Barley Mow, Higher Bridge Street/Prince Street, Bolton

 

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Prince Street at its junction with Higher Bridge Street, the site of the Barley Mow. Picture: Google

The Barley Mow appears to have been in existence for about 35 years in the middle of the 19^th century. In his book Bolton Pubs 1800-2000 Gordon Readyhough states the pub was on Higher Bridge Street close to its junction with Prince Street so it would have been just a few yards away from the Ploughboy.  However, local records suggest the address may have been 1 Prince Street which puts it at the corner with Higher Bridge Street.

The licensee was for much of the pub's existence was John Crompton. The 1841 Census has him as a publican on Bridge Street as the whole of that stretch of town was known from Deansgate to what is now the bottom end of Blackburn Road. This may well have been the Barley Mow. The 1843 Bolton Directory gives the pub's address as 1 Prince Street.

John Crompton remained at the Barley Mow until the late-1860s. He was succeeded by James Ridings who remained at the pub until 1869. Mr Ridings was in turn succeeded by Samuel Blackley who moved from the Corporation Arms, Mason Street off Blackburn Street (later Deane Road).

Blackley lived at the pub with his wife, his young daughter and his mother-in-law all of whom were named Elizabeth. Blackley was a printer by trade and he continued in that trade during his time at the Barley Mow. By 1881 he had moved to 151 Clarence Street and was running his own printing business. His wife Elizabeth was a dealer in old clothes.

The Blackleys' tenure at the Barley Mow was brief. They were succeeded in 1871 by Thomas Holden. He left the pub in 1873 and was succeeded by its final landlord, John Riley, formerly a cotton spinner living on Halliwell Road.

Dobson and Barlow's mill stood directly behind the pub and they were looking to expand their premises by purchasing the whole of the row. The nearby Ploughboy was closed in 1870 and bought by the firm. The Barley Mow lasted until 1875. By then it was owned by local brewer William Tong – one of his early tied pubs – but Tong sold out to Dobson and Barlow's. The pub was closed and subsequently demolished.

Dobson and Barlow's later became Osman Textiles. The mill closed in the early-nineties. It was demolished and an Aldi store built on the site. This opened in 1993 and still stands.

 

Ploughboy, 97 Higher Bridge Street, Bolton

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The Higher Bridge Street branch of Aldi. The Ploughboy once stood at the edge of the car park.

The Ploughboy was situated at 97 Higher Bridge Street, close to the junction with Prince Street.

The building was only a pub for about 20 years until its closure in 1870. It was owned by George Holden who decided to move to the another beerhouse, the Old Cottage – more commonly known as the Quiet Woman  - on what is now Bradford Street in 1870. At a hearing, Holden found the transfer objected to by the town's chief constable, Thomas Beech, who claimed Holden was fined 2 shillings and 6 pence for a breach of his licence about 20 years previously. Holden stated that he had never been fined in his life. Chief Constable Beech referred to the court's fines book which stated that George Holden, the Letters, Higher Bridge Street had been fined. Holden replied that his house was known as the Ploughboy and never “the Letters”. The magistrates admitted that perhaps there was another George Holden and sanctioned the transfer. [Bolton Chronicle, 4 June 1870]

The court then turned to the transfer of the licence of the Ploughboy from George Holden to his son, George Holden junior. One of the magistrates, Councillor Richard Stockdale, pointed to George junior and asked his father if “that lad” would be taking charge of the pub. Holden senior replied that he would to which Councillor Stockdale responding by asking how old he was. “Twenty-one in January” replied George senior adding that his son would only be in charge for another four months. Chief Constable Beech stated that as the pub would virtually be under the control of the father he had no objections to the transfer.

So why four months? The Ploughboy was situated right next to Dobson and Barlow's mill. The firm wanted to expand the mill and wished to purchase properties on Higher Bridge Street to facilitate the expansion. The Ploughboy was bought and closed in the autumn of 1870 and it was subsequently demolished.

George Holden's time at the Old Cottage was brief. The 1871 census has him living on Waterloo Street describing him as “a beerseller out of business”.

Dobson and Barlow's later became Osman Textiles. That closed in the early-nineties, The mill was demolished and an Aldi store was built on the site in 1993.  

Junction Inn - Smoothing Iron, 77 - 79 Egyptian Street, Bolton

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The Junction Inn was situated at the meeting of three thoroughfares: Egyptian Street, St John’s Street and the northernmost part of Higher Bridge Street close to where it meets Blackburn Road and Kay Street.

The building was used as a pub in at least the 1860s. The first record we have of it as licensed premises is from 1869 when the licensee, George Pownall decided to sell the lease. [1]

However, the advertisement suggested that the lease agreement dated back to 1837, the likely date of construction although it may not necessarily have been a pub right from the start. At that time of the 1869 sale the pub was known as the Smoothing Iron due to its unusual rectangular shape and it was still known by that name as late as 1876.

For over ten years, the Junction was in the hands of Martha Cope and it seems to have taken on that name under her tenure. Born in Grantham, Lincolnshire in 1859, Martha moved in to the pub in the 1880s with her first husband, Joseph Smith. He died in 1890 leaving Martha and three children and she took over the running of the pub.

In 1893, Martha married the pub’s barman, the Nottingham-born William Henry Cope, who was already living at the pub according to the 1891 census. They went on to have two children together, but in March 1898 on a visit to his home town, William died at the age of just 26.

Martha Cope died in 1901. By the time of the 1911 Census the eldest child, Minnie Smith, was married to William Kirkman. The two other children she had with Joseph Smith were living with their aunt and uncle in Darbishire Street. Two other children, Ethel and Martha, later emigrated to Canada.

Martha Cope was succeeded by Joseph John Goodlad, a career licensee who had previously been at the Union Arms on Deane Road. At the time of his death in 1920 he had moved on again, this time to the Windsor Castle at the bottom of Halliwell Road.

By then the Junction Inn was in the hands of Magee’s brewery after their takeover of previous owners, Halliwell’s Alexandra Brewery in 1910. Although Greenall Whitley were the owners when the pub closed in the 1960s it was still being supplied by beer brewed by Magee’s Crown Brewery just off Derby Street.

 [1] Bolton Evening News, 12 May 1869.

Blackburn Road goes off to the right and Egyptian Street to the left in this August 2015 image (copyright Google Street View). The Junction Inn stood where the trees are in the middle distance. The short thoroughfare heading off to the right of where the pub stood was once the bottom end of St John’s Street.

Borough Arms, 106-108 Higher Bridge Street

The Borough Arms. The picture was taken either in the late-twenties or early-thirties after Sharman's were taken over by Shaw's. It is believed that this image and many more like it, were commissioned by the Liverpool brewer Walker Cain who bought out Shaw's soon after their takeover of Sharman's.

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The Borough Arms was situated at 106-108 Higher Bridge Street on the corner of China Lane. One theory as to the name is that it was founded when Bolton was incorporated as a county borough in 1838.

The pub was occupied by the Wolfe family from the mid-1850s until the late-1870s. Oliver and Elizabeth Wolfe were previously weavers in Prince Street until they moved to the pub, but Oliver died in 1858 and Elizabeth ran the pub until her death in 1878.

During Elizabeth Wolfe’s tenure the Borough expanded into the premises next door and for the next 120-odd years it maintained a traditional two-roomed set-up: lounge to the left of a central front entrance with the vault to the right.

Local brewer Sharman’s eventually bought the pub. [1] They had moved from Mill Hill to a new brewery in 1872 right next to Mere Hall just a few hundred yards away from the Borough. It became a Shaw’s pub when the Leigh firm bought out Sharman’s in 1926. Shaw’s were in turn bought out by the Liverpool brewery of Walker Cain in 1931. Most people will remember the Borough as a Tetley pub from 1961 onwards after Tetley merged with Walkers.

That part of Higher Bridge Street wasn’t bad for night life in the sixties and seventies. The nearby Palladium cinema – built 1921 – became the Wryton Stadium in 1958 and staged wrestling matches for the next 20 years. The Carlton Ballroom (later a nightclub known variously as Drumbeat, the Blue Lagoon and the Neptune) was just further down so the Borough enjoyed a steady custom from patrons of those venues.

But the changing fortunes of the area affected the Borough. The old streets on the other side of Blackburn Road were cleared away and the pub suffered. There was still live entertainment in the lounge at weekends as late as the eighties with a resident drum/organ duo along with a vocalist. The occasional rock band played there.

The Borough shut in 1997 and remained closed and boarded up for a number of years. It was demolished around 2006 and is now used as a car park for a nearby motor dealer.

The site of the Borough Arms in September 2014 (copyright Google Street View). The site of China Lane - now closed off - can still be seen.

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

Globe Inn, Higher Bridge Street

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Image from the Bolton Library And Museums Service collection. Copyright Bolton Council.

The Globe is the distinctive white building in the near distance on this photo of Higher Bridge Street from around 1975. The heating firm of J Smethurst and Son (Bolton) Ltd, just a few doors down, continued in business until the late-nineties, though not from the same premises.

The Globe Inn on Higher Bridge Street was one of those street-corner locals that began to spring up in the middle of the 19^th-century – a small beer house in a residential area.

It dated back to the 1860s and the building was a pub for pretty much the whole of its existence. That part of Higher Bridge Street was undeveloped on the 1849 map but we know the Globe was in existence by 1870 at the latest.

The Globe was situated on the main road out of Bolton with Heywood Street running down one side of the pub and Graham Street down the other. Until the 1930s there was a small row of three houses directly to the rear of the pub on Heywood Street. There was also housing on Edmund Street which ran behind the Globe so there was an immediate catchment area.

The Globe was a traditional multi-roomed pub but by the eighties any walls between the various rooms had been torn down and it had more of an open-plan look. There was a small vault to the left of the entrance, next to the bar; a lounge was on the right and there a pool room at the back. The efficient use of space meant the pub looked bigger than it actually was from the outside. The building was actually situated on a small incline and there was a notable slope from the front door down to the back room.

The Globe was bought by Wingfield’s Brewery which was situated on Nelson Square until the late-1890s in premises that were eventually demolished to become part of an extended Pack Horse Hotel. Wingfield’s were bought out by the Manchester Brewery Company. That business collapsed in 1912 and the pubs were bought by Walker and Homfray’s of Salford. In 1949 Walker and Homfray’s were taken over by Wilson’s.

The Wilson’s beers were usually pretty well kept, though. The brewery, in Newton Heath, Manchester, became part of the national Grand Metropolitan combine along with the Halifax brewery of Samuel Webster’s. However, Wilson’s brewed their own beers for a tied estate largely based in the Greater Manchester area but which reached out to the whole of the north-west.

The Globe pictured in the 1980s in a photograph sent in by Josh Bladen. The gentleman in the doorway is his grandfather who was the pub's landlord at the time.

But Wilson’s closed in 1986 with its beers now supplied from Halifax. It was the beginning of the end as GrandMet eventually got out of brewing and its pub empire was eventually packaged up and sold out to the resurgent pub retailers.

The Globe also began to suffer from a lack of local custom. The housing behind the pub disappeared in the fifties, sixties and seventies and while the rows of terraced houses on the other side of Higher Bridge Street also disappeared there was a  little compensation in that a number of pubs – the Hearts Of Oak and the  Haydock Arms on Haydock Street to name but two examples – also closed. That had the effect of driving custom from the new flats at Skagen Court to the likes of the Globe and the Borough higher up the street. Casual lunchtime custom was also affected by the closure of a number of mills in the area.

The Globe continued until around 2002 when it closed down. It can be seen here in 2000, a couple of years before it shut and with the Wilson's sign still showing on the side of the pub. A little further down Higher Bridge Street the local motor firm of Gordons Of Bolton had expanded in the eighties and nineties and began to buy up land along Higher Bridge Street. The Globe was subsequently demolished and its site is now part of Gordon’s car park.

Many of the regulars at the pub moved to the Rock House Hotel a couple of hundred yards away on Duke Street. The Rock House was renamed the New Globe. It closed at the end of 2013.

Two views of the site of the Globe after its demolition. Above, in August 2008, the site of the pub is fenced off. Heywood Street and Graham Street flank either side of the pub's location. Below, a similar view in May 2012 showing all the land now part of Gordon’s Of Bolton. The former Heywood Street is now just the entrance to the car park. The white van in the foreground is parked on the site of the Globe. Both images are copyright Google Street View.

Peel Hotel, Higher Bridge Street

The Peel pictured in 1975. The entrance to Gordon's car showroom can just be seen on the left-hand side of the photograph. Falcon Street runs down the side of the Peel. The building directly next to the pub is slightly set back and out of shot of the camera. After the chemist’s and the property next door to that was the entrance to Clarence Street, again slightly out of shot.   Image from the Bolton Library And Museums Service collection. Copyright Bolton Council 

The Peel Hotel was a nineteenth-century pub that was fully licensed by the end of that century. It stood on Higher Bridge Street on the right-hand side as you go out of the town centre and on the opposite corner of  Falcon Street to Gordon’s car showroom.

The pub was one of four in the town to be named after Sir Robert Peel, along with three pubs named the Peel Arms: one on Halliwell Road, one on Sidney Street and one on Waterloo Street.

The Peel on Higher Bridge Street was owned by Threlfalls brewery of Salford at one time, but it was sold to local brewer Magees and passed to Greenall Whitley when they took over Magees in 1958.

It had a lounge area on the right as you entered the pub. A vault – or public bar – was on the left and was also accessible via another entrance on Falcon Street.

In the summer of 1985 it was being reported that the Peel had been closed and was boarded up, along with the Tanners Arms on Nelson Street.  At the time it was up for sale with an asking price of  £48,000; however, just over a year later, in September 1986, it was announced that the Peel had been bought by Bolton Metropolitan Borough  Council and would be demolished as part of the Topp Way extension.

Ironically, Falcon Street was named after a pub at the opposite end, the Falcon, which was bought at the same time.

Both the Peel and the Falcon were demolished in 1987. The following year, in a guide book entitled, Vintage Pubs And Real Ale In The Manchester Area, the Campaign for Real Ale said of the Peel:

“This pub had an elegant façade and a spacious interior with large public bar, comfortable lounge and an upstairs function room. Among the pub ‘memorabilia’ was a fascinating price list from the 1950s.”

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

[2] What’s Doing, the Greater Manchester Beer Drinkers Monthly Magazine, June 1985 issue.

[3] What’s Doing, September 1986.

[4] Vintage Pubs And Real Ale In The Manchester Area. Edited by Peter Barnes.  Published by the Campaign for Real Ale (1988).

A May 2012 image of the area where the Peel used to stand (Copyright Google Street View). The pub was situated roughly where the cars are coming towards us on the right-hand side of the shot. The tree-lined traffic island is where the chemist was on the 1975 shot, with the entrance to Clarence Street now visible next to the row of houses in the distance.

Golden Cup, 12 Haigh Street off Higher Bridge Street

Haigh Street looking towards Higher Bridge Street pictured in May 2012 (Copyright Google Street View). The Golden Cup was situated on the left-hand side on this view.

In the nineteenth century and the early part of the twentieth century it was common for pubs to brew their own beer. Most were supplied by wholesale or ‘common’ brewers but in 1853 it was estimated that around a third of Bolton’s pubs and beerhouses brewed their own ale, which amounted to around 100 breweries in the town (in April 2014 there are three).

The Golden Cup on Haigh Street situated just off Higher Bridge Street was one of those brewing its own beer. In the 1880s it was owned by a Farnworth man, John Tong, described as a provision dealer and beer retailer of Dixon Green. [1]

The early part of the twentieth century saw brewpubs snapped up by wholesale brewers anxious to build up a tied estate for their products and this vertically-integrated business model was the modus operandi for the brewing industry until the 1990s. 

By 1932 the Golden Cup was one of just seven brewpubs left in Bolton (the others were: the British Oak on Derby Street, the Colliers Arms on Chorley Old Road, the Greyhound on Manchester Road, the Lord Raglan on Halliwell Road, the Rope and Anchor on Kay Street and the School Hill Hotel on School Hill).

The Second World War finished off much of the brew pubs as raw materials became scarce. However, there is evidence to suggest that the Golden Cup had already brewed its last even before 1939.

Have a look at this set of photographs from the Humphrey Spender archive. [2]  Although the interior of the pub has not been positively identified it is thought to have been the Golden Cup. The photos were taken in August 1937 and already the pub is advertising Walker’s beers. We know the Golden Cup was a Walker’s pub when it closed in 1959. Perhaps it had stopped brewing and was stocking only Walker’s beers when Spender took these shots.

The area was cleared  in the sixties and seventies and one of  Gordon’s Ford repair sheds now stands on the site. Haigh Street itself acts as an exit from the filing station on Kay Street.

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

[2] Bolton Worktown project.