Noble Street Tavern, 87 Noble Street, Bolton

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

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

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

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

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

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

Royal Tiger, 4 Noble Street

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The Royal Tiger was situated at number 4 Noble Street. Some earlier directory and census listings put it at 1-3 Duncan Street, 1-3 Back Defence Street – as Duncan Street was known for a short time - or even on Pikes Lane, but it was the same building.

The pub was founded in the mid-1830s by James Greenhalgh, a carter by trade who, like so many people after the 1830 Beer House Act was passed, paid a fee of two guineas to allow their premises to sell beer.

The 1841 census shows the 48-year-old James living with his 30-year-old wife Alice. There are six children the elder two of whom, one might think, would have been from an earlier marriage. Thomas (17) and William (14) had both followed their father into business as carters.

The Greenhalghes ran the Royal Tiger for around 50 years from its conversion into a beerhouse right up to the 1880s. Alice Greenhalgh was a widow by 1861 and she lived with two of the children from her marriage to James: Joseph, aged 21, and Sarah, 15. There was a change of address, too. Duncan Street ran off Blackburn Street (now Deane Road), the next street along from Punch Street. Noble Street originally ran from Derby Street. The two streets initially ended a few yards apart from each other, but the waste land between the two was cobbled over in the 1850s and the whole stretch from Derby Street down to Blackburn Street was renamed Noble Street. The Royal Tiger was number 4.

In 1871, Alice Greenhalgh was still running the pub along with Sarah and her husband, a wheelwright named Squire Wolstenholme who was unemployed at the time. Squire and Sarah continued to run the pub after Alice’s death in 1880, but by 1891 they were living in Commission Street, not far from Noble Street, but Squire was back unemployed. He later had a spell as the licensee of the Lord Hill on Sidney Street and by 1901 he was working as a pigeon trapper and living – quite aptly – in Partridge Street.

The Royal Tiger was later run by Robert Buchan Richardson, a Scot who was possibly one of Bolton’s oldest ever landlords. He was at the pub for a decade from around 1894 and was well into his seventies when he took it over. Robert lived there with his wife, Hannah, whom he married in 1887 when he was 58 and she just 33. By 1911 he had left the pub and was living with his son.

The final landlord was Josiah Simons. Born in Norfolk in 1875, he was living with his wife, Hannah, her seven siblings and her parents in Bridgeman Street in 1901. Hannah’s father, Samuel Foulds, was an aquarium manager.Josiah and Hannah left the Royal Tiger for James Street where he set himself up in business as a draper.

The Royal Tiger closed in 1911 and later became a private residence. After the building was demolished in the 1960s, Derby Ward Labour Club was built on the site. 

Derby Ward Labour Club pictured in August 2008. Noble Street used to end at the right end of the club. They Royal Tiger was the second building up on the right-hand side of Noble Street.

Alfred The Great, 44 Noble Street

The remains of Noble Street, now a fraction of its former size, pictured in April 2012 (copyright  Google Street View). At one time there were three beer houses on this street, which linked Derby Street with Noble Road. Now it is a hotbed of religious activity with the Noble Street Independent Methodist Church clearly visible on the right and the Jehovah’s Witnesses Kingdom Hall at the bottom of the street.

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Updated 12 June 2019 with details of the pub's early history.

The area around Derby Street became industrialised in the middle of the 19^th century and with it came housing and then the beer houses.

Noble Street was built in the early part of the nineteenth century and an 1849 map of Bolton shows the street in much the same shape as it would be until the 1960s. Looking down from Derby Street, there was a long row of terraced houses down the left-hand side of the street. The right-hand side was also developed, though some of those buildings were later demolished to facilitate the development of a number of side streets such as Bristol Street and Claughton Street.

The Derby Ironworks backed on to the houses on the west side of Noble Street. It was built in 1854 under the name Brown, Altham and Co. later becoming Hiton and Brown. It later became a more substantial concern after it was bought by a former employee, William Crumblehulme,  but even by the 1860s it still only employed 12 men and eight boys. But the iron works was one of a number of thriving small businesses that began in the area as the nineteenth century progressed.

Although the 1855 Bolton Directory shows no beerhouses on Noble Street it is believed that the Alfred The Great was in existence from around 1851 or 1852. Certainly, by 1871 there were three licensed premises with the Alfred The Great situated at number 44 and owned by Joseph Atkinson.

Born in Sharples in 1826 Atkinson was a collier by trade and only moved into the pub business when he took over the Alfred The Great. Although Noble Street was only four miles or so from Sharples it is likely that he moved to the south side of Bolton to look for work. Atkinson’s father, also named Joseph, was a ‘banksman’ – he operated the tipping gear at the top of the pit. Atkinson’s brother, Richard, was also a collier and the family were living in the Rumworth area when Richard was married at Deane Church in 1857.

Joseph Atkinson applied for a spirits licence at the annual Brewster sessions in 1865. One of 45 applicants he was among the 43 that were refused licences. To make matters worse, the Albert on Derby Street was awarded a licence at the sessions. That made at least three pubs in the vicinity to have full licences as the Lord Nelson and Pilkington Arms were long-established inns. Having pubs nearby licensed to sell wine and spirits had a bearing on other applications. Atkinson applied once again in 1874 when it was claimed the pub had been in existence for 22 or 23 years and Atkinson had occupied it for the past 19 years. At the hearing, he claimed the house was extensive in nature and certainly his description backed that up. Along with the brewery and malting room it consisted of a vault, bar parlour, club room, sitting room, scullery and stable. There were four bedrooms. A petition in support of the application was presented and Atkinson applied to sell wine only if the magistrates declined to allow the pub to sell wines and spirits. But having the Pilkington just 300 yards away didn't help matters. The application failed once again and it was to be almost 90 years before the Alfred The Great finally received a full licence.

By the late-1860s, Joseph Atkinson added two more pubs. The Masons Arms was in Emblem Street, the next street along from Noble Street. The British Oak  was on Derby Street just a few hundred yards away. Both took their beer from the Alfred The Great. He was also the joint-owner, along with James Lees, of the Farmers Arms on Derby Street although the house had its own brewery and was never supplied. By 1880 he had added the Craven Heifer on Derby Street followed by the Nelson Hotel on Nelson Street. It wasn't bad going for a man whose illiteracy prevented him from signing his own marriage certificates with anything other than an ‘X’.

But Atkinson suffered tragedy. His first wife, Mary, died in 1858 at the tragically early age of 33. He married a widow, Alice Slater, the following year. Their son James was born in 1860 and later took over the running of the British Oak. Mary died in 1874. Finally, in 1881 and at the age of 55, Joseph married another widow, Jane Boardman.

Lost on Saturday afternoon in Emmanuel Street, a leather purse containing gold. Finder will be handsomely rewarded on restoring it to Joseph Atkinson, Alfred The Great, Noble Street, Bolton. - Bolton Evening News, 17 November 1873.

Not only were there two other beerhouses on Noble Street, as well as a whole host of hostelries on nearby Derby Street, Atkinson would have had the Methodists to deal with. In 1872, the Noble Street Independent Methodist church was built just yards away from the Alfred The Great. It was a time when there was a war on drinkers. Pub hours were curbed in 1872 – though they were still able to open for 17 hours a day - and teetotal candidates were put up for election in some council wards, though not with much success. The Independent Methodist Church, an imposing edifice compared to the tiny dwelling houses of Noble Street, made their message clear from the outset. In a move that suggested they at least had some clout within the council’s highways department, they managed to get the street running alongside the church to be named Temperance Street. That Atkinson also brewed his own beer under their noses would have further irked the teetotal Methodists.

But the Alfred The Great was involved in more wholesome pursuits. Joseph Atkinson formed a bowls club and although there was no green attached to the pub the team were members of the Bolton Bowling Association and played at greens throughout the town. Pubs that did have greens included the Bee Hive on Chorley New Road, the Gibraltar Rock on Deane Road, the Hulton Arms at Four Lane Ends and the Robin Hood on Lever Street.

Joseph Atkinson spent 44 years at the Alfred The Great. He left early in 1899 by which time he would have been around 73 years old. He moved to his son's house at the bottom of Cannon Street and he died there in January 1901.

The beer-house trade had been good to Joseph Atkinson. However, he was a very astute businessman. Shortly after his death the auction took place of the effects of one of his other businesses: a horse, two ponies and various gigs and traps which he ran from stables off Cannon Street. There was also an auction of his personal effects including four heavy Gold Albert chains. Finally, in November 1901 there was an auction of Atkinson's other interests. He had built up a portfolio of almost 50 properties. Most were situated in the area between Deane Road and Derby Street: in Defence Street, Royle Street, Cannon Street, Every Street, Punch Street and Noble Street. A little further afield there were houses on Rupert Street and Beechwood Street in Great Lever and on Wigan Road. There was also a portfolio of ground rents along with shares in local drinks companies. When the estate was liquidated it realised over £24,000 – just under £3million in today's money. The illiterate former coal miner from Sharples was one of Bolton's richest men when he died.

Both the Alfred The Great and the British Oak ended up in the hands of WT Settle, a small brewery based at the Rose and Crown,  just off Turton Street. Settle’s remained in control of the Alfred The Great until 1951 when the brewery and its seven pubs were sold to Dutton’s of Blackburn and it was as a Dutton’s house that the pub ended its days. Although the Alfred The Great was one of a number of Bolton pubs to receive full drinks licences in 1961, it was closed in 1964. Its neighbours on Noble Street, the Noble Street Tavern  and the Royal Tiger, were both long gone having closed in 1906 and 1911 respectively.

The pub building was later demolished along with much of the rest of Noble Street. The street, which at one time ran all the way down to Deane Road, was truncated to less than a quarter its size though it is still there, near the bottom end of Derby Street.

But while the pubs and brewery of Noble Street have all bitten the dust, the Independent Methodist survives after 140 years. So, too, does Temperance Street.

A recent picture of Noble Street Independent Methodist Church can be seen  here.