Cotton Tree, 60 Lever Street

There have been four pubs in Bolton named the Cotton Tree. The one on Prince Street looked as though it would become a lost pub in 2014 but is still open, the one on Moor Lane closed in 1869 and the one on Edgar Street closed in 1908. This Cotton Tree stood on Lever Street at its junction with Nelson Street.

The road lay-out is different now to how it used to be. A look at maps from the 1950s, for example, shows Thynne Street not as the dual carriageway it is today for most of its length, but as a street with a single lane in each direction running from Crook Street to its current junction with Nelson Street and Lever Street.

The Cotton Tree was opposite the Tanners Arms, but a little further forward so that it almost jutted out into the road. Directly opposite the Cotton Tree, on Nelson Street and in front of the  Tanners Arms, was a bus shelter and public lavatory

The pub dated back to around the 1860s. An early licensee was Jeremiah Aspin, who took over the pub in 1871 moving from the Egerton Arms at the other end of Lever Street. Aspin was a brewer, which suggested the Cotton Tree had its own brewery.

Aspin was a widower, but he married again in 1872, this time to Alice Brindle a widow four years older than him at the age of 43. She bore him a daughter, Clara – his third.

Atkinson's ad from the 1880s

The Cotton Tree was later taken over by local brewer Atkinson’s whose brewery was on Commission Street, just off Mayor Street. William Atkinson was a brewer based at 1 Manor Street in the town centre in 1871. John Atkinson – possibly his son - took over the business and moved it to industrial premises on Commission Street. He then began a plan of expansion and bought a number of local pubs. These included other pubs near to the Cotton Tree, such as the Coe Street Tavern, and brewpubs like the Lord Clyde on Folds Road, which still stands. Other of its pubs that are still in existence include the Greyhound on Deansgate and the Griffin on Great Moor Street.

In 1895 Atkinson’s sold out and the Cotton Tree and the rest of their pubs were bought by Boardman’s United Breweries of Manchester. Boardman’s sold their Lancashire pub and the old Atkinson’s brewery to another Manchester brewery, Cornbrook’s, in 1898.

But Cornbrook’s later sold the Cotton Tree to Magee’s. Quite why they did so is puzzling as Magee’s already owned the Tanners Arms across the road. Breweries tried to space apart their properties and having ten yards or so between the two pubs must have counted against the Cotton Tree at the end of the day.

Magee’s sold out to Greenall Whitley in 1958 and after the inevitable review of their newly-expanded tied estate Greenall’s decided to close the Cotton Tree in 1962. The pub was later demolished as part of a wider redevelopment of the area.  

The bottom of Lever Street in September 2014 (copyright Google Street View). The Tanners Arms can still be seen on the left. The Cotton Tree was on the opposite corner just in front of the car parts building seen on the picture.

Egerton Arms, 284 Lever Street

The Egerton Arms on Lever Street isn’t a pub that has lasted long in the memory of older drinkers. Plenty of people reminisce in on-line forums about more recent closures such as the Tanners Arms or UncleTom’s Cabin or even the Recreation Tavern  next to Bobby Heywood’s Park, but more than 50 years after the Egerton finally closed its doors there is barely a memory of the place.

The pub was situated on the corner of Reservoir Street, and like the Recreation it was close to Heywood Park, across from Lever Street meets Rupert Street and some six doors up from Uncle Tom’s Cabin. 

The pub dated back to the 1860s. The opening of Heywood Park led to a development of the area and the 1871 directory gives Jeremiah Aspin as the landlord. But by the time Mr Aspin’s daughter Elizabeth married John Foster later that year he had moved to take charge of the Cotton Tree opposite the Tanners Arms at the other end of Lever Street at its junction with Nelson Street. 

It is likely that the Egerton was taken over at the time by Henry Heyes of the Fox and Goose pub on Deansgate and was supplied directly by that pub’s brewery. Jeremiah Aspin’s occupation was put as a brewer on his daughter’s marriage certificate and it seems that the Egerton’s own brewery had closed as a result of the pub’s sale.

The Fox and Goose and its brewery closed in 1897 after the pub’s licence was refused. The Egerton was sold to a Rossendale company, Grant’s Tower Brewery of Ewood Bridge. In 1913, Grant’s sold out to John Kenyon of Barrowford, near Nelson, but despite Kenyon’s falling into the hands of Massey’s Brewery of Burnley in 1928, the Egerton ended up in the hands of a more local concern, Cornbrook’s of Manchester, who already had a number of pubs in the Bolton area.

In 1962, Cornbrook’s closed the Egerton. It was a double blow for Lever Street as the Cotton Tree also closed in the same year.

The area was redeveloped in the seventies and new housing replaced the old terraces. The photo below from September 2014 (copyright  Google Street View) shows Lever Street with a walkway heading off the street. That was once Reservoir Street and the Egerton stood to the right of the passage fronting Lever Street.

Coe Street Tavern, Coe Street

Coe Street pictured from Bridgeman Street in April 2012 (Copyright Google Street View). Albion Mill can be seen in on the left in the distance. Edbro’s offices on Lever Street can be seen at the far end of the street. One of Coe Street’s two pubs, the Coe Street Tavern, stood on the right-hand side about halfway down this first block.

The area in between Bridgeman Street and Lever Street became heavily-pubbed during the latter part of the eighteenth century. Indeed, it wasn’t unusual for a street to have two or even three beerhouses.

Take Coe Street, for example. The street began to be built up in the early part of the nineteenth century and old maps from 1850 show around half the houses built on the street.

Two beerhouses arrived in the street that century. At number 45 was the New Inn while just across the road, number 52, became the Coe Street Tavern. We’ll take a look at the latter.

The 1853 Bolton Directory shows no beerhouse licences in Coe Street but the 1849 list of Bolton beerhouses show a Coe Street Tavern owned by William Whittaker. By 1877 as the Holy Trinity parish records show the daughter of the landlord, Alfred Rolphs, baptised at the church that year. Their address is 52 Coe Street and Alfred’s profession was given as a ‘beerster’ – or beer seller. He wasn’t in that profession for long and by the time his next daughter, Mary Ellen, was baptised at Holy Trinity in 1882 he was working on the railways and appears to have done so for the rest of his life.

By the end of the century the Coe Street Tavern was owned by the Bolton brewery of John Atkinson on Commission Street, close to where the fire station now is. Atkinson’s pubs were bought by the Manchester brewery of Boardman’s in 1895 and became the property of another Manchester brewery, Cornbrook’s, when they bought out Boardman’s three years later.

The Coe Street Tavern remained a beer house. A number of pubs went for wine and spirits licences but the Tavern remained a beer house until it closed in 1949. Its neighbour across the street, the New Inn, continued in business until 1961 and the whole street was pulled down for redevelopment in the mid-sixties.

Coe Street still exists but it has been part of an industrial estate for almost 50 years.

Uncle Tom's Cabin/The New Cabin, 270-272 Lever Street

The former Uncle Tom's Cabin, pictured in May 2014 (Copyright Lost Pubs Of Bolton).

Uncle Tom’s Cabin – or the New Cabin as it was later known – was situated at 270-272 Lever Street, Bolton.

The pub dated back to the late-nineteenth century and was initially a single property standing at the corner of Lever Street and Slaterfield.

A pivotal figure in the early story of Uncle Tom’s Cabin was Henry Hilton, a man with pubs and brewing running through his veins. Like his father before him Henry Hilton was a brewer. Both his wives – he was widowed at a young age – were the daughters of publicans. By the time he married for the second time in 1867, five years after his first marriage, he had gone from being a brewer to a licensed victualler – possibly at Uncle Tom’s Cabin.

Hilton ran the pub for a number of years and in 1894 he engaged William Green as brewer. Again there was a connection with the trade. Green had previously worked as a wholesale ale and porter dealer based in Great Lever. Perhaps more importantly, he had also married Hilton’s daughter, Sarah, in 1892. But by 1900, William Green was being described as a ‘retired publican’ – despite not yet being 40 - and he and Sarah living on nearby Rishton Lane.

Hilton’s other daughter, Emily, also married someone from the pub trade. Her husband was Wilbraham Leach, the landlord of the Clifton Arms on Newport Street and a member of the Leach family, who owned the Albert Inn pub and brewery on Derby Street. Leach succeeded William Green as the landlord of Uncle Tom’s Cabin around 1898, but like William Green he didn’t last long in the post and by 1904 he and Emily were living in Blackpool where Wilbraham Leach was described as a ‘gentleman’. The couple spent the rest of their lives in Blackpool where they died within a few months of each other in 1927.

Uncle Tom’s Cabin was one of the last pubs in Bolton to brew its own ales. Uncle Tom’s Cabin Brewery Ltd was formed to take over the brewing side of the business but it was wound up in 1937 [1] and the pub was sold to the Bromley Cross brewer John Hamer.

In 1951, Hamer’s sold out to Dutton’s of Blackburn and the new owners successfully applied for Uncle Tom’s Cabin to obtain a full drinks licence in 1953. Dutton’s were taken over by Whitbread in 1964. In turn, Whitbread got out of the pub-owning business in 2002 when it sold its tied estate, by then renamed Laurel Inns, to Enterprise Inns plc.

Uncle Tom’s Cabin was renamed the New Cabin in the 1990s and it remained a local pub for the residents of the surrounding streets, but the pub closed down in 2011. According to Bolton Council’s empty property spreadsheet of April 2014, Enterprise Inns still owned the building. The first floor has been converted into offices and is now occupied by a firm of accountants. The ground floor was still ‘to let’ at time of writing (May 2014).

[1] London Gazette, 25 June 1937.  Retrieved 5 May 2014. 

Robin Hood/Old Robin Hood, 174-178 Lever Street

The former premises of the Old Robin Hood (right) on Lever Street seen here in April 2014. The  Little John, on the left, was just a few yards away and when the two pubs came under the control of the same brewery one of them had to go.

Of all the pubs that have existed in the Great Lever area, the Old Robin Hood was perhaps the oldest. Situated at 174-178 Lever Street in what was later to become a heavily industrialised area the pub dated back to at least the beginning of the nineteenth century and possibly even before that.

The Robin Hood – as it was originally - was run for many years by the Beech family. In 1818 the licensee was William Beech. Isabel Beech was the landlady in 1828 and she was succeeded by Sarah Beech who was the licensee as late as 1853. Elizabeth Beech, a 55-year-old widow, was licensee in 1861 and she was succeeded by John Beech in 1862. William Beech from a different branch of the same family was in control by 1874 until at least the 1890s. This latter William Beech was the son of the town’s chief constable. [1]

Directly behind the pub there stood a bowling green and as we have seen at both the Howcroft and the Gibraltar Rock bowling was a big part at some of Bolton’s pubs. A look at old maps suggests the bowling green may even have outlasted the Robin Hood with ownership possibly transferring to its neighbour the Little John.

Opposite the Robin Hood was Robin Hood Mill which was certainly standing in 1836. The original mill was destroyed by fire in 1862 while a second mill burnt down 20 years later. The current building dates back to 1882 and is still in used today.

When the Beech family owned the Robin Hood in the early part of the nineteenth century it was the only pub on Lever Street. By the early-1930s the Old Robin Hood, as it was now colloquially known, was one of a number of pubs on the same stretch along with numerous beerhouses in the streets between Lever Street, Bridgeman Street and Heywood Park.

The Robin Hood also had a new owner in the early-thirties. After the Beech family left it was bought by the local brewery of Joseph Sharman & Sons. Sharman’s sold out to George Shaw & Son Ltd of Leigh in 1928 and Shaw’s were bought out by the rapidly expanding Walker Cain Ltd of Warrington in 1931. Walker’s undertook a review of their tied estate and it was clear there was some duplication.  The takeover of Shaw’s/Sharman’s and another local firm, William Tong’s, meant that a sizeable number of Bolton pubs were now owned the duopoly of Walker’s and the Daubhill brewery of Magee Marshall. [2]

Two doors down from the Robin Hood the Little John once belonged to William Tong’s. Now the two pubs stood side-by-side selling the same beer. Further down Lever Street, another former competitor, the Nightingale Inn, was also a Walker’s pub. Similar situations existed elsewhere in the town.

Walker’s tied estate was a mixture of beer houses and public houses, the difference being that a public house licence enabled premises to sell wine and spirits as well as beer. A beerhouse could only sell beer.  [3]

License swaps were a regular feature with one public house licence usually worth two beerhouse licenses. [3] Walker’s decided to do a deal with the local licensing magistrates. Either the Robin Hood or the Little John would have to go and it was the Robin Hood’s full licence that ultimately decided its fate. It made no sense to have two outlets within 10 yards of each other so Walker’s decided to transfer the Robin Hood’s public house licence to the Nightingale and shut the Robin Hood.

 In addition, the full licence of the Three Tuns on Chapel Street was transferred to the Vulcan Inn at Deane while that of the Arrowsmiths Arms was transferred to the King William IV on Manchester Road.  To smooth the deal through Walker’s also surrendered the licenses of four other beerhouses: the Masons Arms on Emblem Street, the Greengate Inn on Hammond Street, the Merehall Inn on Lyon Street and the Black Horse in Chew Moor although it is likely that these were poorly-performing outlets that the brewery had no further need of.

In other words, seven pubs closed so four others could serve gin and tonics.

The Old Robin Hood shut its doors for the final time in 1933; the first pub to open on Lever Street was also the first to close. The Nightingale carried on until 1998 when it was sold to the town’s Irish community for use as a social club. It thrives today as the Bolton Irish Centre having been given a new lease of life. The Little John, was reprieved because it didn’t have a full licence but it got a full licence in 1962 and is still open today [4]. The former Robin Hood building was converted into retail premises and was most recently used as a branch of the builders’ merchants, Jewson’s.

[1] St Mark’s website. Retrieved 22 April 2014.

[2] Subsequent takeovers – of Walker’s by Tetley in 1960 and of Magee’s by Greenall Whitley two years earlier – meant that right up to the 1990s most Bolton pubs were owned by either Tetley’s or Greenall’s. 

[3] The last pub in Bolton to have a beer-only licence was the Lodge Bank Tavern which got its full licence in 1980.

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

Tanners Arms

The former Tanners Arms, pictured in April 2012 when it was being used by a distributor of digital instrumentation. Image copyright Google Street View.

The Tanners Arms was situated at the bottom of Lever Street at its junction with Nelson Street. According to Gordon Readyhough, the pub dates back to the pub dates back to the nineteenth century and was originally a brew-pub named the Farmers Arms. [1]

The establishment of Walkers Tannery saw the pub change its name to something more suited to the trade of much of its clientele.

The pub was sold to the Alfred Crowther & Co Ltd of the Star Brewery in Bury in the early part of the twentieth century. Crowther’s were formed in 1897 but sold out to Wilson’s in 1925. However, the Tanners had long since been sold to the Bolton brewery of J Halliwell & Son, whose  Alexandra brewery on Mount Street ceased trading in 1910. Halliwell's pubs were bought by another Bolton concern, Magee, Marshall & Co, situated just off Derby Street about a mile away from the Tanners.

When the nearby tannery began to wind down its business in the early-eighties the pub's trade fell off and by June 1985 it was being reported that the Tanners had been closed and boarded up, as had the Peel on Higher Bridge Street [2]. The Tanners was de-licensed and put up for sale and by the middle of the following year it had been sold for use as a joinery [3]. The premises are now owned by a company manufacturing digital portable tachometers and associated devices. [4]

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

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

[3] What’s Doing, July 1986 issue.

[4] Compact Instruments.   Retrieved 25 March 2014.