Eccles has always had it’s fair share of pubs and many of you will remember the legendary Eccles Pub crawl from the top of Church Street to Peel Green but I take a pinch of salt when people tell me they have managed it…however.
In 1980 Eccles could boast of having 50 pubs all doing good business, fast forward to today and we have about 25, still a healthy number but a massive reduction, and today we have lost another.
The Bridgewater Hotel on the corner of Green Lane and Liverpool Road, a Joseph Holts pub which has been serving the locals of the area with beer for over 120 years closed it’s doors last night for the last time.
I called in today thinking it was still open to have a final pint and was dismayed to see the doors and windows boarded up, the wooden curtains as the wags say, happily the workmen emptying the pub let me in for a final look around and take some photos for posterity, it was I must admit a strange experience walking around a deserted pub with no beer.
The landlady, Kerry Holness was still in the pub packing up and told me.
“I have enjoyed every minute of being here, the customers have been brilliant and I can have no complaints, I am a bit sad to be leaving but I have great memories”
The pub is on the market with Fleurets at a guide price of £275,000
Not being a listed building as other Holts pubs are in the area, basically the new owner has free range to do as they please, I think it will become apartments but that is only my opinion, and hopefully not demolished.
I would love to hear your memories of the pub and any photos you may have.
I will leave the last word with Hilaire Belloc, the famous author, poet and one time MP From 1906 to 1910, as a Liberal Party Member of Parliament for Salford South
“When you have lost your inns, drown your empty selves, for you will have lost the last of England.”
Cheers!
