The
Levers Arms Hotel –
not to be confused with the
Lever Arms in Darcy Lever - was situated
at the top end of Nelson Square on the corner of Bowker’s Row and
was demolished in 1949 to make way for an extension to the Pack Horse
Hotel.
The pub was built in
the early part of the nineteenth century. In Leisure In Bolton,
1750-1900, Robert Poole claims the Levers Arms was the scene of balls
for ‘tradesmen and bachelors’ which were organised by the
landlord ‘circa 1824’. However, Mr Poole is perhaps a few years
out.
An article in the
Bolton Evening News of 17 April 1880 gave the story behind the pub's
construction. The article was written on the death of Mr James
Simcock, a master builder who constructed the building in 1826. Mr
Simcock was a native of Frodsham in Cheshire and he came to Bolton in
1823 along with his father, a master builder who set up in business
in the town. The Simcocks soon won a number of large contracts
including, in 1826, one for a building on the corner of Nelson Square
and Bowker's Row which was originally planned as a townhouse for a
surgeon, Mr Robinson. It was apparently the only house built in
Bolton that year such was the depressed nature of the local economy
and was constructed using 40,000 bricks. However, the building was
soon sold and split in two with the Borough court (later the Reform
Club) in one part of the building and the Levers Arms Hotel in the
other. This would have been around 1830.
The pub was also known
by the nickname of the Cock and Trumpet which derived from the
ancient cock and bugle crest used by the Lever families of Great
Lever, Little Lever and Darcy Lever since the Middle Ages and which
still forms part of the crest of Bolton School.
In 1834. the pub's
occupant, Mr W Bennett, advertised it as being to let. “This inn is
placed in a part of town highly calculated for carrying on a
respectable line of business,” he claimed in an advertisement in
the Manchester Courier of 28 June 1834 adding that the house “would
be found highly accommodating to private gentlemen or commercial
travellers as there is most excellent stabling attached to the
premises.”
Mr Bennett moved to the
Ship Inn on Bradshawgate, and he was succeeded at the Levers Arms by
Martin Mascall. Mr Mascall was a young man – just 23 – when he
moved to the pub and he took no time in consolidating the Levers Arms
as the hostelry of choice for Bolton's establishment. The town's
courts were immediately next door, the streets immediately
surrounding the Levers Arms were offices for professionals such as
accountants, solicitors and merchants. Bolton Mechanics Institute met
at the pub, the local Philharmonic Society held concerts there, the
Bolton Cattle Show used the pub as a registration point for entries
and the council even used a room at the pub for meetings.
Martin Mascall was a
keen horseman. He regularly put on a refreshment hut at Horwich races
and allowed the Levers Arms to be used as a stud when touring
stallions were brought to Bolton.
However, Mascall fell
foul of the law in 1840 when he was accused of having more than eight
gallons of rum on the premises. It was illegal for pubs to overstock
on spirits, the feeling being they could then be classed as
wholesalers rather than retailers. Mascall claimed it was an error on
the part of his bookkeeper but rather than fine him the magistrates
ordered excise officials to confiscate the rum.
Martin Mascall left in
1842 and in 1845 the Levers Arms was taken over by Alfred Bird. Mr
Bird started his career as a clerk for the local wholesale brewery of
Newstead and Walker before working briefly for the Hulton Colliery
Company based at their offices next to the Great Moor Street railway
station. He then got into the pub trade at the
Bulls Head (now
Yates's Wine Lodge) on Bradshawgate.
Mr Bird was eligible to
vote, but the decision by his immediate predecessor as licensee, Mrs
Colley, to remain on the premises for a few days after his arrival as
she sorted out alternative accommodation almost cost him that vote.
In order to vote you either had to own a property or a business and
one's eligibility – or otherwise – would come in front of the
Municipal Revision Court. Mr Bird argued that his removal from the
Bulls Head to the Levers Arms ought not to disqualify him from voting
and despite being only a tenant of the pub and not the owner he was
allowed to keep his vote.
Alfred Bird was back in
court again in February 1846. A servant girl named Mary Ann Haymes
was accused of stealing a broach, gloves and other articles from the
pub. Miss Haymes had left the Lever Arms the previous September after
which the articles were noticed as missing. Sergeant Beech of the
local police went to her home and found the articles in her box.
Surprisingly, there was an appeal by Mr Bird for clemency. He said
that as Miss Haymes was connected with a very respectable family and
that it was her first offence he didn't want to press charges and the
case was dismissed. [Bolton Chronicle, 7 February 1846]
In August 1860, the
opening of St Edmund's Roman Catholic Church was celebrated with a
meal at the Levers Arms. It was the fourth Catholic church to open in
the town and followed the laying of the cornerstone of St Patrick's
just five months earlier. The church was situated on Grime Street
(now St Edmunds Street) off Deansgate. The street's original name was
apt. In a report on the opening of the church in its issue of 18
August 1860, the Bolton Chronicle stated that area was:
“a very populous area
of the town, and the haunt of the worst characters of both sexes. A
place more thoroughly destitute, in a spiritual point of view, it
would be difficult to conceive.”
At two o'clock, and
with the opening ceremony completed, members of the clergy and the
laity, along with various civic dignitaries for what was described as
“an elegant repast”.
In 1868, a court case
was brought by customs and excise against the Levers Arms and in
particular against its tap room. Taps – or vaults – were separate
rooms gained via a separate entrance. In effect it was completely cut
off from the main part of the pub and catered for a lower class of
drinker. Having a tap managed to broadened a pub's appeal while
keeping different classes of drinker completely separate from each
other. The Levers was one of two pubs brought up in front of court
with the police arguing that as they were effectively separate pubs
they ought to have a separate licence. The other pub was the Swan
Hotel tap room, an establishment that still exists though not by that
name. It was known as the Malt and Hops Bar from the mid-seventies
and after a refurbishment in 1992 it became
Barristers Bar which it
remains as to this day.
Interestingly, it
wasn't Alfred Bird, the Levers Arms landlord, who was in the dock,
rather Francis Cooper and his wife Martha. The court heard that the
tap was entered via a separate entrance on Bowkers Row – the main
pub was on Nelson Square. The Coopers sub-let the tap room from
Alfred Bird but the excise officers' case was strengthened by them
buying spirits and beer from sources completely separate to Bird. One
of the excise officers, Richard Solomon, visited the premises of 11
April 1868. In a conversation with Mrs Cooper she revealed that while
she and her husband considered themselves to be servants of Mr Bird
they had occupied the tap for 12 years. Mr Bird admitted that he
could dismiss them but the court took the view that this was an
agreement between landlord and tenants rather than master and
servant. The Coopers were hit with a huge fine of £17 10 shillings.
The tap subsequently obtained a separate licence but the Coopers left
the following year. Robert Darlington of the Swan Tap was also found
guilty and fined £5.
In 1869, the Levers
Arms was extended into part of the living accommodation occupied by a
veterinary surgeon, Roger Hampson. This was part of the original
building and Bird created a number of bedrooms in the extension.
While the Levers Arms
was always seen as a pub of the local establishment it was
particularly popular with senior members of the Conservative party.
At the 1869 municipal elections the two victorious Conservative
councillors in the West ward were carried shoulder high in
celebration to the Levers Arms from the count at St George's school
at the top of Bath Street (a building that became a pub named
BenTopps in the 1980s).
The Levers was absent
from local press reports of the time of illegal opening. Perhaps it
was because of this connection with the local elite. On the other
hand, most offences of that nature took place on a Sunday morning
when the establishment would have been at prayer in their private
pews at the Parish Church.
However, a spotlight
was thrown on to the Levers Arms in December 1871 when Alfred Bird
was in court for having his house open at two o'clock one Friday
morning. Police Sergeant Bailey and Police Constable Whittle walked
in to the pub by the outer door which had been left unlocked. Five
men were in the room at least three of which Sergeant Bailey
recognised as not being hotel guests. Such guests were allowed to
drink after closing time. Glasses of spirits and beer were on the
tables and one of the gentlemen bought a cigar from Mrs Bird for
which he paid sixpence. Alfred Bird did not appear in court nor was
he represented and he was fined 40 shillings. But the case rang a
bell at the nearby offices of the Bolton Evening News. The paper had
been founded around the corner in Mawdsley Street just four years
earlier and was still very much the 'new kid on the block'. But while
the long-established weekly paper, the Bolton Chronicle, was a strong
supporter of the Conservatives newspaper, the Evening News' founder
William Tillotson was a staunch Liberal. Indeed, in the same election
that the Tories triumphantly chaired their successful candidates in
West ward to the Levers Arms, Tillotson was licking his wounds having
been come in third place in Exchange ward behind two elected
Conservatives. The BEN had recently appointed William F Brimelow as
editor, a post he would hold for the next 42 years, and it came to
Brimelow's attention that while Bird had been fined for keeping
unlawful hours at the Levers Arms there had been no mention of the
gentlemen drinking in the pub. Not only was it an offence to keep a
pub open outside licensing hours, it was now an offence to drink in
one – it hadn't been previously. Bird was fined but what had
happened to the local dignitaries?
“If Dick, Tom and
Harry induce some unfortunate common publican to supply them with
beer within prohibited hours they are summoned along with him; and
the public see no reason why any distinction should be made in favour
of the 'gentlemen' who had done a similar thing at the Levers Arms,”
Brimelow thundered in an editorial on 13 December 1871. He added that
justice had been done but in a side-room at the court instead of in
public. Three of the offending gentlemen had all received a fine but
the BEN's reporter was barred from entry to the proceedings.
“If the defendants
had been operative mechanics, spinners or labourers, their cases
would have been heard in open court, their names inserted in the
charge sheet, and the press would have published them to the world,”
Brimelow continued. “But, with gentlemen belonging to the
'professions,' this would of course have been an inconvenient
exposure. Yes, if this sort of thing were to pass, we want to know
what the answer will be to those who say – and there are many
saying it just now - “there is one law for the rich and another law
for the poor””.
Alfred Bird died in
April 1873 having been landlord of the Levers Arms for 28 years. He
had been suffering from dropsy for some months leading up to his
death. Running the pub that was the choice of the local establishment
hadn't made him a rich man – he left less than £100 in his estate.
Bird never owned the pub, he was merely a tenant. But given the fate
of the pub over the next 20 or 30 years it seems that its glory days
had already gone.
Bird's widow, Eliza
Bird, took over the running of the Levers Arms but it was sold in
December 1873 and she left for the Victoria Hotel in Hotel Street
when her tenancy expired in 1874. Her son Harry Bird opened a
veterinary surgery in part of the premises but that lasted only a few
months until his death at the age of 27 in November 1874.
Thomas Cooper succeeded
Mrs Bird but he left in 1876 after buying the
Church Hotel in
Kearsley for £4650. He returned to the Levers Arms in 1882 but was
declared bankrupt later that year.
The Levers Arms was
sold again in 1876, this time to a Mr Nava who moved from the Queens
Head in Alderley Edge. He was very much a 'hands-on' owner and took
over the day-to-day running of the pub. His brief tenure was notable
for the opening of a new billiards room.
Nava sold up at the end
of 1878 to a Mr George Parnell who ended up in something of a local
scandal. Parnell and his wife Anne ran the pub for little more than a
year, but she left him and sued for divorce in a case that was heard
in 1881. Mrs Parnell claimed in court they had bought the hotel with
her money but that her husband was prone to “bouts of
intemperance”- in other words, he liked a drink. She also alleged
he began an adulterous affair with a chambermaid at the hotel, Alice
Craven, which was corroborated in court by Ms Craven. Mrs Parnell was
granted a decree nisi thereby ending the marriage.
Certainly, the 1880s
were troubled times for the Levers Arms. The Conservatives now had
their own club on Mawdsley Street in part of the recently-constructed
Bradford Buildings (the club is now closed but its former entrance
can still be seen). The Bradford Buildings still stand and are
chiefly known for the
Level nightclub (previously
J2, Sparrows,
Sundowners and
Cellar Vie) which occupies much of the row.
Mary Scowcroft took
over the running of the Levers Arms in 1884 but within six years she
was at the bankruptcy court, the pub having run into financial
difficulties. It wasn't the final appearance at that court of the
pub's licensee. In 1901, Thomas Kay was declared bankrupt having also
run into trouble during his tenure. He had managed to increase trade
from £17 a week to £30 but still found the business a drain on his
resources.
However, the early part
of the twentieth-century found some stability for the Levers Arms
largely due to the tenure of two landladies: Margaret Simpkin who ran
the pub from 1901 to 1910 and Elizabeth Smith who was in charge for
over a decade thereafter.
But there was activity
further down Nelson Square after the second world war. Local brewers
Magee Marshall owned the Pack Horse Hotel which began life in the
eighteenth century as a small inn fronting Bradshawgate, It was
rebuilt in 1904, but in the late-forties Magees began snapping up all
the properties in between the Pack Horse and the Levers Arms. Their
aim was to expand the Pack Horse into all those properties with the
aim of making it one of Bolton's leading hotel.
In 1949 Magee’s
bought the Levers Arms Hotel and demolished it in December of that
year as part of an extensive remodelling of the Pack Horse that gave
the building the structure that pretty much stands today. The
extended hotel was opened in August 1952.
In the eighties and
nineties that part of the Hotel formerly occupied by the Levers Arms
became the Regency Lounge and later the Shawgates Café Bar. An
Italian restaurant, La Piazza opened in 2016 but closed in 2018. The
Pack Horse closed as a hotel in 2009 and was converted into student
accommodation which opened in September 2012.
In September 2018, the
Northern Monkey brewpub opened on the site of what would have been the Levers Arms.
“Edward Mascall was
charged with assaulting Peter Orme, on the 10th of May, on
which day it appeared Mr Blain, tailor and draper, had a gig from Mr
Martin Mascall, defendant's brother, to Preston. He returned between
nine and ten in the evening and sent the horse and gig by the
defendant to Mr Mascall's the Lever Arms Hotel. Complainant and a
companion got into the gig and drove round by Trinity Church and to
other places, and kept the horse and gig nearly an hour. Defendant
got information of this, and having care of his brother's horses he
found the complainant in the Lever Arms, and seizing him by the
collar, accused him of abusing the horse and struck him a violent
blow on the face and on other parts of the body. The parties were
separated and Orme went home, but soon afterwards went back to the
stables to remonstrate with defendant for striking him and to
explain. The defendant then attacked Orme in the stable and beat him
so severely that he was confined to his bed six days and at one time
his life appeared to be in danger......Mr Fletcher [magistrate] said
the complainant deserved a good thrashing for the driving the horse
about town after the animal had performed a journey of forty miles
that day....He thought however that the complainant had beaten him
with unnecessary severity and he should therefore require him to find
sureties to keep the peace for three months and to pay the costs.”
Bolton Chronicle, 6
June 1835.
