Alma Inn, 152-154 Bradshawgate, Bolton

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The Alma pictured on 29 September 2020

UPDATED WITH DETAILS OF THE PUB'S SURVIVAL

On 8 September 2020, the Alma Inn released a statement announcing that the club would not re-open following a brief period of closure. It had last traded four days earlier but closed for a deep clean after a member of staff tested positive for Covid-19. Just hours before the pub announced that it had closed all Bolton pubs were given notice to shut that day because of spiralling coronavirus infection rates on the town. They were to remain closed for another 24 days. The Alma's licensee was given 14 days to quit by the pub's owner Marston's brewery and with no prospect of the local lockdown being lifted in Bolton at that time it looked as though it had closed for the final time.

The Alma dated back to around the mid-1850s. The first record we have is in 1856 when Aaron Crankshaw is charged with selling beer at unlawful hours. In this case it was at 2.15 on a Sunday morning. Police saw five men coming out of the door and three others were inside. Crankshaw claimed the first five were cabmen while the other three were friends of his and weren't drinking. Magistrates found him guilty and he was fined 10 shillings (50p). [Bolton Chronicle, 9 February 1856]

Crankshaw was the founder of the Alma and he hadn't been at the pub very long at the time of his conviction. Born in 1809, he was described on the 1851 census as a 'whitster' living on the other side of the River Croal in Little Bolton. However, he also worked as a piano tuner and in 1853 he was the organist at St Peters's church in Halliwell. The following year sees him at the Baths Tavern on Lower Bridgeman Street but he moved to what was to become the Alma around 1855.

In the 19^th century it was common for pubs to be named after military figures or great patriotic events. The Battle Of The Alma was fought in September 1854 during the Crimean War. An expeditionary force of British, French and Egyptian troops defeated Russian forces defending the Crimean peninsula at the Alma river. The victory was commemorated by naming pubs the Alma and a number still carry the name. The British named settlements in New Zealand and in Canada after the battle while the French named a new crossing of the Seine in Paris the Ponte d'Alma. The allies' victory was commemorated for some years afterwards. In September 1855, the first anniversary of the battle was celebrated at The Haulgh by the firing of cannon and the burning of effigies of Russian diplomat Prince Gorchakov and his wife at the Anchor on Eagle Street. 

Aaron Crankshaw named his new pub the Alma. However, his tenure wasn't a long one. By 1861 he was a bookkeeper at 137 Blackburn Road although an advertisement from 1886 shows that he was now the landlord of the nearby Rifle and Volunteers, a pub owned by his family. He was also the secretary at that time of the Halliwell Football Club.

Perhaps the reason for Aaron Crankshaw's departure from the Alma was that the pub was struggling. By 1860 it was in the hands of James Pollitt who had a second job as a labourer at the Union Foundry. In February of that year he was involved in an accident at the foundry when a large cylinder fell and hit him in the eye. He was taken to the infirmary and treated by the house surgeon but was sent home the same day despite being not yet out of danger. [Bolton Chronicle, 11 February 1860].

Worse was to follow for Pollitt. In July 1860 he and his daughter Harriet were up in court over the serving of beer after hours. Police claimed Miss Pollitt was seen one Sunday morning serving a quart of beer to an old man who took the beer home. She swore in court that it wasn't her, but her father was found guilty of allowing beer to be served at prohibited hours and Harriet was then charged with perjury. Her father had to bail her out to the tune of £20 although there are no reports as to Harriet's fate when the case finally came to court. [Bolton Chronicle, 7 July 1860]

The Pollitts left soon afterwards and were succeeded by Robert Walkden who remained at the Alma until his death in 1864 at the age of 61. Under his guidance the pub became a meeting place for branches of the Ancient Noble Order of Oddfellows. Walkden had previously been the keeper and messenger of the Bolton Exchange Newsroom, a post he held for 27 years.

In 1871 the Alma was at the centre of a court case involving the building's owner James Hardman and Abraham Hayes, the landlord of the Nelson on Nelson Street. Hayes had been engaged by Hardman to help find a new tenant for the Alma. A Mrs Lovatt was engaged but she refused to meet Hardman's demand for three years' rent up front – the sum of £90. Hayes then approached Bedford Brewery of Leigh and they agreed to meet Hardman's rental demand. The pub would then be sub-let by Bedford's to Mrs Lovatt. Hayes paid £1 to Hardman to bind Bedford's to the deal on the understanding that this deposit would be returned to him when the deal was complete along with a small fee. Hardman claimed that the agreement was for the £1 to be forfeited if the £90 wasn't paid the following the day, but the judge found in Hayes' favour and Hardman had to repay the £1 plus costs. [Bolton Evening News, 18 March 1871]

Bedford's rented the pub from Hardman for a number of years – a Bolton Evening News ad from 1883 has them looking for a tenant without utilising any middle man, but the arrangement was at an end by the end of the 19^th century.

The entrance to the Alma may have looked a lot different had plans put forward in 1883 come to fruition. Bedford's wanted to move the front entrance to the corner of the building and remove the outside entrance to the cellar claiming it would improve the thoroughfare; however, the magistrates threw out the proposal. [Bolton Evening News, 8 March 1883]

In April 1907 a labourer named William Holden of Water Street was sent to jail for one month with hard labour over the theft of a canary worth £2 from the Alma. Holden was drinking in the pub one night but when he left landlady Mrs Sanderson noticed that the canary was missing. Holden was apprehended by PC Lyon and told the officer that he would find the bird at the house of Herbert Hunt, a watchmaker residing at 13 Manor Street. When PC Lyon went to Hunt's house Mrs Hunt claimed Holden had given the bird to her as a present. [Bolton Evening News, 24 April 1907]

In 1911, the Alma's licensee William Wadeson was fined £10 after police found gambling taking place at the pub. [Manchester Courier, 24 November 2011]

In the fifties the pub was popular with bus drivers and conductors working at Bolton Corporation Transports' Shiffnall Street depot (the building still stands as the Excellency wedding venue).

The Alma became a Magees pub in the early part of the 20^th century. Magee Marshall's were taken over by Greenall Whitley in 1958 although production continued at their brewery on Cricket Street, off Derby Street until 1970. Greenall's name was mud in Bolton mainly because their beers were considered inferior to the Magees beers it replaced in their pubs. However, the beer kept in the Alma was good enough for the pub to be included in the Good Beer Guides between 1974 and 1979.

Despite this the Alma closed in the summer of 1979 and was put up for sale by Greenall's. However, the June 1980 edition of What's Doing, the Greater Manchester beer drinkers' monthly magazine, noted that the pub had been sold to Burtonwood's Brewery of Warrington who had spent £13,000 on the living quarters alone. It reopened later that year. Burtonwood's had plans to install handpumps and there were hopes they would begin selling light mild. As recently as the 1950s light mild was the drink of choice in Bolton. Mild is generally seen as a dark beer these days but What's Doing pointed out that in Bolton light milds had always outsold dark milds by a factor of five. However, tastes had changed and What's Doing's September 1982 edition reported that Burtonwood's Light Mild was no longer on sale in the Alma less than 18 months after arriving on the bar. The reason given was a lack of demand.

The landlord of the Alma at this time was Tom Boyle. He had been at the pub in the seventies but left in 1977 for the Dog and Pheasant in Westhoughton. He returned as landlord when Burtonwood's re-opened the pub and his cellarmanship ensured a return to the Good Beer Guide for a number of years in the early- and mid-eighties. Toms wife Edna put on pub food including 'Alma pots' – small ceramic pots of moussaka, curry or chilli con carne served with rice or chips and a side salad. In those days there was a good steady lunchtime trade from local offices and works and you could still drink alcohol partway through the working day without being frowned upon by puritanical management.

The Alma taken in the early-80s shortly before it was knocked into the Bolton Fine Arts shop next door. Image taken from a posting by Bert Kerks on the I Belong To Bolton Facebook page.

For much of its existence the Alma was a small pub on the corner of Bradshawgate and Lomax's Buildings. The building next door was occupied in the early twentieth century by James Richards & Sons, wire workers, before being converted into a shop. By 1983 it was occupied by Bolton Fine Arts. When the building came up for sale that year it was bought by Burtonwood's to be converted into an extension to the Alma. During the conversion a large range built by the local firm of W. Crumblehulme & Sons Ltd.was discovered in the shop premises. The range remains part of the pub.

In the summer of 1988 the Bolton Beer Breaks magazine was reporting that the Alma was trying a novel way to attract customers with the installation of a satellite TV system, one of the first pubs in Bolton to do so. A rotating satellite dish at the rear of the pub moved to pick up transmissions from various satellites. Music videos and sports events were most popular and following the expulsion of English clubs from European football after the Heysel disaster of 1985 coverage of the European Cup was only available at pubs such as the Alma.

In the early nineties the Alma's clientele began to change. The pub had been a stopping-off point for punters on their way to Sparrow's rock disco (formerly Sundowners and now part of Level). In 1992, rock discos ended at the Swan's Malt and Hops bar which was subsequently converted to Barristers real ale pub. The Malt and Hops' former customers gravitated towards the Alma and for 28 years until its closure it was the home of Bolton's rock and metal community. Live music was introduced and hundreds of gigs put on largely of bands playing original compositions. An outdoor area that was originally used by smokers following the ban on smoking in pubs in 2007 was partly covered and a stage installed to accommodate more acts. It wasn't uncommon for over a dozen bands to play over the course of one day using both indoor and outdoor stages.

The rest of the row that the Alma was situated on was demolished in the early nineties and a retail unit built in its place. That unit, along with a unit built at Bradshawgate's junction with Trinity Street, was demolished in 2018. 

But on 9 October 2020, the return was announced of former landlord Jim McGranthin. A posting on the pub's Facebook page read: 

"With great happiness I'm proud to announce the Alma Inn will once again be reopening, under new management. After a monumental effort from Sophie, whilst working with the brewery, police and licensing, we've been able to secure and ensure the physical survival of the Alma's legacy and will be doing our utmost to rebuild, return and then maintain the pub and its reputation back to what it was once known for."

The Alma, March 2011

Flying Flute - Maxim's - Fleece Hotel, 26-28 Bradshawgate, Bolton

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1970s

The Flying Flute – formerly Maxim's and the Gaiety Bar – was originally known as the Fleece Hotel. The pub dated back to the 18^th century and is named on the Bolton licensing list for 1778 when Francis Wryley was the landlord. However, an article in the Bolton Evening News at the time of a refurbishment in 1972 claimed there was a pub named the Star once on the site before the Fleece.

The current building is at least the second and may well have been the third. The present building is listed and its entry can be seen here. 

For over 40 years in the nineteenth century Thomas Telford was the landlord. Telford began his working life as a coachman but turned to the somewhat saner career of running a pub in the early 1830s.

Under Telford's stewardship the Fleece became a regular meeting point for lodges of the Independent Order of Foresters. He was treasurer of the Bolton district for over 25 years as well as of the Bolton branch of the Amalgamated Engineers Society.

However, Telford was also a controversial character. In September 1841 he was accused of the manslaughter of Charles Wilcock of Bridge Street at the Millstone on Crown Street. The Millstone had an upstairs concert room with singers and variety acts playing on a nightly basis. In 1841 it was run by Telford's nephew Samuel Horrocks. On the night in question Wilcock was sitting at a table near the concert room's piano but he began to make noises to the annoyance of some of the other patrons. After twice being warned he was told by Telford that he would be taken out. “You'll have to eat more porridge then,” a witness claimed Wilcock said. Telford grabbed Wilcock and took him down five steps to a landing that led to a dozen further steps that led to the ground floor. Some witnesses claimed Telford pushed Wilcock down the steps. However, at least two people claimed Wilcock lost his footing and that caused him to fall to the bottom. He died the following day of his injuries and Telford was immediately arrested. The verdict certainly wasn't unanimous. A jury of 17 men found him not guilty of manslaughter and instead returned a verdict of accidental death. One of the dissenters was a local vicar, the Reverend William Jones who proclaimed to the other jurors: “Before I would have returned such a verdict I would have eaten my breeches.” [Bolton Chronicle, 4 September 1841].

In 1850, Telford was back in court following a burglary at the pub. However, the burglar was none other than his 15-year-old son, also named Thomas Telford. Thomas senior testified that the youth had been so troublesome he was no longer allowed to live at the house. Telford junior got into the pub and stole a saw, a plane and some copper nails and sold them to a pawnbroker named Charles Nuttall. The youth chose to be sentenced by magistrates rather than committed for trial. He was sentenced to spend a month at the New Bailey prison in Manchester and was whipped.[Bolton Chronicle, 20 November 1850].

Thomas Telford ran the Fleece until 1863. He retired to Bridgeman Street where he lived until he committed suicide in May 1870. He had been in some pain after suffering from bronchitis and edema for upwards of four months. In the early hours of Sunday 15 May one of his daughters told him the rest of the family were going to bed. Five minutes later when she went back in to his bedroom she discovered he had slit his throat.

Telford was succeeded at the Fleece by John Ward who moved from the Royal Hotel, Derby Street. Prior to that he was a quilt and skirt manufacturer. Ward fancied himself as something of a poet and his ads for the Fleece in the Bolton Evening News often took the form of a rhyme with topical news items inter-weaved with a promotion for the pub. Here was his New Year ad that appeared in the Bolton Evening News of 30 December 1868.

Welcome to 1869

War seems to be threatened by Turkey and Greece

The progress of peace to retard,

Yet all is “serene” at the Bradshawgate “Fleece,”

The hostel of Mr JOHN WARD

The season's arrived when a good Christmas cheer,

Is alike strongly courted by all;

Then from those who would seek choicest Spirits or Beer,

JOHN WARD would solicit a call

His house is improved at enormous expense,

His patrons' favours to gain,

And he promises that, in return for their pence,

They shall not spend their money in vain.

The “Fleece” Inn, Bradshawgate.

Like his predecessor, Ward had problems with one of his offspring. He placed an ad in the Bolton Chronicle of 15 September 1866 warning readers that he would no longer be responsible for debts incurred by his 16-year-old son James.

Ward was one of a number of pub landlords to dabble in politics and was defeated as Conservative candidate for the Bradford ward seat on Bolton council on one occasion.

He died suddenly in December 1874 and was succeeded by his widow. She retired in 1876.

In 1877, the Fleece was sold for £5050. At the same auction the Golden Lion on Churchgate went for £3000. The purchaser of both pubs was Joseph Sharman, a local brewer who had moved from the Crompton's Monument pub on Mill Hill Street to a purpose-built brewery close to Mere Hall. Sharman had begun to build up a local tied estate and the purchase of the Fleece and the Golden Lion, two prominent long-established pubs in the centre of town, was a feather in his cap.

Three years later, Sharman converted his business to a limited company, Joseph Sharman and Co Ltd. The brewery, beer stores in Green Street in the town centre and 10 pubs were to be transferred from his own name to the limited company. Sharman received £25,000 in cash plus 200 shares worth £35 each. Apart from the Fleece and the Golden Lion, the other pubs were:

Mount Pleasant, Mill Street 

Queens Arms, Deansgate

Nelson, Chorley Old Road 

Mount Street Arms, Mount Street 

Elephant and Castle, Kay Street 

Lawsons Arms, Sharples

Rising Sun, Churchbank 

British Oak, Union Street. 

Of those ten pubs, the Nelson – built 1861 - and the much older Golden Lion (now the Churchgate) are still open. The Lawsons Arms is now the Three Pigeons but has been closed since 2011 pending a refurbishment.

Joseph Sharman was also the licensee of the Fleece for a short time and he introduced American billiards to the pub in 1880.

The Fleece was rebuilt in 1907. Whether this was the first or second time isn't known. However, the Manchester Courier ran a classified ad on 8 November 1879 offering the pub 'to let'. It claimed the pub had recently been rebuilt but it gives a good description of how the Fleece looked at that time:

“...contains modern vaults, bar parlours, clubrooms, billiard-room (with two tables), excellent dormitories and every convenience for carrying on the commercial and general trade.”

The 1907 rebuild came as the result of a long-standing plan by Bolton Council to widen Bradshawgate as it approached the junction with Deansgate. This involved the demolition of a number of properties - including the Fleece - and rebuilding them further back.

The pub was demolished in 1907. On 3 September that year the Bolton Evening News ran an advert for an auction being held by local auctioneers Thomas Crompton and Son whose Fold Street rooms were situated close to the Fleece. Over two days Crompton's auctioned off not only the fixtures and fittings of the pub but also the brickwork, the window frames, the plate glass windows and the doors.

While the new Fleece was being rebuilt, trade continued in a small wooden hut. This was offered for sale at Christmas 1910 by which time the new building was complete.

The Fleece remained a Sharman's pub until 1927 when it was acquired by the Leigh brewery of George Shaw & Co. It changed hands again when Shaw's were taken over by Walker Cain of Liverpool in 1930 and became a Tetley Walker pub when that company was formed in 1961.

Derek Sheffield claims on the I Belong To Bolton Facebook group that the pub was nicknamed 'The American Embassy' in the forties. 

However, it was also famed as being frequented by prostitutes. The 'ladies of the Fleece' were notorious even as late as the 1950s.

In 1972, the Fleece had its biggest refurbishment in decades. By now it was owned by Tetley Walker and they decided it needed a new name - the Gaiety Bar.

BOLTON'S newest night-spot, with the old-world atmosphere, the Gaiety Bar, Bradshawgate, opens tonight. Tetley's brewery have scrubbed the exterior and re-built the interior of the former Fleece Hotel to create a pub with an authentic Victorian atmosphere. There has been a pub on the site for well over 100 years, and this is the third name which has been used on the premises. Before the Fleece, the pub on the Ship Gates corner of Bradshawgate, was called The Star. - Bolton Evening News, 20 July 1972.

Towards the end of the seventies the upstairs bar began to put on gigs, particularly on a Thursday when it hosted many local bands. Issues 2  and 3  of local music magazine Town Hall Steps shows that Kaches, JG Spoils, The Reporters, Watt 4, Really Big Men, Warrior, Cliche, Apencil, The Autoze and Night Train were among the acts down to play in the summer of 1981. The gigs continued right up to April 1983 when the Gaiety closed for refurbishment.

Tetley's decided to sell the Gaiety Bar and in May 1980 it became the first pub in Bolton to be owned by the Sunderland-based Vaux Brewery. [What's Doing, the Greater Manchester beer drinkers' monthly magazine, June 1980 issue). The regional brewer was a major force on Wearside; however, it had few pubs in the north-west of England. Vaux saw the Gaiety as their flagship pub in the region and before long they revealed plans for a major refurbishment. A three-week renovation took place in the summer of 1983 and it reopened as Maxim's in June of that year having been knocked into two shops on the same row, one of which was Howard's tobacconist. The name evoked images of Maxim's restaurant in Paris, regarded as the best restaurant in the world for much of the twentieth century. However, the name is more likely to have come from one of Vaux's products, the bottled beer Double Maxim. What's Doing of August 1983 pointed out that the Vaux Samson Ale cost 70 pence a pint when the pub re-opened. That made Maxim's one of the most expensive pubs in the town although 70p in 1983 equates to just £2.30 in 2019.

Maxim's was one of the first pubs in Bolton to gain a permanent licence extension in 1986 when it was granted permission to remain open until 1am. [Bolton Beer Break, Spring 1986 edition].

Five years later, Maxim's underwent another refurbishment involving a four-week closure. [Bolton Beer Break, Spring 1988 issue]. Later that it year it became a Ward's pub although that simply meant a transfer to another part of the Vaux empire, Ward's Brewery being the company's Sheffield subsidiary.

In the summer of 1989 Maxim's hours extension was under threat after licensing officers claimed that food was not for sale. Having hot food on sale was a condition for late opening for pubs and clubs. Often it extended to nothing more than a hatch selling hot dogs and burgers, but the July 1989 edition of What's Doing claimed Maxim's, Maxwell's Plum and the Trotters were all at risk of losing their extensions. All three pubs successfully kept their licensing hours.

Vaux were taken over by financiers in 1999 following a bitter battle that resulted in the brewery being closed. Maxim's became a seventies bar for a short while, Tiger Feet, before changing its name to the Flying Flute.

From 2007 until 2012 the upstairs room operated as Kico playing indie and alternative music until its closure.

The Flying Flute was initially put up for sale in 2014. However, there were no takers and the owners quietly closed it down in November 2017. The building was sold to a company called Raisfuel Ltd whose accounts for the year to 30 April 2018 showed that it paid £336,638 for the property.

In October 2018, it was reported that Raisfuel sought planning permission  to convert the premises into seven maisonettes and one bedsit upstairs with three commercial units on the ground floor. Permission was granted in March 2019 and by the end of that year the three units were being offered to let.

The Flying Flute pictured in April 2017, just over six months before it closed. Copyright Google.

McCauleys, 77-83 Bradshawgate, Bolton

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McCauley's pictured in 2012. Copyright Google.

Long-standing pubs tend to be the ones that are most missed. More recent conversions to public houses – or 'bars' – are rarely remembered with any affection. McCauley's was one such pub.

McCauley's was situated on 77-83 Bradshawgate in premises that were at one time one of UCP's tripe restaurants and later an Italian restaurant.

Earlier than that, one part of the premises was used as a pub. The Bus Drivers Inn was situated at 77 Bradshawgate – McCauley's entrance – from around the 1860s until it lost its licence in 1883.

The 1905 Bolton directory showed that 79 Bradshawgate was occupied by John Robert Horrocks who was described as a 'tripe dealer. By 1924 the premises were owned by Vose & Son, a branch of United Cattle Product Ltd. Voses's were described as 'tripe dressers'. The outlet at 79 Bradshawgate was handy as it was just yards away from the company's tripe works on Silverwell Lane.

Vose's later joined forces with a number of other tripe shops and restaurants to form United Cattle Products. At its height in the fifties, UCP had no fewer than 146 shops across the north-west of England, mainly in Lancashire. The building at 79 Bradshawgate was remodelled in an art deco style in the 1930s that makes it stand out even now amidst the old and the new on that side of the street, The inside of the restaurant -as seen here and here made it one of UCP's swankiest and many a wedding meal was held there. However, tastes changed and tripe became less popular as the country moved out of post-war austerity.

79 Bradshawgate pictured in 1960 as one of Vose's UCP restaurants

In 1980 the premises became the Pizzeria Sorrento before changing its name to the Pizzeria Toscana in 1983. The distinctive raised circular sign was installed at that time. It initially contained the name of the establishment with letters laid out around the circle. However, it changed from red to green depending on whether the restaurant was open.

In 2003, the owner of the Pizzeria Toscana received the proverbial offer he couldn't refuse. The restaurant, along with the adjoining branch of Motorist Discount Centre, were converted into McCauley's which opened in December of that year and described at the time as an 'upmarket' town-centre 'bar'. The sign was retained when McCauley's opened with the name Pizzeria Toscana replaced by a single, large letter M.

However, events took a predictable turn. Time after time 'upmarket' bars in Bolton have ended up as run-of-the-mill dumps, simply because there has never been the money in the town to pay the prices those outlets charge. McCauley's was no different. It quickly became a run-down town-centre boozer and was soon popular with those who need a drink at ten o'clock in the morning. In the evenings and weekends it continued to try and appeal to the younger end of the market.

A large-scale brawl at the club at 6.30 on the morning of Sunday 14 May 2017 sealed McCauley's fate. Up to 75 people were involved in the fight which began after a dispute with door staff but which spilled out on to Bradshawgate. The Bolton News reported  that no attempt was made by door staff to break up the fight. Three people were arrested and the pub's licence was temporarily suspended.

At a hearing in June 2017 the council's licensing sub-committee heard that drugs were an ongoing problem McCauley's. A bag of white powder was once found in the manager's office.

Sub-committee chairman Martin Donaghy said:

"The sub-committee felt that, despite the steps proposed by the licence holder, they had serious concerns about the existing management of the premises and could not rely on assurances given that future incidents of serious disorder would be effectively prevented or managed accordingly."

McCauley's manager Lisa Bowyer had tried to keep the pub open. She said she had taken "extreme measures" since the licence was suspended to rectify the ongoing issues, including hiring a new security firm and health and safety adviser.

She added that she had made "terrible decisions", some of which were down to fear of the drug-dealing ring associated with the pub and threats made to her family.

McCauley's didn't reopen after the incident on that Sunday morning in May 2017. The premises remain empty.

Railway Tavern, Bradshawgate

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A short-lived pub on Bradshawgate, the first evidence we have of the Railway Tavern is on the 1849 list of Bolton beer houses when Edmund Harwood was the licensee. 

It seems the business’s days as a beerhouse were limited even then. It didn’t appear in the 1848 Bolton directory and by the time of the 1851 census Edmund Harwood is listed as a confectioner. It seems likely that the pub had closed and Mr Harwood and his wife Ann were now selling sweets.

By 1861, the premises were numbered 60 Bradshawgate, which puts it somewhere near to where the Pack Horse was. Edmund is a provision dealer and confectioner and lives with a servant and three lodgers.

Edmund Harwood died in 1864. 

Menai Bridge, 141 Bradshawgate, Bolton

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The Menai Bridge was situated at 141 Bradshawgate close to the corner of Shifnall Street. The pub is first listed on the 1848 Bolton Directory as being an un-named beerhouse run by William Hilton, though the 1849 licensing listing has it as being named the Menai Bridge.

By 1851 William Hilton had gone and the pub was being run by George Birchby. George had previously been a baker on Bradshawgate but he would spend the next 37 years at the Menai Bridge. His son James was working as a brewer at the pub by 1871 having previously been a clogger and he appears to have taken over the running of the Menai Bridge as George got older.

George Birchby died in 1888.The pub became a Tong’s house with James Birchby living in the property next door. He later retired to Blackpool.

The Menai Bridge closed in 1901 when its licence was allowed to lapse. It was demolished a few years later to make way for Bolton Corporation Transport’s offices which opened in December 1906. A BMW dealership was later opened on the site after the transport offices were demolished in the 1980s. It can be seen below in August 2008 (copyright Google Street View) but has also closed down.

Oddfellows Arms, 93 Bradshawgate

Metrolands House, built in the mid-sixties on the site of the row that included the Oddfellows Arms. The Laibaz Indian restaurant is now number 93 though the size of each of the units on the ground floor of Metrolands House won’t necessarily correspond to its predecessors, so the Oddfellows may not have occupied that space.  

There were a number of pubs in Bolton named the Oddfellows. The Ancient Shepherd on Bold Street was initially named the Oddfellows and a pub by that name still stands on St Helens Road. But the one at 93 Bradshawgate – across the road from the Balmoral - has a claim to be the original Oddfellows Arms.

The Oddfellows was a beerhouse that dated back to the early 1850s. In August 1854 the pub’s owner, Mr J.F Ha.rgreaves, applied unsuccessfully for a full licence enabling him to sell wine and spirits as well as beer. It was one of a number of beerhouses that applied to have their licences upgraded, but they were faced with a petition signed by 3000 ratepayers objecting to the granting of any new licences. The majority of ratepayers – by and large the middle- and upper classes – rarely drank in beerhouses, but they claimed that licensing breeches were rife and that many beerhouses sold stronger alcoholic drinks, anyway. The chairman of the magistrates, Mr Robert Walsh, dismissed the petition as no-one had come forward to substantiate the allegations. But Mr Walsh had calculated that there was licence in Bolton for every 106 inhabitants. One for every thousand was enough in his view. He couldn’t close down the beerhouses without good reason, but he could prevent them from being licensed to serve anything but beer. He threw out the application from the Oddfellows and 22 other beerhouses for full licences and it remained a beerhouse for the rest of its existence.

By 1871, the Oddfellows was in the hands of 35-year-old William J Savage. An Irishman from County Down, he lived at the pub with his Manchester-born wife Martha. Sadly, Martha died in 1877. William re-married the following year and on the 1881 census return he is living with his wife Bridget T Savage and their newborn daughter. Bridget was only 24, but ten years on from being 35 William was giving his age as just 40. Presumably, that’s what he was telling his wife. Then again she wasn’t being truthful about her age. When she died in 1929 her age was given as 70 so she would have been 23 years younger than William rather than 16. William Savage died in 1885. Bridget married Henry Parkinson and moved to Halliwell. Henry died in 1891 but Bridget never married again.

Patrick Closick was in charge of the Oddfellows by 1895. By then it had expanded into the premises next door. At the start of the 20^th century the pub was in the hands of Samuel Stott.

The Oddfellows was owned by Seeds Brewery of Spring Lane in Radcliffe but was sold to Magee Marshall and Co. Magees closed the pub in 1938 and it later became retail premises.

In Bolton Pubs 1800 – 2000, Gordon Readyhough tells us that 93 Bradshawgate housed Marie’s hairdressers in its final days. Along with the rest of the row the building was demolished in 1962 and Metrolands House now stands on the site.

The Oddfellows Arms can just be seen to the left of this 1921 photograph of a delivery wagon belonging to the pub's next-door neighbour, the pie manufacturer Longton's. James Stobbs was the licensee of the Oddfellows at the time and that could be him standing in the doorway of the pub. 

Bus Drivers Inn, 77 Bradshawgate

McCauley’s Bar in April 2012 (copyright Google Street View). The Bus Drivers Inn was situated here until 1883 though not in the same building.

The Bus Drivers Inn was situated at 77 Bradshawgate close to the junction with Silverwell Lane. It was a beerhouse that once belonged to Frazer Finley and was transferred to Hugh Bamber in 1869. Mr Bamber formerly ran the nearby Horse and Groom.

On the 1871 census Hugh Bamber is described as a coachman and a beerseller. Indeed, at the 1869 licensing sessions at which all beerhouses had to re-apply for their licences, he claimed to have been a coachman for the local firm of Holden’s for over 20 years. That perhaps wasn’t quite correct as he was only 35 in 1871 and would have been driving a coach in his early teens if that was true.

Hugh Bamber left the Bus Drivers Inn after only a few years and Nathaniel Lomax was the licensee according to the 1876 Directory.

The pub lost its licence in 1883. The premises later became a tobacconist’s and was run for many years by Walter Toole. The original building was demolished in the 1930s and was replaced by the art deco-style building that can still be seen today. It was a branch of UCP for many years before becoming the Pizzeria Sorrento, then Toscana Ristorante. 

From 2003 to 2017 it was McCauley’s bar; however, a mass brawl at 6.30 on the morning of Sunday 14  May 2017 led to its licence being revoked.

Sun Inn, 54 Bradshawgate

Primark's Bolton store in the Crompton Place shopping centre is the building that replaced the building that replaced the Sun Inn.

The Sun Inn on Bradshawgate dated back to at least the 18^th century. James Best was shown as the pub’s landlord on the 1778 list of Great Bolton Alehouses.

Friendly societies often met at pubs and by 1820 the Foresters were meeting at the Sun Inn. [1]

The pub was nicknamed Loader’s Vaults after its owner, John Loader. [2] A number of licensed premises were owned by wine and spirit merchants and it was common practise to nickname such pubs after their owners.

Loader, a native of Henley-on-Thames, was the owner of the Sun Inn in 1832. In that year he buried his wife, Mary Anne, at the young age of 29 but five years later, John married Elizabeth Wrigley who came from a family of Manchester pub owners and spirit merchants. The two families were further entwined a few years later in 1839 when one of John’s relatives, Ellen Loader, married another member of the Manchester family, pub landlord John Wrigley.

Not only did the Sun stock wines and spirits, but it brewed its own beer and in the 1871 Bolton Directory, Elizabeth Loader is described as both a brewery and a wine and spirit merchant. John Loader had died in 1863 and the running of both the Sun Inn and the wine and spirits business was being undertaken by the couple’s eldest surviving son, Charles Price Loader (a number of John and Elizabeth’s children had died in infancy). He was listed as living at the pub while the rest of the family lived on Manchester Road.

Sadly, Charles died on 25 March 1879 at his home, 8a Boden Place, Manchester Road. His eldest son, three-year-old Ernest Charles Loader, also died at the same time in what seems to have been a tragic accident. But the incident effectively marked the end for the Loader family's connection with the Sun Inn.

Charles’ wife, Ada King Loader, sold the Sun Inn and the drinks business to another local wine and spirit merchant, Ross Munro and Co. But the decision was contested by other members of the Loader family who felt that, by rights, the business should have passed to the next eldest son Leopold Cooper Loader. In 1883, solicitors acting on behalf of the six-year-old Leopold ued Ada and her new husband, Thomas Daniel, a Mancunian she married in 1881,  but the action failed.

Thomas Daniel died in 1901, the couple having had two children. Ada was in St Annes-on-Sea in 1911, but she left for South Africa a few years later and she died in Cape Town in 1925.

As for the Sun, it closed in 1905. The council had plans to widen Bradshawgate and wanted to demolish properties on the west side of the street from the junction with Deansgate down to Nelson Square. But while a number of nearby pubs such as the Saddle and the Fleece were re-built on the new street, Ross, Munro and Co took the money and ran.

The Sun was demolished in 1906 to make way for a row of shops. The building that replaced it was demolished in the late-sixties to make way for the Arndale Centre.  The site of the Sun is the front of the Primark store on Bradshawgate, or to be more accurate the pavement the front of the shop is given that the street was widened over a hundred years ago.

[1] Leisure In Bolton, 1750-1900, Robert Poole, 1982

[2] Bolton Pubs 1800 – 2000, by Gordon Readyhough, Published by Neil Richardson, 2000.

Saddle Inn, 48 Bradshawgate

The Saddle Hotel, pictured shortly before it closed in 1970. Image taken from the Bolton Library and Museum Service collection (copyright Bolton Council).

The Saddle Hotel dated back to 1790 was originally known as the Weavers Arms. It stood on Bradshawgate, opposite the entrance to Wood Street and just two doors down from the Empire Inn (also known as the Volunteer). 

In his book, Bolton Pubs 1800 – 2000, Gordon Readyhough claims that the pub became known as the Saddle after the landlady married a local saddler. The tale does stand up to some scrutiny. In 1844 the landlady of the Weavers Arms was a spinster named Mary Kirkman. In December of that year she married Seth Holding, a local saddler. Certainly by 1848 the name of the pub had been changed to the Saddle.

While it may not necessarily have become popular with saddlers the pub did have its own club for local painters. However, the club was hit by tragedy in October 1852 with the suicide of the club's secretary Robert Lander. During the lunchtime of Friday 15 October 1852, Lander went to the Saddle and was served with threepence worth of gin by the landlady, Martha Ruff. He then took a green powder from his pocket and poured it into the glass before asking for another threepence worth of gin which he also poured into a glass. He then drank the substance but was found some time later by Mrs Ruff lying semi-conscious on a bench in the pub. She picked up the empty glass and on seeing a green residue at the bottom she gave it to a friend of Lander, William Goodwin. He tasted the substance and said it was some sort of medicine, something the semi-conscious Lander confirmed to Mrs Ruff. Goodwin, however, began to vomit although he was given hot tea that acted an emetic and he suffered no further ill-effects.

Lander was conveyed by cab to his home on Clarence Street but he was attended to by a doctor the following day after complaining of pains in the stomach and in the legs. He was visited by Goodwin although Lander told his friend he hadn't told the doctor about the green substance.

Lander made a partial recovery but died the following week aged just 23. At his inquest it transpired that immediately prior to going to the Saddle he had visited a druggist, Mr Morris, and bought two ounces of Emerald Green, a compound of arsenic and copper. He told Mr Morris it was for a special painting job he was doing but this was the green substance that eventually killed him, the arsenic having absorbed itself into his system. As to the reason for Lander's suicide it was reported that he had asked Mrs Ruff for her hand in marriage and been refused. She had been widowed – for the second time - earlier that year following the death of her husband, the German-born Ferdinand Ruff. At the inquest Mrs Ruff said there had been no intimacy between her and Lander that could have led him to expect that a marriage would have taken place.

By 1854, Martha Ruff had left the Saddle and it was now in the hands of William Morris. The connection with the Morris family was to last for the next 45 years.

Morris was in trouble on two occasions over the hours the pub kept: in July 1861 and in May 1864. On the first occasion he was fined 20 shillings plus costs. The second time he failed to appear in court but sent a woman who said she was in charge of the pub's vaults. On this occasion, though, William Morris was fined 40 shillings plus costs after police visited the vaults at eight o'clock one Sunday morning and found three men with glasses of ale in front of them having been served by the woman in charge. Sunday morning drinking was the most-committed hours offence with regards to pub licensing. It was the only day many people had off but they were expected to attend church on Sunday mornings and pubs officially remained closed until 12.30. Five years later, in 1869, Mr Morris converted his tap room into a restaurant.

Quite often the larger pubs in town had vaults or tap rooms that were reached by an entrance quite separate from the rest of the pub. Indeed, in 1873 the police took a number of pubs to court claiming vaults ought to be separately licensed. The Swan Hotel's vaults – still in existence and since 1992 known as Barrister's – was one of them. 

William Morris's son Nathaniel, was involved in a bizarre incident in 1868 on Crown Street bridge overlooking the River Croal. Young Morris and his companion, William Brierley, a bookkeeper of Kestor Street, fell into the river, a fall of some 40 feet. Morris broke both his thighs in the fall. Brierley wasn’t so lucky and died of his injuries some hours later.

William Morris died in 1872 and the licence of the Saddle was transferred to his widow, Elizabeth. But like her late husband, Elizabeth Morris was now in early seventies and it's likely that she took a back seat and left the running of the pub to her children, most likely to Nathaniel. Even so, she was active enough in 1882 – at the age of 81 – to oversee the catering on behalf of the pub at St George's church for the 50^th anniversary of Reverend Neville Jones' entry into the ministry. How successful the platter was can only be guessed at. The Bolton Evening News of 14 April that year seemed underwhelmed. “The proceedings commenced with what might be termed a cold collation supplied by Mrs Morris of the Saddle Hotel,” the paper's correspondent said.

By 1887 the Saddle was advertising itself on a weekly basis in a new publication, Cricket and Football Field. This Saturday evening newspaper was based in Mawdsley Street in Bolton. It began publication the previous year and published results of local and national sporting fixtures. Some readers may remember it under a later incarnation as The Buff.

Advertisements from the Saddle continued in Cricket and Football Field on a weekly basis until at least 1889. Certainly, this attracted a different kind of customer and a number of sporting bodies began to meet at the pub. The Bolton Cricket Association held its annual presentation night there, the Bolton Charity Cup football competition held its meetings, Bolton Rugby Union club held smoking concerts, while the Lancashire Football League practically made the pub its headquarters having been formed at a meeting there in 1889.

The landlord at this time was Nathaniel Morris (1854-1934) who had succeeded his mother as licensee. However, by 1901 he had given up the pub and was described on the census as a 'retired innkeeper' living at St Annes-On-Sea.

The two driving forces behind the Saddle as the 19^th century drew to a close were another of William Morris's sons, John James Morris, who succeeded Nathaniel as landlord and a man who was already well-known in the world of football, John James Bentley.

Between them the two JJ's had already made their marks outside the pub industry. John Morris was a successful architect who designed Wanderers' new ground at Burnden Park which opened in 1895 as well as the Rumworth Fever Hospital on Hulton Lane. JJ Bentley's football credentials were second to none. Born in Chapeltown near Turton in 1860 he was playing by 1878 for Turton FC – one of the pioneer clubs of football in Lancashire. In 1882 he began his own accountant's practice in Acresfield, just behind the Saddle. He already had experience of journalism having written match reports for Turton FC, but three years after setting up his accounting practice he became a journalist and was soon appointed editor of the influential Athletic News as well contributing columns to the Daily Express and Daily Mail. He also became secretary of Bolton Wanderers in 1885 at a time when the secretary was the de facto manager of the club. When Aston Villa director William McGregor came up with the idea of the Football League in 1888 he approached Bentley because of his influence within the Lancashire game. Bentley sold the idea to clubs in the north-west and Bolton, Blackburn Rovers, Preston North End and Burnley were all founder members when the league began on 30 September 1888. Bentley succeeded McGregor as the league's president in 1894, a position he would hold until 1910. When the League management committee held meetings in the north of the country in the 1890s they were often held at the Saddle.

John James Morris died in 1898. His estate was worth £10,750 – the equivalent today of around £1.3 million. His widow Louisa took on the pub but she soon decided to sell up. She oversaw a meal in April 1899 for the presentation of the Stanley Billiards Cup competed for by Conservative clubs in Westhoughton. The following month there was a meal and presentation for the Bolton Harriers athletics club (president JJ Bentley). But in June 1899 the Saddle Hotel Company Ltd was formed by Bentley to organise the purchase of the pub from Mrs Morris for the sum of £7000 – £880,000 at 2018 prices. Bentley himself became landlord even though he was still president of the Football League although he stepped aside in March 1901 when James Gorton took over.

Bentley was a shrewd operator in business as well as in football. He knew that Bolton Corporation wanted Bradshawgate near its junction with Deansgate. That meant a number of buildings would need to be demolished with the council planning new buildings to be constructed a few feet further back. The Saddle, the Ship Inn,  the Sun  and the Empire (formerly the Volunteer) were among the buildings that would need to be purchased by the council. As we have seen in the case of the Halliwell Lodge,  compulsory purchase powers were not always available and rather than go down the route of having an Act of Parliament passed the council would have to negotiate.

Just how much of a good deal Bentley got for the shareholders of the Saddle Hotel Company only became apparent in 1902. Robert Tootill, a candidate for the East ward in that year's borough elections and a future Labour MP for the town, demanded to know why the pub's “original price was so very seriously increased”. An auditor, Henry Duncan, was appointed by the Corporation to look at this and other matters raised by Mr Tootill.

The original Saddle pub is on the left of Preston's original shop on this image from the 1890s.

On 19 September 1903, the Bolton Evening News published Mr Duncan's report. JJ Bentley had indeed “very seriously increased” the price the Saddle Hotel Company Ltd paid for the pub. Their £7000 in 1899 investment had grown to a final selling price of £12,819 14 shillings and 9 pence in little more than three years. Mr Duncan reported that the pub was now being run as a 'Corporation Hotel' with takings running at between £50 and £56 a week over its first three weeks of operation. A manager was paid a wage of £6 17 shillings a week. But the purchase of the Saddle was to incur additional costs for the council. The owners of the Sun Hotel, realising the Saddle Hotel Company had got much more per yard of land than they did, went back to the Corporation to demand more – and got it.

Sport remained part of the Saddle in the final couple of years before its demolition for the Bradshawgate widening. It could be regarded as Bolton's first sports bar although perhaps not in the manner that we might recognise such an establishment today. However, it was still a venue for meetings and presentations of sporting organisations both local and regional.

Although JJ Bentley was no longer involved with the Saddle the Lancashire Football Association regularly met there. As for Bentley himself, he was regarded as “the most powerful man in English football” in the years before the close of the 19^th century – and yet he was running the Saddle for part of that time. He left the Football League's management committee in 1910 and two years' later he was appointed secretary-manager of Manchester United overseeing the club's relocation from its base at Clayton to Old Trafford. He stepped down from running the first team in 1914. His team-management style involved allowing the players to do as they pleased and that translated to poor results on the pitch. He finally ended his association with the club through ill-health in 1916 and he died at Chapeltown in 1918 at the age of 58.

The Corporation sold the Saddle before the Bradshawgate widening scheme got under way. The purchasers were Ross Monro, a local wine and spirit merchants who also ran a small number of public houses. Among those were the Bay Horse  on Deansgate and the Freemason'sArms  on Market Street in Farnworth. The latter is still known as "Monro's" to this day most likely due to the company's habit of plastering their corporate identity over their pubs at the expense of the pubs' real name.

Ross Monro put forward plans for a new Saddle in February 1904 but the plans were rejected by the Corporation. By now the council owned all the properties between Bromley's shop on the corner of Deansgate and the Pack Horse Hotel but with the exceptions of the Saddle and the Pack Horse. On 26 May 1904 there were applications for a licence for the proposed new Saddle as well as three other pubs: the Sun, the Empire and the Pack Horse. However, a doubt over whether the rebuilt pubs would be licensed was putting the whole of the widening scheme in doubt. Demolition of some of the old buildings had already begun and Bromley's were due to take possession of their land on 1 June – six days afterwards – to commence the building of their new premises. The council faced postponing their plans and a compensation bill of £40,000 so the licences for the three pubs were approved. The Saddle closed in June 1904 when Ross Monro began the sale of all its fixtures and fittings. Like the Pack Horse it was rebuilt and it reopened in 1905 16 feet behind its former site with rooms 12 feet high instead of eight feet to aid sanitation.

The new Saddle still entertained sporting organisations but its function rooms were also used for auctions. It was sold to the Warrington brewer Walker's who merged with Joshua Tetley of Leeds in 1960 to form Tetley Walker.

In the sixties the pub was on the circuit of popular watering holes for weekend drinkers. It also served 'Saddle pies', a delicacy made on the premises.

David Boardman on the I Belong To Bolton Facebook pagewrote: “Fantastic pub even before it was "done up". Could not move inside at the weekends.” Hilda Dearden Jones says:  Only pub to have a juke box in town centre early 60s."

There were also bands on in the upstairs room and Steve Crane says he attended folk clubs upstairs in the sixties. Bob Smalley adds: “Used to go to a folk club in the upstairs room every Sunday night in about 1965. A singer used to play there, a Welsh chap, Mike Stephens, always played a twelve string guitar, was very good. Happy memories.”

The Saddle was finally defeated by another scheme to improve Bradshawgate with the construction of the Arndale Centre. It was one of a block of properties between Fold Street up to but not including the Pack Horse that were all demolished in 1970.

The Arndale Centre was later renamed Crompton Place. Primark now stands on the site of the Saddle.

Stealing A Candlestick – A man named Wm Charnock was brought up for stealing a candlestick from the kitchen of the Saddle Inn, Bradshawgate. Henry Roberts, who was working in an adjoining room, saw the prisoner commit the theft. Charnock stated to the magistrates that he had come from Rochdale, that he had no work, and received 2 shillings a week in parochial relief. The bench committed him for fourteen days as a vagrant. - Bolton Chronicle, 22 April 1848.

Bradshawgate from Fold Street looking up towards Nelson Square pictured around 1900 shortly before the row was demolished for the widening of Bradshawgate. Looking from the street corner, T Bromley’s Fine Art Repository is followed by Preston’s jewellers and then the Saddle. The single-storey building at the far end of the row is the Pack Horse Hotel. Image taken from the Bolton Library and Museum Service collection (copyright Bolton Council).