Royal George (Ship Royal George), 59 Blackburn Road, Bolton

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The Royal George was named after one of the eight Royal Navy ships that carried the name HMS Royal George.

The pub - which was originally known as the Ship Royal George - dated back to the 1830s when local directories gave its address as Blackburn Street (1836), Halliwell Road (1843 and the 1849 licensing list), and back to 28 Blackburn Street by 1855. By 1870 the address was given as 59 Blackburn Road. It was actually situated close to what is now the Blackburn Road/Halliwell Road junction on the corner with Moss Street.

One constant in all this is the Settle family who ran the pub from its establishment until around 1870. John Settle was the pub’s founder and he ran the pub until the 1860s when he was succeeded by his son, Thomas. Thomas also married into the pub trade in 1864. His wife Mary Anne was the daughter of Benjamin Hart, landlord of the Horse Shoe in the New Market Place (now Victoria Square).

But either Thomas doesn’t seem to have made a good fist of running the pub or he decided to get out of the trade when John Settle died in 1870. Thomas and Mary Anne were still at the pub on the 1871 census, but by 1881 they were living at Clyde Street where he is described as a retired beerseller. 

After the settles Reece Ivill is listed as the licensee in 1876 and William Street was there according to the 1881 Census. He had been at the Bank View on Kestor Street in 1876. 

The Royal George was unusual in that it was owned at various time by two of Bolton’s ‘big three’ brewers having been a Magee’s house in the late-nineteenth century and then owned by Sharman’s up to its closure. Sharman’s was a relatively local concern being situated next to Mere Hall.

The pub closed in 1922 and the building was converted to alternative uses. It was demolished in the 1960s as part of the clearance of much of the area between Blackburn Road and Halliwell Road.

Blackburn Road near its junction with Halliwell Road in August 2015 (copyright Google Street View). Thanks to various road improvements Blackburn Road is much wider than it was before the 1970s.  Indeed, the Royal George was demolished to help facilitate those improvements. But the old layout can be gauged by the fact that the pavement we can see on Blackburn Road as it disappears into the distance ran at the same level on this stretch. The junction with Moss Street was just before the junction with Halliwell Road so this shot is within a few feet of where the Royal George used to stand.

Bird I'Th Hand, 20 Bank Street, Bolton

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The Bird I’th Hand was one of Bolton’s oldest pubs having been mentioned on the licensing records for 1778. It was situated at 20 Bank Street just up from the nightclub known in later years as Maxwell’s Plum or the Late Bar.

The pub was also a lodging house, though it didn’t always attract a desirable clientele in what was a rough part of the town centre. Here’s a court case from the middle of the nineteenth century:

James Taylor, a respectably-dressed young man, was charged with having stolen a quantity of wearing apparel from the house of Mr James Suttie, the Bird-i-th’-Hand, Bank-street. He got lodgings in the house on Saturday evening, and at midnight, after he had pretended to go to bed, he attempted to leave the house unseen, taking with him nearly all the female servants’ wearing apparel. Committed for trial.

Manchester Courier, 28 August 1852

James Suttie was later at the Coe Street Tavern.

The final landlord of the Bird I’Th Hand was James Brownlow. The pub closed in 1870 and in Bolton Pubs 1800-2000, Gordon Readyhough tells us that it existed as a lodging house by 1876. But by 1895 it was a club, the Friendly Societies Working Men’s Club, and existed as such at least until the 1920s. 

The building that stands on the site is not the original. However, in recent years the site has housed the Taboosh Takeaway and the Via Italia restaurant before the Taboosh Shisha bar opened on in 2010.

Antelope (Antelope's Head), Churchgate, Bolton

The ABC Cinema on Churchgate is seen here in the summer of 1976 with 'It Shouldn't Happen To A Vet' as the main feature. The Antelope occupied the right-hand part of the premises. Copyright Bolton Library and Museums Service.

The Antelope Inn – or the Antelope’s Head as it was sometimes known – stood on Churchgate and was used as a pub for almost a hundred years from around the 1790s onwards. It was situated at 27 Churchgate, halfway between the Golden Lion and the Boars Head.

To the rear of the pub was Antelope Court which contained a three-storey silk mill, tenement dwellings and a bakehouse. At the back of Antelope Court, overlooking the River Croal, was a pit where cock fights would take place. [1] Cock fighting was hugely popular in Bolton with wagers taking place on the result of fights. But gambling was illegal as the Antelope’s landlord Mr Gee discovered in 1829. He was fined £5 for allowing gambling on his premises – the equivalent of around £500 today. [2]

Fred Hill’s 1981 book Churchgate: 50 Years Ago, A Biography Of Lifestyles In The Early Thirties shows pictures of the Antelope Court cock-fighting pit taken at the time he wrote his book. It is also an interesting read from a modern-day perspective even when he talks about the area in the early-eighties. An artist’s impression of Antelope’s Court by Robert Hampson (1925-1996) can be seen here. 

Steve Fielding gives an account of a murder in Antelope’s Court in 1883. An extract from his book Murderous Bolton can be seen here. He notes that the site is reputedly haunted.

A look at local directories show landlords coming and going from the Antelope. It was in a very heavily-pubbed area of the town centre and theatres began to spring up on the other side of Churchgate during the nineteenth century. Indeed, one licensee of the pub, Peter Crook, was declared bankrupt in 1858. He was at the Starkie Arms on Tonge Moor Road in 1849 but moved to the Antelope’s Head in the early-1850s. By 1858 he was living in lodgings on Shipgates, just off Bradshawgate, when he was hauled before the judge and presumably off to the debtor’s prison. [3]

By 1869 the tenancy of the Antelope was being advertised in the Bolton Evening News. It was described as being “a well-known and fully accustomed house”. Previous landlord Josiah Hurst had moved on to another pub. [4]

But by 1880 the Antelope’s time was up. It ceased to be a pub and was converted into retail premises and served as a butcher’s shop run by Edmund Aspinall for many years. Mr Aspinall was educated at Settle’s private school (formerly the Free Reading School, founded 1748) in Antelope Court. He became a Conservative councillor in 1897 for Derby Ward, and was the leader of the  Conservative group on Bolton Council for over 20 years. He was the Mayor of Bolton in 1923-24 [more on Edmund Aspinall here]. Older readers may be familiar with the Aspin Hall in Aspinalls Buildings on Deansgate. Aspinall’s Buildngs was founded by Edmund Aspinall.

The butcher’s shop closed in the mid-1920s and the site was demolished shortly afterwards. The Capitol Cinema was built on its site and opened on 13 February 1929 with the screening of Dolores del Rio in Ramona. The cinema underwent a refurbishment in 1956 and was renamed the ABC in 1962. The initials stood for Associated British Cinemas, the cinema's owners. The ABC closed as a cinema in 1 October 1977 with Barbra Streisand in A Star Is Born. [5]  Like many cinemas it became a bingo hall before opening in 1979 as JJB Sports, a leisure centre with squash courts in the cinema’s former seating area. That building was demolished in 1988 and Stone Cross House was built on the site. The Inland Revenue moved in and HMRC, as it is now, still maintains a presence on the site along with offices for a number of small businesses.

[1] Churchgate Conservation Document, Bolton Council, 2008. Accessed 23 November 2015. 

[2] Manchester Courier, 30 May 1829.

[3] Manchester Courier, 5 June 1858.

[4] Bolton Evening News, 15 May 1859

[5] Cinema Treasures. Accessed 23 November 2015. 

The site of the Antelopes Head, Stone Cross House, pictured in August 2015 (copyright Google Street View).

Boilermakers Arms, 48 Phoenix Street, Bolton

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A children’s playground stands on the site of the Boilermakers Arms on Phoenix Street. (Copyright Google Street View August 2015).

The Boilermakers Arms was situated on Phoenix Street, a street that still exists and which connects Folds Road with Turton Street.

The first record of the pub is when Andrew Chadwick is listed as its licensee in the 1871 Bolton directory. Mr Chadwick originated from Blackburn and was a yarn dresser living in Woodside Place, Darcy Lever according to the 1861 census. By 1871 he was running the Boilermakers Arms along with his wife, Ellen. Two daughters, aged 17 and 9 were with them along with a two-year-old grandson.

The Boilermakers Arms took its name from the Phoenix Boiler Works, an engineering factory that appears on maps towards the end of the 20th century. The factory was practically next door to the pub. As Phoenix Mill it later dealt in cotton waste and the site of the mill still operates as a waste recycling plant.

The cutting below comes from the Bolton Evening News shortly before the Boilermakers Arms closed in 1956. It notes that it was owned by the Crown Brewery of Bury. Crown didn’t have a huge number of pubs in the town though the Man and Scythe on Churchgate was one of them. Crown took the council’s offer of compensation and the pub was demolished as part of a slum clearance plan along with many of the surrounding streets. A children’s playground now stands on the site.

Beehive - Cloggers Arms, 118 Deansgate, Bolton

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Bolton Central Post Office pictured in August 2015 (copyright Google Street View). The building occupies a row of properties that at one time contained the Beehive.

The Beehive was situated at 118 Deansgate originally known as the Cloggers Arms. It became a pub around 1849 when Robert Kellett was listed at the licensee. Robert was born in 1821 and lived on Horrock Row in Turton in 1841 along with his parents Betsy and Thomas. He worked as a clogger but shortly afterwards he moved to the centre of Bolton to open a business on Deansgate.

How the pub came about is a matter for some conjecture. Robert is listed as licensee in 1849 but Henry Kay is also listed as being at the Cloggers Arms. Henry was a 30-year-old grocer in Deansgate on the 1841 census and it is quite likely that Robert rented space in Henry’s shop to work as a clogger before the two men eventually opened a beer house on the premises. Robert Kellett was certainly there by the time the 1843 Bolton directory was compiled.

Robert Kellett was at the pub until at least 1861 but it is listed on that year’s census as the Beehive – quite apt given the number of trades that took place on the premises.

In Bolton Pubs 1800-2000, Gordon Readyhough tells us that by 1870 the Beehive was jointly owned by the landlords of two nearby pubs, the Kings Arms and the Welcome Traveller. The latter’s landlord was Thomas Kellett, who may well have been a relative of Robert Kellett.

Certainly by 1876 the Beehive was run by Charles J Lyons, but Mr Lyons had his finger in another pie. The 1881 census tells us that his occupations were ‘beerseller and excursion agent’ and it was the latter business that Mr Lyons decided to concentrate his efforts on. He got out of the pub business and by 1891 he was living in Coop Street, Tong-with-Haulgh and working as an excursion promoter, an early travel agent.

The Beehive’s licence was allowed to lapse around 1900 by which time it was being supplied by the Manchester brewery of JG Swales.

The building stood for at least another ten years until it was demolished to make way for Bolton’s central Post Office. Work on the new building commenced in 1913 and was completed in November 1916. Although the central post office spent some time in Paderborn House in the seventies and eighties it now operates again at Deansgate on the site of the former Beehive.

Barley Mow, 140 Crook Street, Bolton

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Crook Street goes off in the distance and Thynne Street goes across the middle of this August 2015 image (copyright Google Street View). When Sainsbury’s was built on the site of the old Hick, Hargreaves factory in 2003-04 it took out much of Burns Street. Only the junction with Bridgeman Street now exists. At the other end of the street at the junction with Crook Street was the site of the Barley Mow, roughly where the bushes are on this image.

The Barley Mow was situated at the Thynne Street corner of Crook Street, part of a triangle of land also bordered by Burns Street and which was later used as a bus station.

The pub dated back to the 1840s when the part of Crook Street around the Holy Trinity church was being developed. It is mentioned on the licensing list of 1849, but it isn’t on directories from that decade – 1843 or 1848.

The first recorded licensee was Robert Hamer. Robert was a joiner living in Hanover Square according to the 1841 census. A decade later he and his wife Sarah were at the Barlow Mow along with their son Henry. But by 1861 he had given up the pub trade and was living just around the corner in Burns Street and working as a joiner and undertaker.

The Barley Mow was licensed to sell beer and wine, but Gordon Readyhough tells us in Bolton Pubs 1800-2000 that by the 1890s the licensee was also brewing his own beer. That is likely to have been Isaac Gibbons who spent around twenty years at the Barlow Mow from late-1870s onwards. By 1901 he had moved to the Grapes on Blackburn Road.

The Barley Mow lasted until 1910 by which time it was being supplied by Wilson’s brewery of Newton Heath, Manchester. Later in the twentieth century Wilson’s were a major supplier of beers in Bolton. 

The premises were demolished soon afterwards and in time the rest of the buildings between Burns Street and Thynne Street were also pulled down. For some years from the 1940s up to the expansion of Moor Lane bus station in 1969 this parcel of land was used as a small bus station by operators such as Salford Corporation Transport and Lancashire United Transport. Salford’s number 8 bus to Manchester used this small station which consisted of no more than a few stone shelters.  A 1958 map of Bolton bus services shows that the number 12 to Manchester, the 41 to Worsley and Eccles, the 49 to Union Road Mills, the 51 to Little Lever and the 52 to Bury via Little Lever and Radcliffe all left from this bus station. When the buses moved to Moor Lane the land was used as storage by Thistlethwaites Tyres. When the news Sainsbury’s was built Thistlethwaites moved across Burns Street to occupy the whole parcel of land that once contained the Barley Mow.

 “John McDermott, 19, was indicted for stealing from the person of Robert McClenahan, a silver lever watch and three shillings in money on 28 June. Mr Marshall prosecuted and Mr Cottingham defended. The parties were drinking together on the day in question and at the Barley Mow on Crook Street, prosecutor fell asleep. He awoke at eleven o’clock at night, but the prisoner had then left, and the watch and money were gone. The prosecutor was drunk at the time, and admitted in cross-examination that it was probable he might have asked the prisoner to take care of the watch. Evidence as to the character of the witness was given and by direction of the Recorder a verdict of not guilty was at once returned. The Recorder, in discharging the prisoner, said that in this case the prosecutor was more to blame than the prisoner, and he ought to leave that court thoroughly ashamed of himself for his conduct.”

Bolton Evening News, 23 July 1869.

Dog And Partridge, 22 - 24 Manor Street, Bolton

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On 31 August 2015 Neil Piper, the landlord of the Dog and Partridge, wrote on the pub’s website that the D&P would not be reopening and would soon be demolished. It had already been closed for ten months after a car drove through the traffic lights at the bottom of Kay Street and into a side wall narrowly missing Neil and some visitors who had been sitting in the vault just a few minutes earlier. The damage sustained in the incident and in a series of subsequent break-ins that easily ran into double figures meant the pub was uneconomical to repair. 

As Neil Piper locked up in the early hours of 29 October 2014 the last thing on his mind was that he was bringing down the curtain on 209 years of trading at the Dog and Partridge. But the incident later that day meant that a pub built in 1805 had served its last pint.

The Dog and Partridge was originally two residences both dating back to the early years of the nineteenth century, the original pub being the vault and the snug and numbered 24 Manor Street. It later expanded into adjoining premises, number 22. Early Bolton directories showed the following licensees: 

1818: J Hardman; 
1836 James Hayward – or Haywood – who later became a saddler. 1842: Richard Sharples, who moved from Turton to take over the pub. 
1848: John Duerden. 
1851: James Wardle. James left to become a cotton worker in Halliwell, but he was back in the pub trade by 1876 just a few yards up the road at the Hare and Hounds on Bank Street. 
1853 William Mercer. 
1869: William Parker. 
1876: William Mercer. 
1895: Edward Gaskill. 
1905: William Entwistle. 
1924: Mrs Ellen Hill.

“To Let with immediate possession, a well-accustomed PUBLIC HOUSE known by the name of “Dog & Partridge” Manor Street. Good reason for leaving. Apply on the premises.”

Bolton Evening News, 23 October 1869

Plans for alterations in 1930 can be seen here. They were uncovered by Vince Noir, to whom I am indebted. Other than a more open-plan look in the lounge that involved removing part of a wall in the 1970s the pub’s layout remained pretty much unchanged from these plans right up to the end. The bar was rebuilt as part of the 1930 plans – the curve is more pronounced on the newer plans. Seating backing on to the front wall was installed in the vault and remained in situ for the rest of the building’s existence. The Snug became a Smoke Room.

The plans also show an upstairs room which is described as a Club Room. The Dog had been known as a meeting place for clubs and societies as far back as 1869 and probably area. The Bolton Evening News for 26 June that year carried an advertisement on behalf of the George The Third Lodge of the National Independent Order of Oddfellows:

“Tea Party and Ball to be held at the house of Wm. Parker, Dog and Partridge, Manor Street, on Saturday July 3^rd. Tea on the Tables at Four o’clock. Healthy young men from the age of 18 to 35 will be presented with a ticket on payment of their Entrance fee.

Tickets may be had from John Webster, 35 Churchgate, and Miles Sweeny, 32 Crown-street.”

A tea party AND a ball. That assumed there would be a live band – and all in the Dog’s upstairs club room. But as was seen for much of the latter days of its existence the pub became adept at shoe-horning in both punters and performers into a confined space.

The Dog was owned by Cornbrooks by the early part of the 20^th century. The trail of takeovers meant that prior to that it was probably owned by Atkinsons of Commission Street. William Atkinson started the company in Water Street, just around the corner from the Dog, and by 1871 he had moved to premises across the road from the pub at number 1, Manor Street. Atkinson’s were taken over by Cornbrooks in 1895. Cornbrooks were taken over by United Lancastrian Breweries Ltd in 1961 and subsequently became part of Bass Charrington. Cornbrooks brewery was still in production in 1973 and the company’s products were still advertised on a window in the Dog’s snug right up to the pub’s closure.

By the early part of 1978 the Dog was run by an Indian couple, Mr and Mrs Patel, but when the Patels decided to leave due to Mrs Patel’s ill-health Bass put the pub up for sale. It was bought at auction by the Blackburn brewers, Thwaites. Under Thwaites’ ownership the D&P was unspoilt – much to the dismay of tenants who were constantly promised a refurbishment that never happened. But to its regulars it had a charm all of its own. It retained a traditional pub lay-out with a vault to the left of the main entrance, a lounge to the right. The Smoke room became a pool room and, in the late-nineties, was converted back into a Snug.

By 1997 the Dog and Partridge was struggling. It was taken on by Angus Crompton, one of the pub’s regulars and he was in charge until Neil Piper and Terry Fletcher took on the tenancy in 2000. Neil and Terry were also customers at the pub.

Under Neil’s 14-year stewardship the pub took off in a different direction as it began to cater for live alternative music. Hundreds of bands played in the pub's main room, which could fit 100 people with any comfort. The outdoor area to the rear of the pub staged an annual festival, Dogstock, attended by hundreds of fans each year. Along with the Alma, at the other end of the town centre on Bradshawgate and catering for heavy metal bands, the Dog and Partridge offered an alternative to the rest of the town centre and was often seen as an oasis of sanity.

Thwaites decided to sell in 2006 as the brewer withdrew from running smaller pubs that were often less profitable. The Craven Heifer on Blackburn Road and the Starkie Arms on Tonge Moor Road were also disposed of around this time. Having got the cash together to buy the Dog and Patridge outright Neil and Terry discovered on the day of completion that the pub had been withdrawn from the market. Thwaites had decided instead to sell it to Bluemantle, a company looking to redevelop the whole of the area bounded by Bank Street, Manor Street and Brown Street - the Church Wharf development. The development has yet to take place. Bluemantle lodged ‘outline planning permission’ in January 2013 and the demolition of the pub means one less property to worry about.

We’ve written over 200 of these lost pubs. Many of them are just long-forgotten names finally entering the public domain as a matter of record. But as the 21^st-century has progressed some of the Lost Pubs of Bolton are the pubs of our youth. Pubs such as the Howcroft, the Sally Up Steps, the Clifton – great pubs in their heydays.

The manner of a pub closing is always sad, but with the exception of the Top Storey Club none has been as tragic as the end of the Dog and Partridge. It was a tragedy for Neil Piper. It was a tragedy for Angus Crompton and Terry Fletcher, both of whom stepped in to stop the pub closing in the past. It was a tragedy for the family and friends of Craig Durham, the driver of the car on that fateful evening in October 2014, who hung himself a few weeks later. It was a tragedy for the pub’s customers. The Dog and Partridge was a special pub to very many people, an unspoilt gem that had managed to reinvent itself and keep going against all the odds. To lose it was bad enough. To lose it in the manner that it went was heartbreaking on so many levels.

In 1993, the then landlord of the Dog and Partridge, Tony Thompson, announced he was leaving the pub due to ill-health. On his final evening he hosted a small gathering of the pub’s customers and he proposed a toast: “To the Dog – it will outlive us all!” Sadly, Tony died in 1998 but there can have been few present that night who didn’t believe that an establishment then heading for its bi-centenary would go on and on just as it always had done. The Dog and Partridge was to last for just 21 more years.