13 Bradshawgate
Bradshawgate with Fold Street on the left and Wood Street the next turning on the right. There are a number of pictures of this scene possibly at slightly different dates between 1900 and 1910.
We notice the lamp on the left which is at Preston's shop though it might have remained there for a little time after they moved into a building on the Bank Street corner in 1905/6. Bromiley's Fine Art shop is on the near side of Fold Street with across from it, H Samuel’s who are offering an ACME watch for 25/- which was probably about a week’s wage in those days. The board a little higher up is offering "lucky" wedding rings.
We can't miss Yate’s Bros Wine Lodge though the clarity of the name board might be due to re-touching.
On the top picture which has probably been cleaned up and slightly coloured it is unclear what is on the Deansgate / Bank Street corner though to the left is probably the Umbrella shop.
The second picture has been substantially cleaned up by Peter Lodge. He comments, " It is early in the morning with the sun coming from the east up Princess street, hence no people". On Deansgate, unclear but we probably have the Umbrella shop and the building that Preston's moved into..On this picture we see a couple of intriguing little houses between H Samuel's and Yates Wine Lodge.
On the third picture near the horse and cart is the Ship Inn shortly to be demolished to allow Shipgates to open onto Bradshawgate. In our own times this through route to Hotel Street was closed by the extension to Tillotson’s when they got some new bigger printing presses. This is now the site of the Ship Gates shopping centre though only accessible from the other end of Shipgate, that is the corner of Hotel Street and Mealhouse Lane.
On this picture it is clear that the corner of Bank Street and Deansgate is occupied by Preston's first building on that site (though they will not be occupying it yet) with the Umbrella Shop to its left.
I have a note which says that Yates new building was open by 1906.which dates all these pictures to before that. The date when the building acquired by Preston's in 1905 was actually built is unclear.
Bradshawgate after rebuilding c1920
Wood Street is the first opening on the right, Fold Street the first on the left
On the Deansgate corner Whitehead's rebuilt in 1909 and Preston's built their familiar building in 1913.
This is a view almost unchanged at our present time though on the extreme left we can see a bit of the Saddle and the Refuge building which were replaced by the Arndale.
Posted on Facebook by Peter Lodge.
Bradshawgate after rebuilding.
Read's Library is in the building which replaced Bromiley's. Not as quirky as its predecessor but interesting with its central arched window and the cast iron balustrade . Note also the chequer-boarding.
To its right is Fold Street then the building which replaced H Samuel. It later becomes Pearl Assurance Company, then Burnley Building Society. Yates Wine Lodge has now extended into that building (2016).
We se the present Preston's building of 1913.
A ccouple of interesting looking cars. On the right the ;icence plate is N7368 - probably BN.
similar picture, similar date, but how busy it was on Bradshawgate just then. Without a tram in the way Yates Wine Lodge is seen.
Somewhat later.
Picture posted on Facebook by Edward Thompson.
Fold Street at extreme left, then Pearl Assurance and Yates Wine Lodge, then Ship Gate.
Tram route O Chorley Old Road
Tram route T Tonge Moor
1959 Bradshawgate, approaching the Preston’s corner.
Fold Street is on the left. Ship gate is on the left just beyond Yates Wine Lodge. Burnley BS in place of H Samuel’s and we see the current Yates’ Wine Lodge building. Why straight on to Preston? You might expect to go along Deansgate then over the High Level bridge to get to Chorley New Road but this will send you via St George’s Road. Surely this picture is too early for Deansgate to be being pedestrianised. Turning right is still the road to A58 for Bury.
early or mid 20th Centery
Bolton Archive picture
Yates Wine Lodge extreme left, Ship Gate, then the Fleece Hotel which includes the shops of Henry Barrie and Kendall's.
The Fleece became the Flying Shuttle but in 2021 is empty.
Further on Saxone & Cable Shoes and Lennards. On the right National Provincial Bank and Timothy Whites and Taylors. The little tower with the dome is on the Prince William Hotel. It disappears later.
September 2009
The Arndale Centre - Crompton Centre now extends as far as Ship Gate. Then the Flying Shuttle (ex Fleece) and the block as far as the corner which at this date is Subway.
The Fleece Hotel (those words still visible in the terra cotta bricks below the top windows) in its present sad state. September 2020 (C)WDC
1967 Bolton Archive Picture.
A bit of work being done on the corner at this date occupied by Vernon Humpage.
Note the police pillar on the corner at far right.
Preston's clock appears to say twenty past four. It is obviously late afternoon in Winter.
We must now go back a little way so that we can look at the east side (right hand side of the direction in which we are travelling) of Bradshawgate.
(C)WDC September 2020
Note that 2/- is two shillings and at decimalisation in 1971 converted to 10p.
In 1910 in the UK the average wage for a 55 hour week was £1 8s 0d (£1.40) for men and 12/- (60p) for women.
Your 2/- meal took 4 hours of work
Today a £8 meal is close to 1 hour of minimum wage.
Of course the Menu might be rather later than the picture and as wages rose, the hours worked per meal would be less.
16 Wood Street, the birthplace of William Hesketh Lever (1851), the founder of the Sunlight soap empire, later the first Viscount Leverhulme. (He was mayor of Bolton, and as well as building the Rivington Bungalow gardens [for his own use but partly as a means of providing jobs for the unemployed] he built Blackburn Road Congregational Church, restored Hall i’th’ Wood which he gave to the town along with Leverhulme Park, and endowed Bolton School (founded 1516, endowed by James Lever in 1641, re-endowed by WHL ). He might have given Lever Park and the water catchment area to Bolton but after various political wranglings, water rights went to Liverpool. Bolton’s earliest cars had number plates BN, possibly the only ones in the country that clearly represented the town. Soon after we got a second pair of letters, WH, the mayor’s car is WH 1. WH is believed to have been deliberately chosen because of the initials of W H Lever, though this just might be a myth based on a coincidence.
In 1905 the premises were bought by the Bolton Socialist Club, ironic that the birthplace of a capitalist and captain of industry should be associated with a very left wing movement. In the early days its meetings had very well known speakers in the Labour movement and other radical movements, such as Kier Hardy and Emmeline Pankhurst. In the mid twentieth century it became simply a drinking place where as a member you could drink after the pubs were shut. It had licensing problems with out of hours and underage drinking and gained a bad name. In the 21st Century it has again become a place for the discussion of and propagation of Socialism.
From the 1920s(?) until the 1960s this was the home of the Clarion Cycling Club and all the Sunday runs departed from here.
1930s ?
The first street on the right is Wood Street then Princess Street is obscured by the bend.
The building on the right hand edge is what had been the old GPO on the corner of Silverwell Street. In the stonework it says Ministry of...
Then we have Graveson and Sons, locksmiths - note the padlock hung on the wall. We meet them again on Deansgate. Graveson's became Fisher Raworth.
Next door to the left is Albert Ward.
{C}WDC September 2020
Silverwell Street and the old GPO building.
Above the ground floor windows, the dark band is not shadow. It is like boarding covering up what is below. Does it still say, "Ministry of..."?
In the 1960s the local office of the Ordnance Survey was here. April 2019 it was "The Postoffice Bar".
(C)WDC September 2020
Graveson's / Fisher Raworth's is now SHOTS
Albert Ward's is now Virgin Money. Most frontages along here are original but this has been "modernised" (ruined). Shortly after this shot was taken Virgin moved to Oxford Street.
To the left again, that new shop front is a bit OTT for a lawyer.
Bradshawgate, Albert Ward’s sports shop, school sports equipment, established 1895. Albert Ward was a well known cricketer in his time having played for Lancashire 1889-1904 and playing in seven test matches, 1893-4. Albert Ward's was taken over by Whitaker’s in 1974 and shortly afterwards the business was transferred to their main store basement.This is Albert Ward’s second shop on Bradshawgate and is now Northern Rock (Virgin Money from 2012 ro 2020).
This card is from Albert Ward's previous shop just along from Great Moor Street.
Balmoral is 94 (and 96?)
Allen's fried chicken is 92 and 90
Lycamobile is 88
Divine Spirit is 86 and 84
Rice n Three is 82 and 80
Shop names as at April 2019
Signed A Ward.
Hope the client could read it all, one or two doubtful words but the message seems to be clear.
September 2020 (C)WDC
Albert Ward's was the more modern building on the right. Now we have a splendid late nineteenth century building. Why is it not symmetric? The part of this building which will be the next focus of our attention is the one occupied by Grill Rush
This picture is prior to 1913 when Preston's built their familiar premises on the corner of Bank Street. Slightly hazy at left we see the building they moved into in 1905. However no later than 1911 which seems to be when this block was built.
What has lately been Grill Rush was Lawrie's Cafe on the ground floor with the Laurus Dining Rooms above.
Wood Street is immediately behind the ladder.
<<<< September 2020 (C)WDC
The building with the white bay windows is little changed form 1910 but the end building is somewhat different different.
Wood Street is at the left. The symbol is that of the Yorkshire Bank who occupied these two buildings c1971.
1897
Samuel Fletcher’s Hatters (and umbrellas) established 1823 on the corner of Wood Street and Bradshawgate. Wood Street apparently should have been Woods Street after Woods Court itself named after the owner who had an ironmongery business just off that part of Bradshawgate. The garden over the wall at the end of Wood Street was owned by John Woods.
The imposing building behind Fletchers was later called Aspden House and was the home of the Bolton Savings Bank which seems to be a forerunner of the Trustee Savings Bank. (Bolton Bank on Bradshawgate probably has no connection.)
The sign on the side of the building reads Phoenix...... OE is written as a diphthong - how very finicky. It was owned by the Phoenix Assurance Society at this time.
The empty shop next to Fletchers was once the Mercantile Bank of Lancashire. The whole site was rebuilt in 1911, Fletchers giving way to the Yorkshire Penny Bank.
1972
Wood Street was declared a conservation area and this group of buildings has been restored and given new bow windows. Some houses in Wood Street date from around 1790.
Bolton Evening News 20 June 1911:-
Bolton has been honoured by the conference upon one of her Freemen – Mr William Hesketh Lever, founder of the great firm of Lever Brothers, Ltd., of Port Sunlight and worldwide fame. The new Baronet is Bolton born and bred. Son of the late Mr James Lever, who bore an honoured name in Bolton, he was born in Wood Street in 1851 and was educated at the Bolton Church Institute under the late Mr W P Mason. He entered the business of his father, a wholesale grocer in Bank Street and with the expansion of the business opened a place in Wigan in 1877. Success waited upon the Lever Wholesale Grocery.
The rear of Wood Street, probably number 16. These houses in Silverwell Street and Wood Street had been the dwellings of the middle class with small gardens at the rear. The rear of 16 Wood Street is reached through an arch way (for your horse and trap) in Silverwell Street.
<<<<<<<1964
We look back up Wood Street and out onto Bradshawgate. On the left, Aspen House, at this time the Halifax Building Society, previously the home of Bolton Savings Bank, later the TSB from 1850 until its move to Hotel Street in 1920.
>>>>>>>>>>> Aspen House, Wood Street (previously the Bolton Savings Bank)
Bradshawgate, c1909
Yates Wine Lodge has been rebuilt about six feet back as Bradshawgate is widened. The last block to the Deansgate corner has been rebuilt and realigned but some buildings have just been demolished between there and Ship Gate and are awaiting reconstruction.
Port 3d.
Princess Street on the right.
Note the pair of spectacles on the wall a couple of doors further on.
The UMBRELLA shop now advertises BAGS and TRUNKS.
To its left we see a notice which includes the words "removing" and "rebuilt" so this is very shortly before Whiteheads reconstructed that part of the block in 1909.
On the right of the picture some parts of that block remain, some were rebuilt not too long after the picture.
Picture posted on Facebook by Edward Thompson.
c1914 Only a little after the picture above but the Whitehead's building and the Preston's building have both been rebuilt. We also see the National Provincial Bank building, just behind the nearer horse and cart, on the corner of Princess Street.
David Whenlock's postcard.
September 2020 (C)WDC
Posted on Facebook by Gene Watts.
This is the white building occupied by Shah's Pizzas on the previous picture.
Waller and Riley, Cash Chemists and Manufacturing Chemists, 17 and 19 Bradshawgate. We are more familiar with this firm on the corner of Newport Street and Great Moor Street.
The first floor is labelled Manufacturing Laboratory and Analytical Laboratory. The top floor is the Packing Floor.
1971 Bolton Museum Archive picture
Bradshawgate looking back where we have come from.
Prince William, Bolton Camera Co., Small’s army stores where previously Waller and Riley’s had been, Small’s closed in 2009. The National Westminster Bank remains on the near corner of Princess Street. What is on the far corner is not clear but it has a billiard room on the top floor. The Yorkshire Bank is on the far corner of Wood Street.
The quite attractive early 20thC Prince William. It originally had a balustrade above the gutter level and a small tower with a dome on that raised area in front of the right hand chimney.
>>>>>>September 2020 (C)WDC
Circus Bar and Club
Coming soon, eat as much as you like
A similar view to a couple of pictures previous but from ground level and from a little further back.
The Prince William has its balustrade and its domed tower. Beyond it the building with the black and white detail can be seen
But the main feature of the picture is the Bradshawgate frontage of the Swan Hotel. The Swan was an important coaching inn. Coaches would go through the archway into the courtyard.
Winter 1940
Corner of Wood Street is Yorkshire Penny Bank
Note that the Prudential Building on Nelson Square foes not have its hat.
Traffic slowed to a crawl when more than 800 students from Bolton Technical College and Bolton Institute of Technology staged a joint protest march against Bolton Council. Students from the Technical College protested about plans to scrap GCE courses for under-19s while BIT students were up in arms over a second delay in plans to build a social centre at the Institute in Deane Road. (Bolton News)
Buildings this side of the Packhorse have been demolished. Presumably work on the Arndale Centre is about to begin.
Note the railway "dray".
1929 Bradshawgate, from Yates to the corner of Deansgate, these buildings are essentially unchanged. The coach is going to Blackpool.
The entrance to the right of Lennards tells us that it is Whewell Buildings and indicates the presence of a barber's shop.
A snowy day on the Bradshawgate / Deansgate corner.
Post 1910 probably mid 1920s
A surprising number of people around, many of those on the corner are probably waiting for the tram.
There were always policemen at the important road junctions but often they didn't seem to have much to do
Looking from Bradshawgate towards Preston's corner 1887
Decorated for Victoria’s Golden Jubilee (Victoria: born 1819; accession to the throne 1837; died 1901).
Note the umbrella shop to left of what became Preston’s and the shop on the corner still in place, with the name over the windows which looks like Anderson or Anderton...
Bradshawgate has not yet been widened (work done 1905-1910)
Next Page we look at Preston's corner
Following that Churchgate and Church Wharf
Then Bank Street and Crown Street
Then Deansgate
On the opposite corner of Wood Street is an imposing edifice built in 1897, the stonework proclaiming "Manchester and Liverpool District Bank". It was later occupied by "Royal Globe Assurance" (as seen from Fold Street), District Bank and at various times "Royal London", Provincial Insurance and "AXA" .[above, Sept 2020 (C)WDC]
Postcard from David Whenlock's collection. ....ale Depot is part of the Swan Hotel.
***>>>Two doors to the right is the Prince William Hotel before the present building with the round windows was built.
Then the black and white effect building then 17&19 Waller and Riley's (Small's Army Stores, Shah's Pizza) and the National Provincial (Cork's Wine Bar) then Princess Street.
