Woodmans Cottage, 2 Deane Road, Bolton

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Two views of the Woodmans Cottage. The 1950s shot at the top shows the pub on the left with Moor Lane bending away in the distance. The Old Three Tuns Hotel can just be seen on the right. The second view (below) is from August 2015 (copyright Google Street View) and shows roughly the same sport.

The Woodmans Cottage was situated at the junction of three thoroughfares: Deane Road, Moor Lane and Derby Street. Its address was variously given as Moor Lane, Blackburn Street and finally, 2 Deane Road. While that suggests it was the first building on the road it was actually part of a block that ran from Stanley Street South to Lupton Street. Its next door neighbour for many years was Kay's pawnbrokers (as can be seen in the image at the top of the page).

The area from where Deane Road meets Mayor Street right down to the junction of Moor Lane and Deansgate was one of the most densely-pubbed areas of Bolton in the middle of the nineteenth century. So much so that when local magistrates were given powers to close down beerhouses in 1869 they targeted that area – Moor Lane in particular.

However, the Woodmans Cottage was one of the first beerhouses in the area after an Act Of Parliament passed in 1830 made it easier to open licenced premises selling beer only. It was certainly in existence by the mid-1830s. Jonathan Haslam appears in the 1836 Bolton Directory as a beer seller on Moor Lane a few doors along from the junction with Stanley Street which ties in with the site of the Woodmans Cottage. At that time, his only competition came from the Britannia Hotel, just across the road, the Old Three Tuns, a little further down from the Britannia,  and the Dog and Partridge at the junction of Partridge Street next to the railway bridge.

Jonathan Haslam died in 1845 at the age of 65. By 1849 John Cooper was running the Woodmans Cottage though by 1851 he was at the White Hart on Pikes Lane. By 1861, his wife Jane was at Broom House on Deane Church Lane where she was described as a 'fundholder' – or living off her investments. Presumably, John Cooper had passed away.

William Parkinson was at the pub by 1853, but by 1861 it was run by Samuel Openshaw. He previously ran the Horse and Vulcan, a pub further along Blackburn Street, as the lower end of Deane Road was then known. However, by 1861 he was brewer and beerseller at the Woodmans Cottage where he lived with his wife Sarah. Sadly, Sarah died in 1866 aged just 32. Samuel married Ann Barnes in 1867 and by 1871 he was at the Gibraltar Rock further up Pikes Lane. He died in 1874. 

The future of the Woodmans Cottage came under threat at the licensing renewals of 1900. Three local inhabitants plus members of the local temperance party objected to the pub's licence being renewed. They claimed the pub's closure would be “for the good of the town”. [1] The licensee at the time was Ralph Hall. He had only been at the pub for a few years and no offences had been reported against the house for over 30 years. Quite what Mr Hall had done to raise the ire of the temperance party isn't reported, but the magistrates agreed to renew its licence only if he was dismissed. By 1901 he was living with his in-laws in nearby Shaw Street and was working as a carder in a local cotton mill.

Ralph Hall was succeeded by Walter Copple – or, more likely, by his wife Annie. Walter was a coach painter by trade and he was still painting coaches while he was at the pub. Annie Copple had been brought up in the pub trade – her father ran the Mill Hill Tavern  amongst others – so it's more likely that she ran the pub. The couple went on to run the Queen Anne on Junction Road (by 1911) and the Swiss Hotel on Southern Street in Halliwell (certainly by 1918 and he was still there in 1924).  Walter had retired to Osborne Grove, off Chorley Old Road, by the time he died in 1928 at the age of 64. 

Interestingly, in 1924, Walter Copple's nephew, Walter Tyrer Copple, ran a cabinet-making business from premises on Moor Lane just a few doors down and on the same row as the Woodmans Cottage.

By the early twentieth century, the Woodmans Cottage had become a rare tied house in Bolton for the Openshaw Brewery Company of West Gorton in Manchester. Openshaw was taken over by the Hope and Anchor Breweries Ltd of Sheffield in 1957. Hope and Anchor was later to become part of the Bass empire. However, the Woodmans Cottage didn't get that far. It closed in 1959. The property was demolished in the late-sixties and for many years the site formed part of the Stanley Street car park next to the fire station (opened 1971).

Construction of the Bolton Sixth Form College building began in 2009 on the site of the car park. It was completed in 2010 and the furthest extremity of the complex next to the fire station marks the site of Woodmans Cottage.

[1] Manchester Courier and Lancashire Advertiser, 28 September 1900.

Sir Charles Napier, 30 Moor Lane, Bolton

The Sir Charles Napier pictured around 1929 shortly after it became part of the tied estate of George Shaw and Sons of Leigh.

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The Sir Charles Napier existed as a pub from the 1850s until 1939. It was one of a large number of pubs that existed on Moor Lane until 1869 when licensing magistrates managed to get a number of them closed down.

The pub was named after General Sir Charles Napier, the commander-in-chief of the British Army in India in the 1840. Napier was a man of contradictions. He once pointed out: “War is detestable and not to be desired by a nation. It falls not so heavily upon soldiers – it is our calling; but its horrors alight upon the poor, upon the miserable, upon the unhappy, upon those who feel the expense and the suffering, but have not the glory.” However, he also said: “The best way to quiet a country is a good thrashing, followed by great kindness afterwards. Even the wildest chaps are thus tamed.”

James Nightingale was the licensee at the time of the 1869 crackdown, but he was the latest in a string of licensees who came and went from the pub in a short space of time. William Morris is listed on the 1869 Bolton Directory, but by the early part of 1871 he had been replaced by James Wardle.

Mr Wardle was hauled above the judge in July 1869 for an infringement of his licence with regards to opening hours. Those who remember the days before licensing laws were liberalised in 2005 will hark back to a time when an infringement of opening hours usually meant a few late-night drinks. But while late hours were legal in 1869, Sunday morning opening was frowned upon and the police were active in the town seeking pubs serving patrons when those patrons ought to be at church. On Sunday 18 July 1869 they caught three pubs open. The Rising Sun on Churchbank was serving at 8.30am, but when the case came to court there was a doubt in the case against the landlord and it was discharged. But there was no such luck for Betty Bee of the Three Tuns on Moor Lane, nor for James Wardle of the Sir Charles Napier who was found to be open at 10.15am. Who would want a drink at ten o’clock on a Sunday morning? Well, it was the only day off work for most people. James Wardle was fined 5 shillings plus costs and he left the Sir Charles Napier soon afterwards. [1]

James Wardle was succeeded by James Nightingale, formerly the landlord of the Sir John Falstaff on Blackhorse Street. Mr Nightingale’s first task was to get the pub through the licensing session of September 1869. A recent change in the law meant all beerhouses had to re-apply for their licences so he took the precaution of getting up a petition from his neighbours attesting to his good behaviour. The pub got through and its licence was renewed. [2]

It’s a good job that James Nightingale didn’t have to apply a few weeks later. He was back in court in October 1869 charged with having assaulted Emily Cooper. The complainant lived in a house owned by James Nightingale and she came to the Sir Charles Napier to hand back the key as she was leaving the house. James Nightingale’s wife demanded that the house was cleaned first and she attacked Miss Cooper. On hearing the commotion James ran into the room and smashed a pint pot over Miss Cooper’s head. She claimed that the blood almost blinded her and when she went to have the wound dressed a piece of the pint pot covered in blood was found in the bosom of her dress. [3]

Mr Nightingale was found guilty, but what seems shocking some 150 years later is his punishment. For an assault that involved smashing a pint pot over a female’s head he was fined just 5 shillings – the same penalty meted out to James Wardle for opening on a Sunday morning a few months earlier! It seems that justice was dependent not on the severity of the crime, nor of the person committing the crime, but on the social class of the defendant, and there was a difference between the property-owning Mr Nightingale and his lowly tenant Miss Cooper.

James Nightingale left the pub business later in the 1870s. By 1881 he was a quarrymaster at Horrocks Fold. James Caldwell was at the Sir Charles Napier by 1876.

Sharmans eventually bought the pub and it became a Shaw’s pub when they took over Sharman’s in 1928. It ended its days as a Walker’s pub after they bought Shaw’s in 1931. The Sir Charles Napier closed in 1939.

[1] Bolton Evening News, 22 July 1869

[2] Bolton Evening News, 16 September 1869

[3] Bolton Evening News, 7 October 1869.

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The picture below shows 30 Moor Lane in August 2015 when it is Crompton’s Furnishings having been Derek’s Carpets for a number of years. We’re not sure if it is the same building. The roof certainly looks different but it is a three-storey building next to a two-storey. If it was demolished then it would have been in the forties or early-fifties as the current building appears on maps from the 50s. (Image copyright Google Street View)

Jolly Drummer, 16 Partridge Street

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The Jolly Drummer was situated on Partridge Street, off Moor Lane. Before the pub opened in the late-1850s Partridge Street was known as Green Street, but as there was another Green Street in the town centre its name was changed, partly in honour of an old-established pub, the Dog and Partridge which stood at the junction with Moor Lane. 

The Jolly Drummer dated back to at least the 1830s. Thomas Ainscow was the first recorded licensee and he appears in the 1836 Bolton Directory. The 1841 Census shows the 69-year-old Thomas as the landlord, assisted by his wife Susannah (56). Their son Robert was the brewer and two of Robert’s three sons also worked at the pub.

Thomas died in 1842 and Susannah Ainscow took over the business until her death in 1850. She was succeeded by Robert Ainscow but he sold the pub to James Parkinson in the late-1850s.

Towards the end of the nineteenth century the Jolly Drummer was in the hands of James Kenyon Davenport. Kenny Davenport was born in 1862 to James Davenport and his wife Catharine (nee Kenyon).  He knew Partridge Street well as the family lived at number 4 for a while in the 1870s.

Kenny moved to the Jolly Drummer after a stint working as a labourer for the pub’s owners, William Tong, whose brewery was just up Deane Road at Blackshaw Lane.  Perhaps Tong’s had an ulterior motive, because Kenny Davenport had just ended his career as a  footballer. He was signed by Bolton Wanderers in 1883 from local amateur side Gilnow Rangers and spent nine years playing for the Wanderers at their Pikes Lane ground located just off what is now Deane Road. He also spent part of his playing career arranging for players from Scotland and Wales to move to Bolton with the promise of jobs that he had fixed them up with. He was capped twice by England, becoming the first Bolton player to represent his country scoring two goals for the national team. After leaving Bolton, he spent a season with Southport Central before returning to Bolton to coach their reserve team.

Kenny Davenport was in the Bolton team that lined up to face Derby County on 3 September 1888 in the first round of games in the newly-created Football League. Also in the side was defender Bethel Robinson, at the time the landlord of the Crown and Cushion on Mealhouse Lane. 

Wanderers lost 6-3 in that opening-day fixture. Kenny Davenport scored twice, the first on just two minutes when he sprang the Derby offside trap to put his side a goal up. But in 2013, researchers discovered that Davenport’s goal was the first to be scored in league football.  It had previously been thought that the first goal was an own-goal scored by Gershom Cox for Wolves against Aston Villa, but Villa’s game kicked off at 3.50. Bolton’s game kicked off at 3.45pm. [1]

So after 125 years the name of Kenny Davenport, arguably Bolton’s first star player and Nat Lofthouse of his day, was back in the papers. [2]

He died in 1908 and the Jolly Drummer was taken over by his widow, Emma, who ran the pub with her brother, John Eves.

The Jolly Drummer closed in 1912 and was used for many years as a lodging house. It was demolished in 1969 and the fire station was built on the site. It opened in 1971.

[1] When Saturday Comes. Accessed 9 March 2015. 

[2] More on Kenny Davenport, including links to other media stories on his first league goal can be accessed via his Wikipedia page. 

The image on top of the paibelow isn't the best picture to illustrate the Jolly Drummer. It’s actually a 1969 picture of the Dog and Partridge on Moor Lane but Partridge Street can be seen in the background. The former Jolly Drummer building can just about be seen with its windows boarded up, next to the white-painted building. (Image copyright Bolton Council). 

Below that is an image of Bolton fire station taken in September 2014. The entrance to the fire station was formed from the entrance to Partridge Street and the Jolly Drummer would have been straight ahead on the right-hand side in the distance. (Image copyright Google Street View). 

Britannia Hotel, 2-4 Derby Street

Two views of the same area of Bolton. In the top image the Britannia Hotel can be seen on the left of the picture. The cars in front of the pub are coming from the bottom end of Derby Street. The start of Deane Road is in the distance while Crook Street - which met both Derby Street and Deane Road - can be seen  running to the bottom of the picture. It was a tricky junction to negotiate right up until the road layout was changed in 1979 with the closure of that part of Derby Street and Crook Street when the Trinity Street by-pass was built.

The image above comes from the University of Bolton. The same area is pictured in the bottom image, taken by Google Street View in September 2014. Apart from the fire station (centre right) which  was built in 1971 all the buildings in this image were built in 2009-10. On the left is Bolton One, which now occupies the space where the Britannia once stood. On Deane Road is Bolton Sixth Form College in the foreground with Bolton College a little further along the road.

The Britannia Hotel was situated at the junction of four streets: Derby Street, on which the pub stood, Deane Road, Moor Lane and Crook Street.

The pub dated back to the late-eighteenth century. It was certainly in existence by 1800, but it didn’t appear on the licensing records for 1778.

Anyone with an interest in the history of Bolton Wanderers will know that the Britannia was the club’s headquarters for many years in the nineteenth century.The club was formed at the Christ Church school just a few yards away on Deane Road on a site that was empty for many years before Bolton College was built in 2009-10. But the club’s founder, Reverend Thomas Ogden objected to meetings being held without him being present so the team broke away from the school to become Bolton Wanderers. Its first headquarters was the Gladstone Hotel but it soon moved to the Britannia where it remained until the building of Burnden Park in 1895.

For some years the Britannia was owned by Atkinson’s brewery situated not far away from the pub on Commission Street. The actual site of the brewery is roughly as you drive down Mayor Street from Deane Road. The streets in that area were remodelled in the sixties and Mayor Street was effectively moved from the side of the Duke on Deane Road to its current traverse.

Atkinson’s were taken over by Boardman’s United Breweries of Manchester in 1895, The Cornbrook brewery, also of Manchester, bought out Boardman’s in 1898 and although the Britannia carried Cornbrook’s livery and sold their beers until it was closed, for the final few years the pub was owned by Bass Charrington, who bought  Cornbrook in 1961.

The Britannia closed in 1965. The area bounded by Deane Road, Derby Street and John Street – now University Way – was needed for the construction of the Bolton Institute Of Technology. The BIT was founded at Bolton Technical College on Manchester Road in 1963 but it was immediately decided that it would need an extensive site of its own. The site at the bottom of Deane Road was identified and it was cleared in 1965. The BIT began to move into its new buildings in 1967-68.

For many years the site of the Britannia formed a green sward of grass in front of the BIT. The junction of Derby Street and Deane Road was closed off in 1979 when the southern limb of Bolton’s inner relief road was opened. The BIT became the Bolton Institute Of Higher Education when it merged with the Bolton College Of Education (Technical). In 2004 it became the University Of Bolton.

In 2009 construction began of the Bolton One complex which now occupies the site of the Britannia as well as the Derby Street Secondary School that once stood opposite.

   

Three Tuns (Old Three Tuns Hotel), Moor Lane

The Old Three Tuns can be seen boarded up in the distance on this 1973 photograph from the Bolton Library and Museums Service collection (copyright Bolton Council).

There were three pubs in Bolton by the name of the Three Tuns. One was on Bridge Street, one on Chapel Street, off Folds Road, and this one on Moor Lane opposite what is now the fire station.

Having multiple pubs with the same name wasn’t uncommon. Bolton had two Nags Heads – the Higher Nags and the Lower Nags– two Millstones, two pubs named the Hen and Chickens, two Dog and Partridges and there was a whole host of pubs named the  Bowling Green.  

The full name of this pub was the Old Three Tuns Hotel. Having ‘Old’ as a prefix usually denoted it was the original. Not so in this case. The Three Tuns on Chapel Street was in existence by 1800, the Old Three Tuns on Moor Lane followed a few years later in 1804.

The pub was a meeting place for the St John’s Lodge of the Freemasons. The lodge was formed in 1815 in Chowbent (or Atherton as it is now known). Unusually, it had its headquarters in a number of towns moving from Chowbent to Tyldesley and then to Halshaw Moor (now Farnworth) before basing itself at the Three Tuns in 1836. The lodge’s itchy feet were in evidence yet again when it upped sticks just two years later and it met at three more Bolton pubs before returning to the Three Tuns in 1842. It remained at the pub for the next 31 years. One of the oldest lodges in the country, St John’s Lodge number 348 still exists and meets these days at the Masonic Hall on Silverwell Street. [1]

The part of Moor Lane around the bottom end of Deane Road gave us two of  Bolton’s oldest sporting institutions. Bolton Wanderers were formed at Christ Church school and were headquartered at the nearby Britannia Inn before moving to Burnden Park in 1895. Meanwhile, in 1908, Bolton United Harriers were formed at the Three Tuns.

One of the pub's landlords who went on to greater things was Frank Whittle. He ran the pub in the early-sixties before the licensed trade took him off to a further seven pubs in various parts of the country. Frank ended up in Stowmarket, Suffolk, where he served as a local councillor and was the town’s mayor in 2007-08. [2]

The Three Tuns was a Magees pub for much of the twentieth century. It was then bought by Greenall Whitley as part of their takeover of Magees in 1958 and the pub lasted until 1973. Council plans for the southern limb of the inner relief road meant it was bought under a compulsory purchase order and demolished soon after it closed.  

[1] Lane's Masonic Records. Retrieved 25 October 2014.
[2] Leigh Journal. 14 May 2008. Retrieved 25 October 2014.

Harp Tavern, Moor Lane

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The Harp Tavern was a beerhouse situated on Moor Lane opposite what is now the Bolton fire station.

The pub dated back to the 1860s and drew its custom from Flash Street and Back Crook Street. But this was a heavily-pubbed area with something like 13 licensed premises in just a few hundred yards from what is now the fire station up to the junction with University Way.

Magee’s owned the Harp and they took the decision to close it in 1913. [1]

Alan Jenkinson writes on the Ancestry forum that his ancestor, John Helm, ran the pub from shortly before the 1911 Census until shortly afterwards which suggests he was probably the pub's last landlord.

The building later became a motor repair garage and remained in use for over 60 years. It was demolished in 1974 along with a number of other buildings on that row and the site was later developed to form a junction for part of the southern limb of Bolton’s inner relief road.

The photo at the top of the page shows the Harp garage, clearly marked, shortly before its demolition. Flash Street runs by the handwritten ‘No Parking’ sign. Further along, next to the white building is the former Old Three Tuns Hotel which opened in 1804 and closed in 1973. The Division One furniture store can be seen in the distance. The image is from the Bolton Library And Museums Service collection. Copyright Bolton Council.

The image below shows a view from much the same position in April 2012. Copyright Google Street View.

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

Dog and Partridge, 90 Moor Lane

The Dog and Partridge, Moor Lane pictured in the 1960s. Partridge Street runs to the right of the pub, to the left is what was once Back Lupton Street. The houses and Lupton Street and Partridge Street had already been cleared when the photo was taken. The pub itself followed soon afterwards.

Not to be confused with the pub of the same name at the bottom of Manor Street, this Dog and Partridge was situated on Moor Lane at a time when it was a quiet lane heading towards Deane Moor. The pub opened towards the end of the nineteenth century, pre-dating the Dog and Partridge on Manor Street by just a few years. [1]

When the Dog and Partridge opened on Moor Lane the Britannia at the junction with Derby Street was the only other competitor. After the 1830 Beer House Act a number of smaller pubs opened and competition was fierce.

Life as a pub landlord appears to have been as precarious in the nineteenth century as it is now. John Welsby spent nine years running the Dog and Partridge only to petition for bankruptcy in July 1843. By then he had moved out of the pub and was working as a labourer while living in Middle Street just a hundreds away from the pub on the other side of the railway line. [2]

 Around that time the Dog and Partridge was notable for having its own private theatre, as did the Duke Of York in Spring Gardens not far from where the town hall now stands. A look at the three-storey building in the photo above shows plenty of scope for a theatre in one of the upper floors.

The pub had a street named after it during the second half of the nineteenth century when the council decided to rename Green Street, which along the side of the pub, to Partridge Street.

The Dog was owned by William Tong’s whose Diamond Brewery was situated on Pikes Lane (now Deane Road) at the top of Balshaw Lane. Tong’s sold out to Walker Cain of Warrington in 1923. They in turn merged with Joshua Tetley of Leeds in 1960.

The bottom end of Deane Road, right down to the west side of Moor Lane, was cleared away in the late-sixties, as can be seen in the photograph above. A compulsory purchase order was served on the Dog and Partridge in 1969, along with Howarth’s fruit and potato merchants - which can also be seen in the photo – and the nearby Lancashire Dairy Ration Company.

The Dog and Partridge was subsequently demolished and the new fire station was built on the site. The entrance to Partridge Street was retained as the vehicular entry to the fire station.

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

[2] The Gazette. Retrieved 7 September 2014.

Bolton Fire Station on Moor Lane, pictured in  April 2012 (copyright Google Street View). The entrance to the fire station was once Partridge Street. The Dog and Partridge was situated to the left of the entry where the swathe of grass is.

Waggon and Horses, 84 Moor Lane

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Moor Lane runs across the centre of this October 2009 photo {Copyright Google Street View). The Waggon and Horses was actually situated on the far-left side of the railway bridge. The fire station (built 1971) is on the left. Prior to its construction the entrance to the fire station was formerly the entrance to Partridge Street.

This isn’t a pub that any readers will remember, as it closed in 1903.

The Waggon and Horses stood at 84 Moor Lane on a site now occupied by an expansion of the railway line. It was a beerhouse and was in existence during the second half of the nineteenth century. At that time Moor Lane had a number of pubs: the 1853 Bolton Directory lists six beerhouses – along with two longer established public houses, the Three Tuns and the Dog & Partridge (not the one on Manor Street). [1]

Wingfield’s Silverwell Brewery owned the Waggon and Horses for a time towards the end of the nineteenth century, but Wingfield’s was taken over by the Manchester Brewery Company in 1899. [2]

In the end, the Waggon and Horses closed not through lack of trade but for the needs of the railway. The Bolton to Preston line was built in 1841 but by the turn of the twentieth-century the Lancashire Yorkshire Railway decided to double the tracks on the approach to Bolton station running under Moor Lane and to build sidings at Bullfield. That necessitated the demolition of a number of streets just off Moor Lane as well as properties on the lane itself.

Hulton School, which was on Moor Lane but had been built on the bridge running over the top of the railway was demolished. Back Partridge Street went and as the Waggon and Horses was on the corner of Back Partridge Street it, too, bit the dust.

A few yards away the Dog and Partridge was reprieved and lasted another 66 years until it was demolished prior to the construction of the new fire station. Only the Albion survives on Moor Lane and its viability could be threatened when the bus station moves to Great Moor Street.

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

[2] Bolton Pubs, 1800-2000. Published by Neil Richardson (2000).