Railway / Quill and Pen / Donaghy's, 63-65 Great Moor Street, Bolton

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The Railway pictured around 1932. The  image was part of a set taken by Walker Cain  Ltd after the took over the Leigh company of George Shaw's. The splendid stone-carved name sign in the middle of the pub was visible until 1985.

The Railway was situated on Great Moor Street and took its name from the nearby railways station that was the terminus for the Bolton and Leigh line. The station stood less than a hundred yards away from the pub on the site of what is now Morrisons petrol station. It opened in 1831 less than three years after the opening of the Bolton-Leigh line itself and was in regular passenger use until March 1954. Tracks were lifted in 1964 and the station building was demolished in 1966.

The Railway pub dated back to the late-1840s with John Tong shown as the licensee on the 1849 listing of Great Bolton beerhouses. It appears to have been either a shop or residential accomodation prior to that. However, it doesn't appear as a pub on the Bolton Directory for 1848. John Tong was a little piecer living in Blackburn Street (now the bottom end of Deane Road) at the time of the 1841 census. He remained at the pub until the 1860s.

The Railway appears to have been sold by Mr Tong to a local shoemaker, Richard Hall, and he was to remain a part of the pub's history for over a decade. But while Mr Hall owned the pub he wasn't always the licensee. In 1869 he applied for the pub's license to be transferred from James Chadbond to a widow, Mrs Betsy Whitworth. Mrs Whitworth didn't last long and Richard Hall is listed as the licensee on the 1871 Census. By 1881 he had gone back to being a shoemaker and was living in Ashburner Street. However, he was soon back in the area and by 1891 he was at 67 Great Moor Street, right next door to the pub.

For a number of years towards the end of the 19^th century the Railway was run by James Heyes. He had been at the Clifton Arms as far back as 1881 but by 1891 he had moved round the corner to Great Moor Street to run the Railway. He was still at the pub in 1901 when he is described as a retired beerseller.

By 1905 the Railway was in the hands of John Grime. John Nuttall and his wife were there according to the 1911 census.

Local brewer Magee, Marshall took over the Railway in the early part of the twentieth century. They subsequently sold the pub to another local firm, Joseph Sharman. Following Sharman's sale in 1927 it became a George Shaw pub until the Leigh-based brewery was taken over by Walker Cain Ltd of Liverpool and Warrington in 1931. Walker's merged with Tetley's to form Tetley Walker in 1960.

The Railway had a reputation as a gay pub in the seventies and eighties. It closed down in May 1985 and was bought by a local pub retail company Regal Knight Hotels Ltd. [1] It underwent a refurbishment and re-opened as the Quill And Pen in December 1985. No longer a gay pub it was aimed at a more upmarket clientele. [2] Regal Knight later owned the Gypsy'sTent on Deansgate and the White Hart in Farnworth. They went out of business in the 1990s.

The Quill and Pen was sold by Regal Knight in 1990. [3] It was taken over by local councillor Martin Donaghy and its name changed to Donaghy's. The pub closed in 1999 and was demolished in December of that year. The skateboard park on Great Moor Street now stands on the site.

[1] What's Doing, the Greater Manchester beer drinkers' magazine, June 1985.

[2] Bolton Beer Break, February 1986.

[3] What's Doing, the Greater Manchester beer drinkers' magazine, June 1990.

Ormrods Arms, 51 Great Moor Street, Bolton

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In his book Bolton Pubs 1800 – 2000, Gordon Readyhough claims the Ormrods Arms was a former name for the Railway Hotel on Great Moor Street. That isn’t true.

The 1849 list of Great Bolton beerhouses has both an Ormrods Arms and a Railway Tavern on Great Moor Street. Skip a few years and the 1853 Bolton Directory has the Ormrods Arms at 32 Great Moor Street and the Railway at 38 Great Moor Street so the two pubs were completely separate. In those days, streets weren’t numbered odds on one side and evens on the other. Quite often buildings were numbered starting from number 1 on one side up to the top of the street and then back down the other side of the street. Problems arose when streets were extended so a convention was established where odds were on one side – usually the left – and evens were on the other side of the street.

The Railway was later renumbered 63 Great Moor Street – it was numbered as such by 1871. If the Ormrods Arms was six doors down then it would have been renumbered 51 Great Moor Street.

But the Ormrods Arms was only a shortlived pub. The first mention we have is on the 1848 Bolton Directory when Jane Thompson is the licensee. In 1841, Jane Thompson was a shopkeeper along with her husband Michael on Great Moor Street just up from Dawes Street. The business wasn’t operating as a beerhouse on the 1843 Directory but Michael Thompson died in 1844. Either that was just as the decision had been made to sell beer at the shop or perhaps Jane Thompson converted the shop into a pub.

The pub’s name came from the nearby Flash Street Mills owned by Messrs Ormrod and Hardcastle.  James Ormrod and Thomas Hardcastle began a textile business in 1798. James Ormrod died in 1825 and was succeeded by his son Peter Ormrod. The family’s seat was Chamber Hall at the bottom of Deane Road.

John Wood was at the Ormrod’s Arms in 1851. He was initially a bleacher but got into the pub trade. He was 56 by this time. He had moved to the Crown Inn on Shipgates in 1861 and the Mill Hill Tavern on Mill Hill Street by 1871. His son Thomas Wood worked at each pub as a brewer.

The Ormrods Arms slips off the radar at this point. Number 51 Great Moor Street certainly wasn’t a pub on any subsequent directory listings. It was a tobacconist in 1905 and by 1924 it was a milliner.

But the building still stands. Many readers will be familiar with its incarnation as Syd’s Butchers which occupied the premises for many years. Syd’s (Butchers) Ltd was formed as a limited company in 1947 and was finally dissolved in 1997. But the premises remained empty for many years afterwards until the Scissor Art hairdressing salon opened there in 2012.

The former Ormrod’s Arms was Syd’s Butcher’s on this image from October 2009 (copyright Google Street View). The building was empty for almost 20 years after Syd’s packed up and was even empty long after the business was liquidated. Note the ‘ghost’ advertising in red at the top of the building.

Old House At Home, 40 Old Acres, Bolton

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The Old House At Home was situated at 40 Old Acres, a street that was actually the bottom end of Great Moor Street heading towards Bradshawgate.

John Bridge appears as the licensee according to the 1848 Bolton Directory listing. The Old House At Home had a full licence, but according to the 1851 census John Bridge was described as a shopkeeper and beerseller so at some stage he must have decided that it wasn’t worth his while selling wines and spirits alongside general provisions.

John Bridge later moved on Balshaw Street, off Deane Road. By 1881 he was 74 years old and still working as a beerseller in Bamber Street, off Cannon Street, though the premises appear to have been an off-licence instead of a pub or beerhouse.

By the late 1860s Charles Barrow was running the Old House At Home. The 1861 census has Charles as a house painter living on Chantlers Court, but he got into the pub game though he was to be the Old House At Home’s final landlord.

Mr Barrow had to re-apply for his licence in September 1869. A change is legislation gave licensing magistrates the power to force beerhouses to go through the same annual licensing procedure that public houses had to. The application didn’t go well. Mr Barrow had been charged twice; the house was troublesome to the police and it had facilities for illegal sales. PC Dearden – the bane of so many Bolton landlords in the late 1860s – was called and said that a good many objectionable persons congregated about the house on a Sunday morning, a time when the pub ought to have been closed. [1] 

However, Mr Barrow was one of a number of licensees who appealed against the decision to strip them of their licences and he granted a licence at the end of October.

But the Old House At Home lasted for only a few more years. The council decided that Old Acres was a bottle-neck on Great Moor Street. They demolished the street and extended a widened Great Moor Street down to Bradshawgate.

[1] Bolton Evening News, 2 September 1869.

The bottom end of Great Moor Street pictured in August 2015 (copyright Google Street View). Up to 1875 this was a narrow thoroughfare known as Old Acres.

Vulcan Inn, 130 Great Moor Street

The Vulcan pictured in 1961. Great Moor Street runs from left to right across the front of the pub; Crook Street can be seen running down the side of the pub. Derby Street Secondary school is in the background.

The Vulcan Inn stood on the junction of Great Moor Street and Crook Street. It began as a beerhouse around 1860, but became a fully-licensed house in 1874 [1] following the closure of the Angel and Woolpack on the corner of Deansgate and Mealhouse Lane. The Angel and Woolpack’s wine and spirits license was transferred to the Vulcan thus enabling it to save the full range of alcoholic drinks.

The Vulcan was a Magee’s pub at the end of the nineteenth century, but a few yards along from the Vulcan was the Grey Man, also a Magee’s pub. The brewery decided to sell one of the pubs rather than have two outlets so close together so the Vulcan was sold on to the Manchester Brewery Company in the early-twentieth century.

The move perhaps wasn’t for the best for the Vulcan. At that time, MBC had already expanded its tied estate in Bolton through the takeover of TR Wingfield’s Silverwell brewery which stood on the site of what is now the Pack Horse student accommodation. But the purchase of Wingfield's, plus that of Manchester brewery, Broadbent’s, had financially stretched the company. A shareholder’s committee was formed in 1904 which drank its way across the whole of MBC’s tied estate. This included pubs in Preston, Oldham, Manchester plus a sizeable number of pubs in Staffordshire around the Black Country area. Disgruntled tenants and a lack of investment in the company’s pubs coupled with poor beer meant that some pubs were actually losing money. [2]

The Vulcan Inn taken from Hargreaves House shortly before the pub closed in 1973.

In 1912, MBC was taken over by the Salford brewery of Walker and Homfray. They were in charge until 1949 when the Vulcan was one of 477 Walker and Homfray’s pubs to be bought when the brewery was taken over by Wilson’s of Manchester.

The Vulcan was reputed to have been a gay pub in the early seventies which would have made it one of the earliest such pubs in Bolton. It closed in 1973 and was demolished as part of the construction of the Trinity Street dual carriageway. That part of Moor Lane which runs along the side of Bolton One now stands in its place.

In 1937, the photographer Humphrey Spender took a number of shots of the interior of a Bolton pub. It is believed to be the Vulcan because of the image in the pub’s vault window. Two of the photos are reproduced below. The photos are from the Bolton Worktown website and are copyright Bolton Council. Other photos from the set are here, here and here.

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

[2] Manchester Breweries Of Times Gone By, by Alan Gall. Published by Neil Richardson (1982).

Flag Hotel, Great Moor Street

Great Moor Street looking towards the Flag Hotel circa 1962. This image taken from the Bolton Archive collection and is copyright Bolton Council. The row of shops on the right of the image were built just a few years earlier and are still there. In the near distance – in front of the Flag – is Howell Croft bus station.

The Flag Hotel stood on Great Moor Street just in front of where Elizabeth House is now situated.

The pub dates from the early-1820s and apparently got its name from a huge flagstone 15 feet square and weighing over six tons that was transported from a local quarry to Great Moor Street. [1] Eight dray horses using chains and rollers were deployed in  the operation and the flagstone was used to cover part of the floor. Only a small part. Fifteen feet square is equal to less than four feet long by four feet wide.

The pub first appears in the local directory for 1824 when the licensee was Robert Warr. By the time the 1836 record was published Warr had been succeeded by John Eglin who also ran the Bay Horse on Deansgate. Eglin was briefly succeeded by David Morris before James Lowe began a long tenureship around 1842.

From the late-1850s the Flag was run by the Harrison family. Robert Harrison hailed from Liverpool, his wife Ellen was a Bolton girl. By 1871 Robert was off the scene - the Duke Of Clarence on Bath Street was owned at the same time by a Robert Harrison who may have been the same person. Meanwhile, Ellen Harrison was running the Flag alongside her mother, Elizabeth Ratcliffe. Indeed, the 1871 Bolton Directory gives Mrs Ratcliffe as the licensee. But it was Ellen Harrison who was not only the proprietor but was also the brewer as the Flag produced its own ales in a small brewery at the back of the pub.

Ellen Harrison died in 1888 at the early age of just 51. The Flag was eventually bought by Magee, Marshall and Co and remained a Magee’s house until their takeover by Greenall Whitley in 1958. Many Magee’s pubs retained their livery until the brewery was closed by Greenall’s in 1970.

The Flag was eventually bought by Magee, Marshall and Co and remained a Magee's house until their takeover by Greenall Whitley in 1958. Many Magee’s pubs retained their livery until the brewery was closed by Greenall’s in 1970.

It’s hard to believe but in those days the Flag was in the middle of a residential area. Howell Croft ran from Deansgate to Great Moor Street and right behind the pub – on the site of what is now Elizabeth House – was a row of houses.  Houses were also situated at the side of the pub on land that for many years was Bolton Wholesale Market but which is now the Octagon Car Park. When the market moved to Ashburner Street in 1932 the site became Howell Croft bus station until 1969. A post office and the Railway Hotel stood on the opposite side of Great Moor Street to the Flag.

In the end, the needs of the motor car and, to a lesser degree, of local government marked the end for the Flag. The closure of Howell Croft bus station in 1969 robbed the pub of some of its passing trade, but in any case its days were already numbered. The construction of local government offices at Elizabeth House meant the pub was to be cleared to make way for parking. This photograph from the Bolton News archive shows the Flag in 1970. Elizabeth House can be seen rising in the background.

The Flag closed in November 1970 and was demolished three months later in February 1971. The exact spot of the pub is by the pelican crossing in front of Elizabeth House.

This image of the Flag comes from 1937 and comes from the Bolton Worktown collection (copyright Bolton Council). It is one of only three shots taken by photographer Humphrey Spender using flash photography. The  image depicts the Flag with its customers leaving at last orders, which in those days were at 10pm every night of the week.

Wheatsheaf/Serendipity's, Great Moor Street

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Newport Street with Great Moor Street running across pictured in the late-nineteenth century. The 1835 version of the Wheatsheaf can be seen on the left-hand corner.

The story of the Wheatsheaf Hotel is one of three buildings in two locations on opposite sides of the town centre.

While many people will associate the Wheatsheaf with the round building on the corner of Great Moor Street and Newport Street, the original Wheatsheaf stood on Bank Street – ‘Windy Bank’ as it was known to Bolton residents at the end of the 18^th century.

In his book Pubs Of Bolton 1800-2000, [1] Gordon Readyhough claims the original Wheatsheaf opened in 1810. However, the list of Bolton pubs from 1778 shows that there was already a Wheatsheaf Hotel with Thomas Haslam as landlord.

The pub stood close to the entrance to the Unitarian chapel on Bank Street and the chapel’s bicentenary book from 1896 makes reference to the Wheatsheaf and its proximity to the chapel’s Sunday School, which was built in 1796:

“It [the Sunday School] stood between the passage to the old chapel and the old Wheatsheaf Inn. On the removal of this inn, with the inn-keeper and the name of the hotel, to the new Wheatsheaf in Newport Street, the school building, along with the inn, was pulled down, and shops built on the site.”

In those days Bank Street was a narrow passage, in fact it was “so very narrow that it was necessary for foot-passengers to step into some shop or doorway to avoid being crushed by a passing cart.” [Sayings and Doings of Parson Folds. Bolton : Geo. Winterburn, 1879, page 34]

In 1818 the landlord of the Wheatsheaf was Samuel Henry and he appears to have run the pub until shortly before it was removed to Newport Street in 1835. In the 1836 Bolton Directory [2], John Platt was the landlord of the Wheatsheaf while Samuel Henry was running a beerhouse on Bridgeman Place. [3] Samuel Henry’s departure may well have been the catalyst for the removal of the Wheatsheaf to its new location.

The Wheatsheaf was sold by auction for £8400 on 3 April 1878 [4] and was run in the 1880s and 1890s by George Walker, the proprietor of the Bolton Brewery Company Ltd. The premises were much larger than the building that still stands today and was run as a hotel, as this old photograph from the late-fifties shows. Here's another shot of the old building, this time from the Bolton Evening News taken in 1961 shortly before it was demolished.

Indeed, there appears to have been a Wheatsheaf Hotel Company that was taken over by the local brewery of Magee, Marshall and Co around 1909. Magee’s ran the pub until they were taken over by Greenall Whitley in 1958.

A few years later, Greenall’s took the decision to knock down the 1835 building and rebuild the Wheatsheaf in a modern style – complete with revolving doors. The new building was set further back than the old Wheatsheaf, but the pub had new neighbours: the western side of Newport Street had been demolished and rebuilt in 1957 and when the new Wheatsheaf was completed in 1962 it was more in keeping with the buildings that had sprung up around it. A new row of shops was later built next to the pub– including a branch of Hanbury’s and Shaw’s outfitters – so that corner of Newport Street and Great Moor Street had architecture which, while perhaps not entirely aesthetically pleasing, at least complemented each other and were much more of their time. Here's a photo from 1963.

The new Wheatsheaf had a much smaller bar area than the old building, though it did have an upstairs function room, used for weddings, engagements and the like, and also heavy rock discos for a few months around 1984.

In 1986, Greenall’s decided to refurbish the Wheatsheaf. The result was £100,000 spent on an “exciting and cosmopolitan” town centre venue known as Serendipity’s. The idea was that instead of being just a pub, Serendipity’s would also serve tea and coffee for passing shoppers.[5]

But for “exciting and cosmopolitan” read ‘one last throw of the dice’. Some of the rougher pubs were at that end of town and with the clientele to match. Serendipity’s did well at first, but towards the end it had become a pub to avoid. It closed around 1994 and after lying empty for a few years it was converted into a branch of cut-price retailer Home Bargains, which opened in 1997.

The former Wheatsheaf, pictured in April 2012. Copyright Google Street View.

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

[2] Four Bolton Directories: 1821/2, 1836, 1843, 1853. Reprinted by Neil Richardson (1982).

[3] The beerhouse on Bridgeman Place that Samuel Henry was running may well have become the Bradford, though not the pub of the same name a few hundred yards from Bridgeman Place, on Bradford Street. This one was where the petrol station now stands.

[4] Annals Of Bolton, James Clegg, 1888

[5] Bolton Beer Break, the magazine of the Bolton branch of the Campaign for Real Ale. Summer 1986 issue.

Va Va/Pips/Rotters/Space City/High Society/Kiss/Club Liquid

The entrance to the cellar at Elizabeth House, the entry to a night club that had six different names over a period of 20 years.

When Elizabeth House was built on Great Moor Street in 1971 it was decided to lease the cellar premises to a company who wanted to open up a nightclub. The Va Va club opened that year, the club’s name coming from the French word for ‘go’ – The ‘Go Go’ club, in other words.

The Va Va became well-known throughout the north in 1973 for its all-night northern soul sessions. Local DJ Wick Barrett (nowadays a civil servant in Cardiff) invited another DJ, Richard Searling to help him out at the 12-hour sessions which began in April 1973. Richard had just returned from a trip from Philadelphia and had brought back with him a large number of obscure soul records and took up Wick’s offer. The first few hours at the Va Va’s Friday night sessions would be the pop hits of the day followed at 1am by ‘rare soul’ – the term which the genre later known as ‘Northern  Soul’ was initially known by – until the club closed at 8 the following morning.

The Va Va had a capacity of around 400 and by the summer of that year was attracting around 300-400 people every Friday night from all over the north of England, partly helped by the management advertising in Blues & Soul magazine.

But as always seems to be the case in the case of night clubs with what could be termed a ‘cult following’ drugs were instrumental in its downfall.

As Richard Searling puts it:  “During a casual look around the club drugs were found and the management, quite understandably, became worried about their relations with the Police who had discovered the 'Pills'.  Nothing was said on that Friday in August, but on the following Wednesday I received a phone call from the manager saying that the Va-Va all-nighter was no more”. [1]

After just four months the all-night sessions were dead, but for an event that lasted such a short space of time the sessions are still fondly remembered. The Va Va is mentioned in the same breath as the King Mojo in Sheffield, The Catacombs in Wolverhampton and the Room at the Top in Wigan as clubs that helped pioneer Northern Soul and the club is remembered with a great deal of affection both locally and by aficionados of the genre from further afield. A simple Google search for ‘Va Va Bolton’ digs up a whole host of  memories on blogs and forums from people who attended the events in those heady days of the summer of '73.

A month after the Va Va ended its Northern Soul all-nighters, Wigan Casino began theirs. The rest, as they say, is history.

The Va Va endured two name changes before the seventies were out as the owners went for a more mainstream audience and tried to compete with other nightclubs in the town such as the Palais, Scamps and the Cromwellian/Maxwell’s Plum. It changed its name to Pips nightclub and became Rotters in 1978. However, it closed after a fire in 1979 and remained empty for over a year.

In December 1980 the premises re-opened as Space City. The club licence had gone but Space City promoted itself as a pool hall and amusement arcade specialising in ‘space invader’ games that had recently become popular.

The popularity of ‘space invaders’ began to wane as the eighties wore on and in the summer of 1984 Space City’s management began to put on heavy rock discos following the demise of rock nights in the Swan Hotel’s cellar bar the previous year. It was a strange choice. While the Swan’s cellar was dank and wet the inside of Space City still looked like the trendy nightclub it had been in the seventies complete with mirrors and disco balls. Even so, the Space City rock disco ran for four years until the venue's owner Roy Savage sold up in 1988. Like the Northern  Soul events over a decade earlier, the rock nights are still remembered affectionately by those who were there, but the rockers moved on to yet another cellar bar, Sundowners in Mawdesley Street (later J2 and now Level) where they remained – in a club re-named Sparrow’s in 1989- for the next eight years.

The premises that once housed Va Va and Space City then became High Society, before being renamed the Kiss night spot from 1992 and Club Liquid in 1997. This closed soon after the turn of the millennium.

Moves were afoot around 2004 to re-commence rock nights in the Elizabeth House cellar, but police objections centred around the manning of resources away from the Bradshawgate/Deansgate area and it looks unlikely ever to re-open as licensed premises.

The Bolton Council list of empty properties as at September 2014 has Heineken UK Ltd as its owners.

[1] Rumworth Soul Club. Accessed 17 April 2014.

[2] Wikipedia entry for  Northern Soul. Accessed 17 April 2014.

Grey Man, Great Moor Street

This picture shows the Bolton One complex being constructed in March 2011. In the foreground the entrance to the site marks the last evidence of the former extension of Derby Street. The Grey Man was situated on the right-hand corner of this junction. From around 1979 until Bolton One was built in 2010-12 Derby Street ran down to a cul-de-sac just past the Derby Street Girls School; prior to that it ran down to meet Crook Street at the junction with Deane Road.

Photo copyright Lost Pubs Of Bolton.

The Grey Man was situated on Great Moor Street at its junction with Derby Street.

These days Great Moor Street ends at the junction with Blackhorse Street but up until the construction of the Trinity Street extension in the late-seventies it ran all the way up to the junction with Derby Street near to what is now Bolton One (see picture above).

The Grey Man was a Magees beerhouse and was built in the late-nineteenth century. Old maps from 1891 show the building in situ.

In 1962 it received a full drinks licence and could therefore serve wines and spirits as well as beer. By then it was owned by Greenall Whitley who had taken over Magees in 1958. However, in preparation for the construction of the by-pass it closed in 1972 and was demolished that same year. [1]

Bolton.org published a number of photos courtesy of Dennis Jackson showing the Grey Man shortly before it closed. [2] The first picture shows the pub’s last landlady Annie Ridings along with her husband. Although the Grey Man dated from Victorian times the building looks more like a building from the 1930s.

The second picture shows a view from the top of the pub looking up Derby Street. 

Finally, a view taken from the grass outside the then Bolton Institute Of Technology of the Grey Man being demolished. The building to the left is the Derby Street School for Girls.

Finally, here is a view of the Bolton Institute Of Technology and surrounding area taken in 1972. The Grey Man can be seen on the right-hand side of the photo situated at the junction of Great Moor Street and Derby Street.

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

[2] Bolton.org.uk. Retrieved 7 April 2014. 

New Zealand Chief

The side wall of the New Zealand Chief can be seen on the left-hand side of this photo taken in the late-fifties/early-sixties. Note the small petrol station in the foreground. Photo by Peter Haslam from the Clarke Chronicler's website.

Dating back to the 1830s the New Zealand Chief stood for 150 years on Great Moor Street just a little further up from St Patrick’s church.

The pub was listed in an 1849 list of Bolton pubs as the Indian Chief and there is no indication as to when it changed its name.

New Zealand Chief pictured before its closure in 1984.

The New Zealand Chief reputedly had the smallest bar in England – at least until alterations took place in 1959.  The bar measured just 6ft by 2ft 2ins and can be seen in this picture taken by the Bolton Evening News on 24 March 1959.

A story was told that a man weighing more than 20 stones failed to win a bet that he could pull himself a pint from the bar's single set of handpumps. He became wedged while attempting to do so. [1]

The New Zealand Chief closed in December 1984 [2] and was put up for sale by its then owners, Greenall Whitley, who inherited the pub after taking over the Bolton brewery of Magee, Marshall & Co in 1958. It was sold to be redeveloped as offices and demolition began in February 1986. [3]

The new building housed a firm of solicitors until it was demolished at the beginning of 2014 to make way for Bolton’s new bus/rail interchange.

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

[2] What’s Doing, the Greater Manchester beer drinkers monthly magazine. February 1985 issue.

[3] What’s Doing, April 1986.

George Hotel, Great Moor Street

Refurbishment work begins at the former George Hotel, Thursday 25 March 2011.

Builders got to work on the George Hotel in March 2011, but rather than it being replaced with a 12-story block of flats as had been thought, it was eventually converted into student flats. With that the pub’s long, drawn-out demise is finally to be brought to its inevitable sorry conclusion.

The George hadn’t operated as a pub since around 2000 and all efforts to sell it as licensed premises have failed. In the end the property was sold for just £50,000 and despite calls to retain the frontage the whole lot will be a pile of rubble in due course.

What a shame as it was a decent pub, one I went in many times without it ever appearing to be so busy. I used to go in there in the eighties and early nineties and I don’t think I ever saw more than 20 people in what was a decent-sized pub.

Like many Wilson’s pubs of that time it sold real ale from electric pumps and to be fair it always sold a decent pint and at a reasonable price. A survey in 1986 showed that the Geroge had the cheapest real ale in the town centre with a pint of Wilson's Mild costing just 67p while Wilsons Bitter was 71p a pint. [1] though the Mild was taken off due to poor sales just a few months later. [2]

The last time I went in there, around 1999, real ale had long gone in favour of smooth John Smiths Bitter. Custom was as thin on the ground as ever and sure enough it had closed within a year.

The layout of the George hadn’t changed since I first went there. The pub had two entrances: one on Blackhorse Street that gave access to the lounge, and one on Great Moor Street that led to the vault on the right. In later years another entry on the corner of Great Moor Street and Blackhorse was re-opened to provide direct access to the vault.

Given the not inconsiderable size of the pub the lounge only had a moderate number of seats, not that its capacity was regularly tested. There was more seating in the vault while two rooms to the side of the pub were used as meeting rooms by local societies.

The George dated back to the 1820s and was at one time known as the George Inn and Railway Hotel as a nod to Bolton’s first railway station at Great Moor Street which opened just across the road in April 1831, almost three years after the completion of the Bolton to Leigh railway line, the second oldest in the world.

The immediate area was particularly squalid, as this report into sanitation in the town described in the middle of the 19th century:

“Behind George Inn there are five [privies] placed in a row, most of them without doors, and the passage past them is used as a thoroughfare, from one street to the other.” [3] So the loo was a toilet without a door at the side of the street! This would probably have been at the junction of Stable Row and Back Weston Street. Stable Row ran from behind the George and across the railway line via a narrow bridge to New Street which is where the back of the market is.

Confusingly to the modern reader, that part of of Great Moor Street beyond Blackhorse Street was known as Weston Street some years before another thoroughfare of that name was constructed to link Manchester Road and Rishton Lane.

In September 1851 the street outside the George was the scene of a rescue operation after 14-year-old John Hutton became stuck in a sewer. In what to us might seem like a remarkable act of procurement, the council had engaged a local collier to clean the sewer and the collier had entrusted young Hutton and another youth to do the job. The lads went into the sewer on the Saturday morning but by 5pm Hutton had become stuck. Excavations took place but were halted later that evening after it became dark. When Hutton’s body was recovered at eleven o’clock the following morning it was discovered he had been dead for only an hour. The council later rewarded many of those who took part in the rescue. [4]

The George became a Wilson’s house in 1949 following their takeover of Salford brewer Walker and Homfrays. At the end of the 19th century the pub was owned by the Manchester Brewery Company who were subsequently taken over by Walker and Homfrays. No doubt the closure in 1954 of Great Moor Street station affected passing trade although you might have thought that the construction of Hargreaves House a few years later would have given the George some local business.

In the 1998 update of his book Bolton Town Centre: A Modern History covering the Great Moor Street area, Gordon Readyhough pointed out that in the 1930s Great Moor Street boasted nine hostelries but “in 1998 only the George, the Griffin and the Railway remain.” [5] No longer – only the Griffin is still a pub.

The George, pictured on the right of this 1962 image of Great Moor Street. Image from the Bolton Library and Museums Service collection. Copyright Bolton Council.

[1] Bolton Beer Break, Summer 86
[2] What’s Doing, September 86
[3] A Report Of The Sanatory Condition Of The Borough Of Bolton, John Entwisle, 1848.
[4] Annals Of Bolton, James Clegg, 1888
[5] Bolton Town Centre: A Modern History. Part Two: Bradshawgate, Great Moor Street and Newport Street, 1900-1998. Gordon Readyhough, published by Neil Richardson.

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