Oddfellows Arms Hotel, 140 St Helens Road, Bolton

 

Oddfellows Arms pictured in 2014

SUMMARY

Opened c1840s. Became a Magee Marshall pub c1893 and was rebuilt in 1895. It became a Greenall Whitley pub following their takeover of Magees in 1958 and the closure of the brewery in 1970. It last opened in October 2020. In April 2021 it was announced that the pub would not be reopening.

ODDFELLOWS ARMS  HISTORY

Nobody knew that when pubs in Greater Manchester went into lockdown for a second time on 23 October 2020 it meant the end of the Oddfellows Arms after around 180 years as a pub. Six months later, in April 2021, the Bolton News reported that owner Admiral Taverns had taken the decision to close the pub. Landlady Margaret Wilson, who had run the Oddfellows for 15 years, said “I had an inkling that they would close the pub as there are lots of maintenance issues which need to be fixed.”

The story of the Oddfellows goes back to the middle of the 19^th century. The 1841 census shows John Crompton as a publican in Daubhill. The word 'publican' was used to describe the licensee of fully-licenced premises. The only fully-licenced pub in the area was the Stags Head, a little further up the Bolton to St Helens Turnpike Road - as St Helens Road was known at that time - and Peter Boardman was the licensee from the 1830s to the 1850s. So it is far more likely that John Crompton was a beerhouse owner at what was to become the Oddfellows.

John Crompton was succeeded as landlord by his son Richard who was listed as the pub's owner in 1855. By that time he would only have been in his early twenties. In 1854 he married Fanny Bowker, herself the daughter of a pub landlord in Atherton, and the couple would spend over 20 years at the Oddfellows. During that time the district of Daubhill changed immeasurably. The Bolton to Leigh railway pre-dated the pub having opened in 1828, but between 1862 and 1867 the local firm of Tootal, Broadhurst and Lee built Sunnyside Mills by the side of the railway line and just a couple of hundred yards away from the Oddfellows. That led to a boom in the local population. A whole network of streets were built on either side of St Helens Road to accommodate the new workforce.

The pub was sold in October 1878 and an article in the Bolton Evening News described it as “a beerhouse, the Oddfellows Arms, St Helens Road, Daubhill, with dwelling house, occupied by Richard Crompton, term 940 years, ground rent £2, £940.” A price of £940 equates to around £94,000 in 2025 prices.

The Oddfellows was one of a number of trades guilds and friendly societies that sprang up in England in the late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries. The name comes from the term 'odd fellows' - craftsmen from an assortment of trades. In 1810 TheIndependent Order of Oddfellows Manchester Unity was formed and still exists to this day. In 1832 the Ancient Noble Order of United Oddfellows, Bolton Unity was formed and was in existence until 1962. The branch was meeting at the nearby Stags Head in St Helens Road in 1872 and it is possible that a move to Richard Crompton's beerhouse further down the road led to him naming the pub after the organisation. Oddfellows branches frequently met at local pubs and members would often take something “for the benefit of the house”. As a result pubs would name themselves the Oddfellows Arms. It's still a relatively common name and there were at least two other pubs in Bolton with that name. The Ancient Shepherd on Bold Street was known as the Oddfellows in 1843 and a pub on Bradshawgate carried the name from the 1850s until its closure in 1938. The Loyal Willow Tree lodge was meeting at the pub from at least the 1930s onwards. The lodge was wound up in 1968.

In 1892 the Manchester Courier reported that Mr W Edge, the owner of the Oddfellows, had applied for a spirits licence for the pub. Daubhill was described as “a rapidly growing part of Bolton” and Mr Edge offered to surrender a beerhouse licence at Queen Street in the town centre as well as an off-licence. He even offered the council a patch of land although the article failed to say where. Nevertheless, the council rejected the application.

In February 1895 a soup kitchen was opened at the pub. Poor weather had put many local people out of work and a number of businesses provided relief. The pub's landlord, Joseph Edge, put five shillings towards the cost of food; a local baker, Mr Small, provided bread.

By 1895 the Oddfellows was owned by Magee, Marshall and Co, a local brewery set up a few years earlier at Cricket Street, about half a mile away from the pub. Magees decided to rebuild the Oddfellows and re-construction was completed that year. An article in the Bolton Evening News on the Daubhill area in 1974 gave an idea of what the pub was like before the rebuild. Sarah Jane Brooks, then of Longfellow Avenue but a Daubhill resident for most of her life, remembered the Oddfellows as being a small, four-room beerhouse. However, she pointed out that in the nineteenth century most of the buildings on that part of St Helens Road – including the Oddfellows – were only reached from the roadside by going down several steps. “Everything looked as though it were built in a hole,” she said.

The Bolton Moor Boxing Club was headquartered at the pub from November 1947, but reports at the time suggested that the Oddfellows had been previously used by boxing professionals Arthur Killeen, Joe Greenwood and Jack Lord. Greenwood, who is said to have fought in over 500 bouts, was once described by Nat Lofthouse as being Bolton's greatest ever sportsman.

The pub's landlord for over 30 years was Jack Asma who took over in the late-twenties and was there until September 1960. His daughter Irene was a GI bride – one of a small number from Bolton. During the second world war Irene was a stenographer for General Dwight D Eisenhower at Bushy Park near London. She married an American soldier, Donald H DuBois, in 1944 and featured in a Bolton Evening News article in March 1946 immediately prior to leaving for Tidworth camp along with two other local women who had married American soldiers. The trio then sailed to the United States from Southampton. Later in life, Renee Dubois, as she was then known, featured in a Bolton News article reminiscing about her time growing up in the town. She died in January 2021 aged 97.

Part of the upstairs living quarters at the Oddfellows were damaged by fire in 1971. Temporary manager Brian Walker said the fire was caused by a cigarette that he left on an ashtray in a bedroom. “I went downstairs to answer a ring at the front door and when I came back there was all this smoke,” he said. The fire brigade were also called out to the pub in November 1980 – but for an entirely different reason, A punter playing on the pub's fruit machine thought his winnings were 10p down and tried to reach inside the machine to retrieve a missing coin, His hand got stuck and after 40 minutes of trying to free him the landlady dialled 999. “When we arrived at the pub a man was on his knees on the floor with his hand firmly stuck up the chute,” a spokesman for the fire brigade told the Bolton Evening News. “We took the back off the machine and unscrewed the tube to release him.”

But the perhaps the strangest occurrence involving the Oddfellows and the local fire brigade came in September 1997. Twenty firemen turned up to fight a fire in the upstairs room of an adjoining building – but the 15 people drinking in the pub knew nothing about it. "About 15 people were still drinking in the pub when we got there. There's a solid wall between the pub and the out-building so I don't think they knew it was on fire,” a spokesman for the fire brigade said.

Ad from October 1972

The Oddfellows began hosting regular music nights in the early seventies. Local guitarist Steve Bowie featured regularly, but like many local pubs the Oddies invested in an electric organ and hired someone to play it every weekend. Country and Western nights were added in early 1979 featuring 'Nashville Special' a band who were still playing at the pub in 1983. After a hiatus music was reintroduced on a fortnightly basis from November 1984.

In 1985 regulars got up a petition to have the relief manager Stan Lomax made permanent. Two hundred people signed the 'Save Our Stan' petition and sent it off to Greenall Whitley. “Since he took over this pub has become a really happy place and the place has improved 100 percent,” John Hamilton, chairman of the Oddfellows' sports and social club said. Stan, a local lad, was keen on the idea. “I know 90 percent of the people who come in here and would like to stay as manager if Greenalls will let me,” he said. However, Greenalls had already decided that the pub would be transferred to a tenancy and the petition failed.

John Hamilton's comment about the beer quality deserves a little more scrutiny. It was a keg-only pub for many years but the November 1983 edition of the Campaign for Real Ale's Manchester magazine What's Doing reported that Greenalls had put on their new beer, Original Bitter, although they served it at the Oddfellows through an electric pump rather than a handpump. Certainly the quality of the beer improved enough over the coming few years for the pub to be included in the national Good Beer Guide for 1991.

Greenalls eventually got out of brewing in the early nineties to become a pubco. But in 1999 they sold off the remainder off the remainder of their pub estate. Following its closure in 2021 the Oddfellows was put up for sale and Admiral Taverns got a price of £427,750 + VAT when they disposed of the building in September 2021.

The Bolton branch of Camra have an excellent page on the Oddfellows with links to photographs and articles on the pub. 

Stags Head, 200 St Helens Road, Bolton

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The Stags Head, St Helens Road in an image taken as part of a set for Tetley Walker around 1974, Image Gerard Fagan, Bolton Lancs Bygone Days Facebook group.

The Stags Head at 200 St Helens Road was one of two pubs less than three-quarters of a mile apart to bear that name. The name itself is derived from the crest of the Hulton family who owned Hulton Park on Newbrook Road from 1167 (some say 1353) until 1993. [1]

The Stags Head on Daubhill was the younger of the two pubs by over 30 years. The first mention of the pub was in 1836 when Peter Boardman (1785-1858) the owner. Mr Boardman was previously at the Hulton Arms at Four Lane Ends. Indeed, the Boardman family remained in control of the Hulton Arms and were farmers in the area between the pub and Hulton Park.

The Bolton to Leigh railway line - the second-oldest in the world - was opened in 1828 with Daubhill station at the junction of St Helens Road and Deane Church Lane opening in 1831. With no other pubs in the area the Stags Head was an opportunity to cash in on passenger traffic coming to and from the station. It was also a sizeable building and would have offered accomodation to railway travellers arriving from outside the area. 

As the 19^th century progressed the pub gained a local clientele as the previously rural Daubhill area became industrialised. The giant Sunnyside Mills complex was built in 1865 and streets of terraced houses were built on both sides of St Helens Road.

Although there has been speculation that the current building was the second Stags Head a map from 1846 shows the building looking much the same shape as it still does today. [2] The railway ran behind the pub and then across St Helens Road before heading on to Great Moor Street station. Although the line was diverted in the 1880s this small branch line carried goods wagons across the main road to sidings at Sunnyside Mills as late as 1969. The map also shows a tramline on the other side of the pub running from the railway line, across what is now the Asda car park and across St Helens Road to stone quarries on the other side of the road.

The pub was known in some local directories as the Antelopes Head. In the days when most people were illiterate and pubs were known locally by their signs rather than any lettering it was an easy mistake to make. An inquest held at the pub in 1841 into the death of Christopher Ince on the Bolton to Leigh railway made reference to the pub as “the house of Mr Peter Boardman at the sign of the Antelope”. [3] But by 1843, newspaper references were referring to the pub as the Stags Head.

In 1865 a subscription bowling green opened close to the pub. Known at the time as the Stags Head bowling green it was situated on the other side of the railway line on land now occupied by the offices of the Park Cakes bakery. Access to the green was via Wilton Street or Bertwine Street which ran down the side of some early-nineteenth century cottages that stood raised up from St Helens Road until they were demolished around 1969. This small hill was the original 'Daub Hill' from where the area got its name.

The bowling green lasted until around 1953. Warburton’s Soreen malt loaf bakery, which later became Park Cakes, was built on the site. The Bakewell Tin and Metal works were right next to the green with the Daubhill Brick Works (opened 1883) not far away. Another bowling club, the Beaumont ,stood off Deane Church Lane until the late-sixties. 

A tollgate was in operation near the Stags Head. The toll allowed traffic to travel along the road between various gates on payment of a fee. It closed in the 1870s.

Tong's Brewery took over the Stags Head in the early part of the twentieth century. Prior to that the pub had brewed its own beer. It became a Walker's pub in 1923 and a Tetley Walker house in 1960.

The pub was refurbished in the 1960s though it kept its revolving doors until another refurbishment in 1986.

Tetley Walker had been part of the Allied Breweries (later Allied Lyons) group since 1961. The brewery had the idea in the early eighties of transferring pubs into a new subsidiary called Peter Walker Ltd. The pubs were done up in a 'traditional' style and in 1986 the Stags Head's became a Walkers pub. [4]. Other examples included the Howcroft on Pool Street, the Ainsworth Arms on Halliwell Road, the Sally UpSteps (Stanley Arms)  on Chorley Old Road, the Cross Guns on Deane Road and the Church in New Bury. In the autumn of that year £100,000 was spent and the range of Walker's ales introduced.

By 1995, the Peter Walker concept was being put out to grass and the Stags Head gained an alternative identity as Mr Q's, a sort of sports bar aimed at drinkers aged 18-25. However, it retained the Stags Head name on the front of the building.

Allied Lyons got out of the pub business and in 1999 its chain of Mr Q's pubs was sold to Punch Taverns. Punch owned the Stags Head for just ten years and presided over its decline. One day in 2009 landlady Jackie Heyes looked out of the window and saw a 'For Sale' sign outside the pub. Ms Heyes had signed a five-year lease with Punch only a few months earlier after it had been closed for six months. Although she had her partner Ian Matthews managed to raise £200,000 it was well short of the £295,000 asking price. [5] 

The pub was sold to a local firm Mayble Ltd, based at the Gibbon Street Garage further down Daubhill. It closed at the beginning of September 2009.

But while that may have signalled the end of the Stags Head as a pub it wasn't the end of the building. Mayble Ltd converted the former pub in to the Manor House, seemingly a suite of offices. A local business, the retail chemist chain Freshphase Ltd claimed on its March 2016 accounts to be using 200 St Helens Road – the former Stags Head pub – as its head office. The Manor House has also been hauled over the coals for using the premises as a wedding/conference centre, despite not having applied for planning permission. An application (95030/15) was made by a Mr Ali, based at 177 St Helens Road in 2015.

But despite the Manor House being used as offices and as a wedding reception centre, by April 2017 it was still appearing on Bolton Council's list of empty properties. It was said to have been an empty building since it closed as a pub in September 2009. As anyone living in the area will testify, that simply wasn't true - certainly at that time. It was later used as a Covid vaccination centre and is still being used as offices. Mayble Ltd is now a subsidiary of Abbeydale Holding, a Daubhill-based firm that has owns a number of dispensing chemists. 

The Stags Head pictured around 1970. The signage over the top of the pub contains its old Walkers livery which pre-dated that company's merger with Tetley's in 1960.

The Manor House, as the Stags Head now is, pictured in July 2016 (copyright Google Street View).

[1] Historic England.  Accessed 25 April 2017.

[2] National Library of Scotland. Accessed 26 April 2017. 

[3) Manchester Courier, 18 December 1841.

[4] What's Doing, the Greater Manchester beer-drinkers' monthly magazine. September 1986.

[5] Bolton News, 23 July 2009. Accessed 26 April 2017. 

JimSant's piece for Bolton Revisited about the Daubhill area is well worth a read. Accessed 26 April 2017.

Waggon and Horses, 69 St Helens Road, Bolton

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The Waggon and Horses was situated at 67-69 St Helens Road at the top of Bright Street. The was initially at number 69 but it soon expanded into the premises on the corner of the street.

The first mention we have for the Waggon and Horses is in an 1869 Bolton Directory when the landlady is Ann Owen and the address is just given as ‘Daubhill’. Directories were often soon out of date and this one was by the time it was published. But ‘Bernice’ on Rootsweb wrote in 2003 that her great-great grandfather, James Ormrod, started the Waggon and Horses but lost the pub in a bad business deal. [1]

James and Jane Ormrod are listed as running an un-named beerhouse in Daubhill in 1861. On the 1841 Census return they lived next door to the Rams Head further down Derby Street though they weren't in the licensed trade. Indeed, their premises later became part of the enlarged Ram's Head pub.

In 1861, Ann Owen was at the Sir Sidney Smith on Bridgeman Street with her husband John in 1861 but she seems to have moved to Daubhill a few years later. She married a local man, Paul Dootson, in 1867 and they had a son, also named Paul, in 1868. The senior Paul died in 1877. 

So, Ann Owen must have moved to the Wagon and Horses around the mid-1860s. There were huge social changes in Daubhill at this time. Henry Lee had bought a small weaving shed in the area in 1860. He joined forces with his brother Joseph Lee, Henry Tootal Broadhurst and Robert Scott to form Tootal Broadhurst Lee Ltd. Between 1862 and 1867 they built Sunnyside Mills which worked in the textile industry until 1980.

The construction of the mills led to a huge influx of new inhabitants into the area. Houses sprang up on the opposite side of St Helens Road and when the Bolton to Leigh railway line was diverted under Ellesmere Road further housing was built in Olive Street, Barbara Street and Florence Street. [2]

The 1891 Census returns for Sunnyside Street, a small row of houses at the bottom of Adelaide Street, shows that many of its inhabitants were born in Wigan. However, there were also people born in Blackpool and Cornwall and there was even the Lopes family from South America.

By the time of the 1871 census Ann was at the Waggon and Horses with her sons John Owen (born 1849), James Owen (born 1854) and the oddly named Owen Owen (born 1856). Paul Dootson was with his mother in Daubhill. 

In 1881 Ann Dootson was running the pub with her sons, Richard Owen and Owen Owen. Both were brewers at the pub. Ten years later, Ann had retired and was living with Owen Owen in nearby Joseph Street. James Owen was running the pub along with his wife Mary.

The family’s tenure at the Waggon and Horses was over by the end of the 19^th century. The 1901 census shows James Owen as living in Bertwine Street. Anne Dootson had moved to Stewart Street in Halliwell where she died in 1902. Owen Owen appears to have gone back into brewing. By 1911 he was living at a house in Smethurst Lane but still gave his occupation as an ale and porter brewer.

The Waggon and Horses was taken over by Henry Maxfield who remained at the pub for the first 20 years of the twentieth century. Maxfield was living in York Street, off Bridgeman Street in 1871 and was working at that time as a blacksmith.  He remained in the profession after moving to St Helens Road later in the 1870s. He lived just across the road from the pub at number 76  St Helens Road in 1881 and was a few doors along at number 97 in 1891. It is highly likely that he was one of Ann Dootson’s customers and took over the pub when the family left.

Maxfield remained at the Waggon and Horses until he died in 1923 aged 72. The pub was then taken over by an Irishman, James Higgins, who was previously a coal miner living in nearby Southend Street. Higgins died in 1941.

The Waggon and Horses was taken over by Magee, Marshall and Co during Maxfield’s tenure.

In his reminiscences of the area, local historian Norman Kenyon said that he often drank at the Waggon and Horses although he and his father-in-law Bill Morgan occasionally drank at the Railway, further down St Helens Road which Bill thought was a better class of pub. [3] 

Wholesale redevelopment of the area bounded by St Helens Road, Adelaide Street, Barrier Street and the old Bolton-Leigh railway line took place in the early-1970s. All properties within those boundaries were demolished and light industrial units were built in their place.

The entrance to Lantor’s car park was formed out of the former Bright Street. The Waggon and Horses was on the right-hand side at the top of the street. (Image copyright Google Street View, July 2016). These premises were occupied for many years by  Bentwood Brothers Ltd.

[1] Rootsweb. Accessed 9 December 2016. 

[2] There is a preponderance of streets with girls’ names in the area: Olive, Florence, Barbara, Adelaide, Georgina, Ivy, Bertha, Doris, Bella, Minnie, Daisy, Alexandra and Caroline are all represented. Most of the streets still exist.

[3] Bolton, Daubhill and Deane: A Sentimental Journey, by Norman Kenyon. Published by Neil Richardson (1998).

Railway Hotel - Shamrock's, 2-4 St Helens Road

This old postcard was from 1905 was put on Google Earth by Mel Travers. It shows the Railway on the left in the middle of the picture. Willows Lane runs down by the side of the pub.

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The Railway Hotel was situated on the corner of Willows Lane and St Helens Road, but at the time it opened in the 1860s the Railway Tavern, as it was then known, was the first building beyond the Bolton borough boundary which was marked by Willows Lane.

The first landlord was James Hodson.  He was the son of Peter Hodson, who had run the nearby Ram’s Head for a number of years and like his father he initially opened the pub as a dual-purpose establishment. Not only was the Railway a beerhouse, but it was also a butcher’s shop.

The pub’s name came from the Bolton to Leigh railway line which opened in 1828 and which still ran just a couple of hundred yards away along what is now Auburn Street. The route was diverted in 1885 to run under Ellesmere Road and Higher Swan Lane.

But James wasn’t destined to be at the Railway for long. His mother had been running the Ram’s Head following the death of his father and by 1870 and at the age of 62 she wanted to give up the pub trade. James made the decision to quit the Railway and he moved to the Ram’s Head in 1870.

The new landlord of the Railway was perhaps the youngest licensee in Bolton at that tome. Thomas Grundy Orrell was just 21 years old when he moved into the pub. He was joined by his wife, Mary Ellen (nee Gee) – who was only 18. The couple were married in February 1870, at which time Thomas was a patternmaker. A child, Edith, was born in the middle of 1870.

But Thomas had lofty ambitions beyond the pub trade. Daubhill formed part of the old township of Rumworth, part of which was incorporated into the County Borough of Bolton in 1872. The new Rumworth ward was entitled to send two councillors to the town hall, but in November 1880, one of the ward’s councillors, Councillor John Miles was elevated to the post of Alderman. That left a council vacancy for Rumworth. Thomas Grundy Orrell was named as the Conservative party candidate and as the Liberals failed to put up a candidate Orrell was elected unopposed. He was just 29 years old. [1]

Thomas wasn’t a councillor for long. He completed his three-year term and then stepped down from the council and concentrated on running his pub. And it was a fully-licensed public house before long. The premises – now comprising number 2 and number 4 on St Helens Road – had been a beerhouse since its inception, but the closure of the Rose and Crown on Deansgate meant that a full licence was up for grabs. The Railway’s nearby competitor, the Ram’s Head was already fully licensed and had been for many years so to bring himself on a par with one of his competitors Thomas successfully applied for a transfer of the Rose and Crown’s license. That means the Railway could also serve wine and spirits.

Thomas Grundy Orrell died at the Railway on 5 February 1890, just 40 years old and four days short of his 20^th wedding anniversary. Twenty years of being in the pub trade had been good to him and he left an estate worth £1785 – the equivalent today of around £200,000 in today’s money. His wife, Mary went to live in Blackpool where she died in 1923 at the age of 73. She never remarried.

The immediate fate of the Railway lay within Mary’s family. The Gees already owned the Royal Hotel on Vernon Street which was being run by Mary’s brother, Robert. Another brother, John Heaton Gee, worked as a maltster and he took over the Railway after Thomas Orrell’s death.

Perhaps John wasn’t cut out for the pub trade. By 1905 Joseph Rowlinson was in charge and according to the 1911 Census the pub was doing well enough for Joseph to employ three bar staff who lived on the premises.

In his reminiscences of the area, local historian Norman Kenyon said that while he often drank at the Waggon and Horses further up St Helens Road he and his father-in-law Bill Morgan occasionally drank at the Railway, which Bill thought was a better class of pub.

Norman tells an amusing story of how his brother-in-law, Cliff Atkinson, who suffered from poor eyesight at the best of times, spent one winter’s Saturday night drinking at the Railway. He had been out earlier on in the day and was somewhat the worst for wear so his pals decided to walk him home to nearby Shepley Avenue. They left him at his garden gate and went back to the pub just as it began to snow. Later, on their way home, they went back to Shepley Avenue. As they approached Cliff’s gate they could see a huge pile of snow. It was Cliff, still draped over his garden gate having passed out and been covered in snow as it fell. [2]

Both the Railway and the Royal were taken over by the Salford brewery Threlfalls and they owned both pubs until 1967 when the brewery was taken over by Whitbread.

The Railway pictured in 1978

Real ale drinkers celebrated the sporadic return of cask beer to the Railway on a number occasions. In 1978, a new real ale called Special Cask Bitter was trialled at a number of local pubs, including the Railway. [3]

In 1981, Dutton’s Cask Bitter was put on sale in the pub. [4]

In the early eighties Whitbread were refurbishing their pubs in a distinct style that wasn’t altogether welcome by the brewery’s critics. But the Railway was given just a lick of paint and escaped the usual peephole barrels and sewing machines used as tables. [5] A couple of years later cask Trophy Bitter (‘the pint that thinks it’s a quart’) was on sale. [6]

In the late eighties, the Blackburn brewer Matthew Brown took over the Railway and in the early nineties they renamed it Shamrock’s, a vaguely Irish-themed pub. But, as with pubs on all main routes in and out of Bolton, Derby Street and St Helens Road have suffered from pub closures and the Shamrock shut in 1997. The building has been subdivided into small retail units on the ground floor and flats on the top floor.

* Anyone with any interest in the history of the area should look at the excellent Daubhill website containing articles and old photos of the area. Click here.

The site of the Railway Hotel in September 2014 (copyright Google Street View). The building on the right was number 2 St Helens Road, the original Railway Tavern. 

[1] Annals Of Bolton, John Clegg, 1888.

[2] Bolton, Daubhill and Deane: A Sentimental Journey, by Norman Kenyon. Published by Neil Richardson (1998).

[3] What’s Doing. The Greater Manchester Beer Drinkers’ Monthly Magazine. October 1978 issue. Extract accessible here. 

[4] What’s Doing. July 1981. Extract accessible here. 

[5] What’s Doing, June 1983. Extract accessible here. 

[6] What’s Doing, October 1983. Extract accessible here.

Green's Arms, 25 St Helens Road

The top of Adelaide Street as its junction with St Helens Road pictured in May 2014 (Copyright Lost Pubs Of Bolton). The Green's Arms fronted St Helens Road on the corner with Adelaide Street. The road lay-out has been changed to curve the corner at the top of Adelaide Street so that anyone taking a left turn onto the main road is probably driving through at least part of the site of the Greens Arms.

As we’ve seen with the British Oak as Derby Street became more populated the pubs began to open. Some, such as the Pike View, the Albert  and the Farmer’s Arms have closed in living memory. Others, such as the Stanley Arms and the Lord Nelson closed much earlier.

The Green's Arms falls into the latter. Situated on the corner of Adelaide Street and St Helens Road the Green's Arms was owned for much of its early existence by Fairhurst’s Brewery of Wigan. Fairhurst’s was opened by James Fairhurst in 1858 and was passed on to his son Thomas.  But when Thomas died in 1920 his wife sold the brewery and its 11 pubs at auction. Six ended up with Walker Cain Ltd of Warrington, however, five pubs – including the Green's Arms – ended up in the hands of Magee, Marshall & Co whose brewery was situated on Cricket Street less than half a mile away from the pub.

The Green's became a Greenall Whitley house in 1958 when Magee’s was taken over but it is likely that it was still being supplied from Cricket Street until around 1970. That was the year Magee’s closed and, according to Gordon Readyhough, the Greens Arms closed as well. [1]

The whole area fronting St Helens Road from Adelaide Street to Barrier Street was demolished soon after the pub was closed along with Stamford Street, Joseph Street, Barrier Street and Derwent Street. Industrial units were subsequently built on the site.

Greens Arms pictured in the 1960s

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