Sally Up Steps/Stanley Arms

The former Sally Up Steps, now the Nam Ploy Thai restaurant, pictured in May 2012. By the early 1980s the pub consisted of the building at the top of the steps, though the original pub - the  Stanley Arms - was just one half of that building - the part to the right of the door. A 1987 refurbishment saw the pub expanded into the rest of the row to the left of the pub. Image Copyright: Google Street View.

The Sally Up Steps was situated on Chorley Old Road, close to the junction with Kirkhall Lane.

The pub was one of three in Bolton known as the Stanley Arms but acquired its nickname after one of its landladies and because the main entrance was up a flight of stairs at the front of the pub. In his book Peace! Beer In The 1920s and 1930s, Ronald Pattinson maintains that it was already nicknamed Sally Up Steps by the time Mass Observation surveyed the town around 1936.

The Deane brewery, William Tong’s, owned the pub until 1923 when they were taken over by Walkers of Warrington. Walkers merged with the Leeds brewery of Joshua Tetley in 1960 to form Tetley Walkers, but during the 1980s the brewery decided to re-brand a number of pubs as Walker’s outlets and began to brew a new range of beers for those pubs some of which were based on old Walker’s recipes.

In February 2011, Terry Byatt told the Lost Pubs Project this story about the Stanley Arms over a hundred years ago:

My grandfather's elder sister ran the "Sally Up Steps" pub in Bolton before the First World War.  I remember as a child him telling me that she had a parrot that could whistle like the tram conductors and stop the tram outside the pub!  Apparently the parrot also used to drink beer, get drunk and then fall off its perch, when its noted phrase was "Polly Poorly". [2]

By the mid-eighties the Sally Up Steps was a small pub that had already been knocked into an adjoining property a number of years earlier. Then – as now – five stone steps led from the street level to the pub. To the left of the main entrance there was a small vault, access to which was down three more steps. A small lounge was situated at the front of the pub with a pool room and toilets towards the rear.

In 1987 it was time for the pub to receive its refurbishment and a conversion to a Walkers outlet. Its small size meant that with around 30 people in it the pub was packed so in order to try and drum up some more custom to help pay for the refurbishment Tetley Walker decided to buy up three adjoining properties and expand the pub to some four times its former size.

The Stanley Arms was officially renamed Sally Up Steps in the autumn of 1987 when it reopened after an extensive re-fit. There was now a car park to the rear of the pub as the brewery tried to attract food trade. In March 1989 it was reported that the pub had been wallpapered not much more than a year after it had reopened. [3]

In 2009 Sally Up Steps was named as one of the best pub names in the country (Bob’s Smithy was also on the list) but by then the Sally Up Steps had closed. It is now the Nam Ploy, a Thai restaurant.

Sally Up Steps pictured in the late-1920s.

[1] Peace! Beer In The 1920s and 1930s, by Ronald Pattinson.

[2] Lost Pubs project. Retrieved 25 March 2014.

[3] What’s Doing, the Greater Manchester beer drinkers monthly magazine. March 1989 issue.

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.

Bentley's/Chester Moonshine's/Revolution

The former Bentley's premises pictured in April 2012 after it had closed down as  Buffet King. Copyright Google Street View.

John Willies furniture store stood on the corner of Bradshawgate and Great Moor Street for many years until it was sold for conversion into bar premises. It opened as Bentleys in May 1988 [1] but underwent numerous name changes over the next 20 years or so. At various times it was known as Chester Moonshines, then in 1999 it became the Revolution Bar, part of a chain of vodka bars best known for offering multiple different flavours of vodka. 

There was one further change of name when it became an all-you-can-eat Chinese restaurant named Buffet King. By 2011 that had closed and at the time of writing the premises were still empty.

[1] Bolton Beer Break, published by the Bolton branch of the Campaign for Real Ale, Summer 1988 edition.

Falcon, Kay Street

The Falcon in the late-1920s when it was owned by William Tong & Sons Ltd of Blackshaw Lane, Deane. Tong's was taken over in 1923 by the Warrington brewery of  Walker Cain Ltd who commissioned photographs of their recently-acquired pubs.

The Falcon was situated on the corner of Kay Street and Turton Street but was a casualty of road improvements when Topp Way and St Peter’s Way were extended in the eighties.

The pub dated back to 1803 [1] and was one of 21 pubs owned by William Tong & Sons Ltd, whose Diamond Brewery stood on the corner of Blackshaw Lane and Deane Road.

It was a rounded corner pub although the room on the left next to the entrance to the pub had less of a curve than the vault to the right of the entrance where the bar was also rounded in parallel with the curvature of the outer wall of the building.

There were also two back rooms one of which was regularly as a meeting room by a number of local societies.

It was a good local’s pub in a working-class area and in its final years it served cask Tetley Mild and Bitter that was kept well enough to merit inclusion in a number of editions of the Good Beer Guides during the eighties.

The pub closed in early 1987 when, along with the Peel on Higher Bridge Street, it was demolished to make way for the extension to Topp Way. There was some scepticism about the scheme – a correspondent to the Greater Manchester beer drinker’s magazine, What’s Doing, pointed out that similar plans over the previous 15 years “had come to nought” [2]. However, within a few months of the plans being made public a closing date was set. [3] Licensees Keith and Helene Partington, who had been in charge of the nearby Spread Eagle, when it closed its doors for final time some six years earlier, moved to the  Bowling Green on Blackburn Road.

Nothing remains of the site of the Falcon. It was demolished soon after closure along with neighbouring properties. The top end of Turton Street was subsequently widened so anyone driving along Topp Way and then down Turton Street towards Tonge Moor probably drives through the space once occupied by the Falcon. The area to the rear of what was the pub is now occupied by the Bolton Gate retail park.

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

[2] What’s Doing, the Greater Manchester beer drinker’s monthly magazine. July 1986 issue.

[3] Bolton Beer Break, published by the Bolton branch of Camra, the Campaign for Real Ale. November 1986 issue.

The site of the Falcon Inn. The pub was situated on the corner of Kay Street and Turton Street roughly where the traffic lights are in the centre-left of the photograph. Copyright Google Street View. Image dated April 2012.

Dome, Knowsley Street

The British Heart Foundation occupied the premises which once house The Dome for a short while in the early nineties. Image taken April 2012. Copyright Google Street View.

A pub so short-lived it failed to make Gordon Readyhough’s reference book on the subject, the Dome was situated on Knowsley Street in the former Gregory & Porritt’s building.  The pub’s name came from its distinctive dome-shaped roof in the centre of the premises.

The Dome opened towards the end of 1989 when a local beer drinkers’ magazine proclaimed it was offering the seldom seen (in Bolton, anyway) Bass Special Bitter on handpump. [1] However, the same magazine stated just months later that the pub was already up for sale. [2]

An estimated £600,000 was spent converting the retail premises into a pub, but it had a capacity of 250 standing and 150 seated and the pub failed as it was claimed it just didn’t have the right atmosphere.

Like Ben Topps just a few hundred yards away at the top of Bath Street, the Dome tried to capitalise on the pre-club crowd on their way to Ritzy at the top of Bridge Street. However, just a few people in a pub with a capacity of 400 people gave the pub a reputation of always being empty – even at the weekend - and within a few years it was back as retail premises.

[1] What’s Doing, the Greater Manchester beer drinkers’ magazine. February 1990 issue.

[2] What’s Doing, June 1990.

Gladstone Hotel, Deane Road

The site of the  Gladstone Inn is on the right of the image where the filter lane passes the University of Bolton sign on the grass verge. To the left is Deane Road heading towards the town centre and in the distance is the Grosvenor Casino (Sainsbury's premises from 1990 to 2004). In the 1870s this stretch of around 250 yards consisted of 10 pubs, including the Gladstone. 

The Gladstone Hotel began life as a beer house called the Returned Sailor around 1860 [1] and was situated on Deane Road on the block between Shuttle Street and Harris Street.

The short stretch of Deane Road where today we see Bolton College, Bolton Sixth Form College and Bolton One saw the birth of what we now know as Bolton Wanderers Football Club during the 1870s. On the left-hand side of the above photograph, on a site now occupied by Bolton College, once stood Christ Church school. The story goes that the club was founded in 1874 by teachers and scholars at the school as Christ Church FC. Three years later the vicar objected to the club meeting in the school hall without him being present so they upped sticks and moved, thus severing its links with the school.

Schools and churches had become increasingly involved in sports, especially football which had been introduced to Bolton two years before Christ Church FC was founded. The Victorian era saw the rise of ‘muscular Christianity’ – not so much an earlier attempt at bodybuilding but the promotion of physical strength and health as well as an active pursuit of Christian ideals. Plus it kept people from the pub.

It is believed the name ‘Bolton Wanderers’ came about after the vicar objected to the players ‘wandering off to the pub’ and that the club renamed itself to cock a snook, as it were, to the vicar. However, former Bolton Evening News editor Leslie Gent maintains that the name came about after the club moved headquarters not once, but twice, first to the Gladstone and soon afterwards to the Britannia Hotel some 200 yards away at the junction with Crook Street.

But the vicar had a point. Walk today from where Deane Road meets University Way down to the market and you will pass three educational institutions, the fire station, a casino and with the health centre recently added. In 1877, when the Wanderers broke away from Christ Church, there were ten pubs in that short stretch at the bottom of Deane Road.

Why the Gladstone was the club’s first HQ and not, say, the Weavers Arms right next door to the school is unknown? The club was presumably made up of local lads who might have had their own regular pub. But from the Gladstone downwards there was the Horse and Vulcan, the Union, the Milestone, the White Horse and then the Britannia with the Weavers, the Wheatsheaf, the Windmill and the Woodman’s Cottage on the other side of the road. Ten pubs in 250 yards and a few more beyond that – the vicar had a job on his hands.

Presumably at some stage before 1877 it was renamed the Gladstone in honour of the Liberal prime minister who by then had served the first of his four terms as premier.

The pub closed around 1964 and lay derelict for a while before being demolished around 1967, part of the clearance of an area which became the Bolton Institute Of Technology (now the University Of Bolton).

This picture shows the pub on 13 May 1964 next to the much larger Regent cinema. On the other side of the cinema is Harris Street, which can still be seen at the bottom end of Deane Road. The site of the Gladstone is roughly at the traffic lights at the bottom of University Way.

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

Rainforth Hotel, School Hill

Approximate site of the Rainforth Hotel, now covered by housing. Image taken May 2012. Copyright Google Street View.

Named after John Rainforth who built the School Hill chemical works (‘Chymical Works’ as it is named on some old maps) further down School Hill. The Rainforth Hotel stood on the right hand side as you go up the street in the direction of Prince Street.

The Rainforth was a Tong’s and later Walker’s House and was closed in 1959. It was demolished shortly afterwards and housing now stands on the site.

Rainforth is regarded as the father of the medical profession in Bolton having practised in the town for 57 years. He died at School Hill House aged 78 on 30 May 1857. The pub was later built on the site of the house.

One of Rainforth's apprentices was Abraham Paulton, the son of local brewer Walter Paulton and a future political journalist who campaigned in the 1840s for the repeal of the corn laws.

Concertina Row, a row of stepped houses on School Hill, was opposite the pub.