[2] Manchester Courier, 7 May 1842.

[3] Manchester Courier, 20 October 1849.

[4] The London Gazette, 1843. 

 [5] Manchester Courier, 29 April 1848.

[6] There’s a great story about Doris Ann Lee, the daughter of the landlady who succeeded Emily Briggs in 1924. The story is on the Manchester Archive Plus website. Click here.  [Link accessed 16 January 2016).

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).

Pilkington Arms, 152 Derby Street, Bolton

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The former Pilkington Arms pictured in August 2015 (Google Streetview)

There is a common misconception that the Pilkington Arms was named after the family whose crest still appears on the Man and Scythe, Churchgate. While it was named after a member of the Pilkington family it was perhaps a different branch. John Pilkington built the pub in 1803 on Derby Street on the corner of what later became Noble Street and he simply named it after himself.

By 1820 John Pilkington had gone. A Mr Hiles is named as the landlord on the 1818 Bolton Directory and he was subsequently replaced by Richard Ryley. By the mid-1830s, Edward Smith was the proprietor. Pubs were often the centre of communities and were used for formal administrative proceedings. In 1841, the Pilkington was used by the local coroner for the inquest into the death of Edmund Fairclough, aged four, who died in a fire at the family home on nearby Houghton Street. Edmund’s mother went out to a bakehouse and locked Edmund and two other children in the house. When she returned Edmund was on the bed his clothes having caught fire. A verdict of accidental death was returned.

Edward Smith left the Pilkington around 1850. By 1851 he was a coal and house agent living on Blackburn Street, the name for what we now know as the bottom end of Deane Road. By the time he died in 1873 he was living alone in a boarding house on that same street.

Edward Smith was succeeded by William Seddon and his wife Ellen. William was the son of a farmer from Morris Green and the couple were running a beerhouse at Daubhill in 1851. By 1854 they were at the Pilkington Arms and they were to remain there for the rest of their lives. William died in 1870 and Ellen took over the running of the until her death in 1873. She was also described as the pub’s brewer according to the Bolton Directory of 1871. William Beckwith succeeded the Seddons and he ran the pub until his death in 1881 at the age of 39.

The Pilkington subsequently fell into the hands of Walkers Brewery on Spa Road. No relation to Walker Cain of Warrington, Walkers of Bolton was situated opposite Queens Park. Magnet stands on the site of the brewery which was owned by a number of companies during its 80 years of operation, latterly Howcroft’s which closed in 1969. Walker Street, off Spa Road owes its name to the brewery’s founders.

In 1899 the Walkers operation was being wound up and the Pilkington was one of a number of properties in Bolton and Preston being sold. [1] The job lot became part of the newly-formed Spa Wells Brewery Company in 1900.

Spa Wells lasted four years. It became J Jackson and Sons in 1904. Jackson’s sold out to Shaw’s of Leigh in 1927. Shaw’s were taken over by Walker Cain Ltd in 1931 and Walker’s merged with Tetley of Leeds in 1960 to form Tetley Walker.

The Pilkington was in the Good Beer Guide from 1994 to 1996. At the time it had been in the hands of the Richardson family for some 20 years. It closed down in 2007 and can be seen here in January of that year. 

The Pilkington in 2007 (image Johnmightycat on Flickr)

The Pilkington was converted into a takeaway. It was Bar B Q Base in 2008, Tariq’s in 2011 and, more recently, it became the Xquisite shisha, mocktail bar and grill in 2015.

[1] The other Bolton pubs were: the Milestone on Deane Road; the Queens Arms, Bridge Street; Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Egyptian Street; the Waterloo Tavern on Folds Road; the Sir Colin Campbell Road on Folds Road; the Mere Hall Inn on Vernon Street/Lyon Street; the Union Arms on Deane Road; the Red Lion at Four Lane Ends and the Church Hotel in Kearsley.

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.

Cotton Tree, 9-11 Edgar Street, Bolton

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Edgar Street still exists running parallel to the bottom of Derby Street before coming to a halt at Aldi’s car park. These days it is nothing more than a glorified back street with the rear of the shops on Derby Street on one side of the street and mill buildings on the other side, but from the middle of the nineteenth century until the 1920s there was a small community of people in Edgar Street along with nearby Closes Street and Carey Street.

The Cotton Tree was at number 9-11 Edgar Street and next door at number 13 was the engineering works of Thomas Mitchell and Sons Ltd. The firm was founded in 1838 and dealt in new and reconditioned machinery mainly for the cotton industry. [1]

Like many beerhouses, the Cotton Tree seems to have started life as a shop. Its first mention is on the 1861 census when James Moore, a 60-year-old beerseller and shopkeeper is running the premises. Mr Moore in on the 1841 census as a cotton spinner living in Coe Street, off Bridgeman Street, so that could give us a clue as to how the pub got its name. There were couple of other pubs by that name in Bolton in the 1860s: one on Moor Lane and one on Lever Street. 

James Moore was assisted by John Hargreaves and it seems the Hargreaves family eventually took over the pub. Peter Hargreaves appears as landlord on the 1869 Directory while John Hargreaves is in charge from 1871 onwards.

By 1895, the Cotton Tree was being run by the 24-year-old James Thornley whose father John Thornley was the landlord of the Flag Inn on Great Moor Street. He didn’t last long and by the time he married in 1901 he was working as a pattern maker on Bridge Street.

The Cotton Tree was owned by the Mort family in the last years of its existence. [2] It was leased to Wingfield’s Silverwell Brewery and that would have been no later than the end of the nineteenth century as Manchester Brewery Company took over Wingfield’s in 1899. It was a Manchester Brewery pub when it closed in 1908. William Lord was its final landlord. After closure the pub was converted into a private residence.

Many of the houses in Edgar Street, including the Cotton Tree, were demolished in the early-thirties. One of residents in the area was local historian the late Norman Kenyon who describes the houses on Edgar Street thus:

“The property in Edgar Street was very old and behind our cottage in a narrow alley, six or seven feet wide, was the communal lavatory. This was kept clean in turn by the ladies living in the row. Each lady carried out her task dutifully….The cottage in Edgar Street was a blessing in one sense, for we lived there at a time when Bolton Council was embarking on Clearance Orders to get rid of our old property and was building new housing estate such as Platt Hill and Willows Lane.”

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

The Kenyons headed off to Malton Avenue, off Hulton Lane in the early-1930s and the former Cotton Tree building was demolished along with the rest of its row and much of the surrounding street. The only building to remain was number 13, Mitchell’s offices. The factory was also spared.

Mitchell’s built a garage on the land occupied by some of the demolished properties. With a diminishing market for reconditioned machines and no younger family members willing to carry on the business after four generations Mitchell’s went into Members Voluntary Liquidation in 2007. An image of the factory taken in 2006 can be seen on this page. 

The car park at the Aldi Store at the bottom of Derby Street pictured in 2012 (copyright Google Street View). A truncated Edgar Street can be seen on the right hand side of the picture. Mitchell’s factory was situated directly in front of us and the site of the Cotton Tree, number 9-11 Edgar St, is roughly where the lay-by is at the side of the store on the left-hand side of the image.

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.

Milk Street Tavern (the Old Ivy House), Milk Street

Milk Street, Pump Street, Tin Street, Basil Street – there were some great street names around the bottom end of Daubhill in the nineteenth century. In fact the last two of those named still exist – at least on maps. Tin Street is a small thoroughfare that runs off Shaw Street between the children’s nursery and some industrial units, though it is now gated off outside working hours. Pump Street was renamed Basil Street in the 1920s and the street still runs off Houghton Street down to Derby Street.

Houghton Street pictured in 2012 (copyright Google Street View). Shaw Street runs across the image  in the near distance. Milk Street was closer but ran parallel to Shaw Street. 

Milk Street, though, is long gone but it was the only of those named to include a pub. The area was pretty well-pubbed towards the back end of the nineteenth century. The Houghton Street Tavern and the Rothwell Street Tavern were both nearby while the Bee Hive was at the end of Milk Street where it met Back Derby Street.

The Milk Street Tavern was originally named the Old Ivy House [1] but like two of its neighbours it lost its given name in favour of being named after the street on which it stood. [2]

In 1871, 70-year-old Mary Smith was running the pub along with her son John and his wife Ann. Mary had previously run a corner shop at 73 Rothwell Street. Her husband John was a tea dealer by trade but died in the 1850s.

Mary appears to have only turned to running a beerhouse quite late in life. She was still at the shop in 1861 so she must have moved to the pub later that decade.

By 1894, the Milk Street Tavern was being run by Nathan Entwistle. On 4 May that year, the night before a big race meeting at Kempton Park, the Milk Street Tavern was one of three pubs raided by police. [3] They found a variety of sporting literature at each of the pubs, but more damningly for Nathan Entwistle they found on his person a balance sheet.

They say you never meet a poor bookie and that was certainly the case with Nathan Entwistle. He had taken £32 in bets and profited to the tune of over £19. That’s the equivalent of over £2000 in today’s money – all in one afternoon. He must have been taking bets from all over the district.

Mr Entwistle was fined £25 plus costs and was given two months to pay the fine otherwise he faced two months of hard labour.

The licence of the Milk Street Tavern came up for renewal at the annual Brewster sessions a few months later. It was refused on the grounds that the pub was a “disorderly house”. It became a private residence and was demolished along with Milk Street and much of the rest of the area in the late sixties.

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

[2] The Houghton Street Tavern was originally the Bricklayers Arms, the Rothwell Street Tavern was once known as the Shakespeare.

[3] The other two were the Kay Street Arms on Kay Street, and Uncle’s Tom Cabin on Egyptian Street (not the one on Lever Street). Manchester Courier, 19 May 1894.

Brewers Arms, 4 Atherton Street

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The Brewers Arms was situated at 4 Atherton Street, just off Cannon Street.

The pub certainly existed in 1869 when the licensee was Lucy Turtle, but it perhaps didn’t have the name the Brewers Arms at that time. It is believed that the pub took its name in the 1870s when Isaac Openshaw had the pub. Isaac was a brewer by trade though within a few years he had moved to the Farmers Arms on nearby Derby Street.

The Brewers Arms subsequently became a rare outlet for the Phoenix Brewery of Heywood but it was sold in the 1890s to T & R Wingfield’s. Their Silverwell Brewery situated on Nelson Square in premises which later became part of the Pack Horse Hotel.

Wingfield’s sold out to the Manchester Brewery Company in 1899 and the Brewers became a Walker and Homfray’s house when MBC was taken over in 1912.

The Brewers Arms closed in 1924 and the building was demolished to make way for an extension to the nearby Garfield Mill. The mill closed for the manufacture of textiles in 1960 and was used by a number of small firms until its demolition in the early seventies. Housing now stands on the site.

Cannon Street looking towards Deane Road. To the right is Chatham Gardens which was built on the site of Atherton Street in the 1970s. Before Garfield Mill’s expansion in 1924/25 there were two houses on the corner of Atherton Street: number 2 and number 4. The Brewers Arms was at number 4 close to the junction with Cannon Street on the far corner as we look.

Duke Of Wellington, 26 John Street

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John Street ran from Derby Street down to Deane Road - or Blackburn Street as it was known until the 1890s.

The first recorded record of the Duke Of Wellington was in the 1871 census when Robert Holme, a 27-year-old carter, and his wife Caroline were running the pub. Robert Holme is described as a beerseller and cart owner on the census return. By 1881, the Holmes were still at the pub with Robert now a hay and coal dealer as well as a beerseller.

But it seems that Robert Holmes decided he had to choose between his two businesses: the beerhouse or the distribution of goods. He chose the latter and went to live Deane Road. By 1911, he and Caroline were  living in nearby Roundcroft Street where Robert is described as a master carer. He died in 1923.

The Duke Of Wellington was taken over by Wright Green. He was also a carter and lived further up John Street and was most likely known to Robert Holme. But while Wright Green ran the pub for over 15 years his time at the pub ended badly when its licence was refused in 1905.

Number 26 John Street was later combined with number 28 to make enlarged retail premises. A marine store dealer named William Hatton was there in 1924. It was subsequently converted back into two residential properties.

John Street no longer exists – at least not by that name. Many of the properties, including the former Duke Of Wellington pub, were demolished in the mid-sixties, but around a dozen remained for some years after. The thoroughfare was widened and became College Way, now University Way.

University Way looking towards Deane Road in September 2014 (copyright Google Street View). Whowell Street runs off to the left. The car park in the distance is the site of row that contained the Duke Of Wellington.

Black Horse, 259-261 Derby Street

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Many of the pubs that have closed in recent years were businesses for over 100 years – 150 years in some cases. The Black Horse was a beerhouse for only a relatively short period of time – around 50 years or so.  It was situated on Derby Street at its junction with Philip Street and  was founded in the 1860s by Roger Wallwork, a former coal miner who initially ran the pub with his wife, Mary.

The 1871 Census shows Roger Wallwork at the Black Horse along with his sons, John, 19, James, 18, and William, 14 and his 26-year-old wife, Mary. This was  Roger's second wife. The first Mary Wallwork had died in 1869, aged 38 and Roger didn't wait long before marrying Mary Burgess that same year.

But marrying a woman 18 years younger than him was as good as it got for Roger Wallwork. He left the Black Horse a few years later and by 1881 he was in the workhouse in Farnworth. He died in 1900.

According to Gordon Readyhough, the Black Horse was owned by Thomas Iddon in the late-1870s [1]. Mr Iddon already owned one fully-licensed public house, the Prince Of Wales on Mount Street in Halliwell. But he got out of the pub business in the early-1890s and the Black Horse was sold to Wingfield’s, a local firm who brewed on Nelson Square. The Pack Horse was later extended into the former brewery premises.

Wingfield’s sold out to the Manchester Brewery Company in 1899 and MBC were taken over by the Salford firm of Walker and Homfray’s in 1912. There was an objection to the licence in May 1914, but while the pub got over that hurdle, Walker and Homfray’s pulled the plug in 1917 and the Black Horse closed for good.

By 1924, the former pub premises were being used by a local plumber named James Pearson and he was still at 261 Derby Street in 1932.

The building still exists and in recent years it has become a fast food outlet, first as Sultan’s, then as Mahmood’s and more recently as a branch of Mash’s Wing Ranch.

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

Derby Street pictured in September 2014 (copyright  Google Street View) showing 259-261, formerly the Black Horse, now Mash's Wing Ranch.

Greengate Inn, 19-21 Hammond Street

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Hammond Street ran between Derby Street and Parrot Street. In 1851 the Staffordshire-born James Mullett lived in Parrot Street with his wife Alice and his mother Hannah and he worked as a boilermaker. Later in that decade the family moved to number 21 Hammond Street and opened the Greengate Inn. The census records for 1861 describe Mullett as a boilermaker and beerseller, so the pub was obviously a sideline most likely being run by his wife.

Alice Mullett died in July 1864 at the age of 50. James married again in March 1868, this time to Elizabeth Edgeler (nee Hough), a widow from Nelson Square. James and Elizabeth had a daughter, Alice, who was born in 1869, but the family left the Greengate a few years later.  James died in June 1875 and Elizabeth and Alice went to live with Elizabeth’s mother in Lever Street. They were at Leach Street, off Bridgeman Street, when Elizabeth died in 1898.

Levi Leach succeeded James Mullett at the Greengate around 1872. He was the son of James Leach who owned the Albert Inn and Leach’s Brewery on Derby Street and it is likely that Leach’s supplied the Greengate. Levi Leach died an early death. He passed away in 1895 at the age of 47, but by then he had moved on to the Tanners Arms on Lever Street.

The Greengate was bought by Robert Wood of the Prince Arthur brewery and was owned by that company until 1916 when it ceased trading. Wood's pubs were bought by William Tong’s of Deane Road and became the Greengate became a Walker’s pub when they took over Tong’s in 1923.

In 1933, Walker’s closed the Greengate as part of a complex deal with the local licensing magistrates. The brewery wanted the beerhouse licences of the Nightingale on Lever Street, the Vulcan on Junction Road, and the King William The Fourth on Manchester Road to be upgraded to full public licences enabling them to sell wines and spirits as well as beer. But the authorities would only countenance such a move if licences of beerhouses were given  up at a rate of two to one.

The Nightingale, the Vulcan and the King Bill all got their full licenses, but the Greengate was one of seven beerhouses that closed to facilitate the transfer. Also shutting their doors as part of the deal were the Masons Arms on Emblem Street, the Merehall Inn on Lyon Street, the Black Horse at Chew Moor, the Old Robin Hood on Lever Street, the Three Tuns on Chapel Street and the Arrowsmiths Arms on Mill Street.

The Greengate had started out at 21 Hammond Street, but by the 1890s it had expanded into the property next door, number 19. Following its closure the pub was converted back into two residential properties.

Hammond Street was demolished in the late-sixties. Burford Drive stands roughly on the same spot.

Burford Drive, off Parrot Street, pictured in September 2014 (copyright Google Street View). The houses on the left of the row - seen here - corresponded to the row on the right-hand side of Hammond Street. The Greengate was roughly halfway along this row.