Category: Pubs, Clubs & Beer

Blackburn town centre brewery, Daniel Thwaites, was invaded by travellers over the Spring Bank holiday weekend.

Several parched itinerants, on their way to Appleby for the annual horse fair, said they were desperate for a pint of Original Bitter.  But they couldn’t find a pub in Blackburn town centre which sold it.

They thought it would be a good idea to start searching for nearby pubs around the brewery itself, so decided to park their caravans, cars and other vehicles on Thwaites’ car park.  Their first choice at looking for a pint was Uncle Tom’s Cabin, for obvious reasons, but they found it wasn’t being used as a pub any more.  Their luck was tried around the other side of the brewery, at the Veteran, but this pub had been closed down too.

Things were starting to get desperate when they next found the Fleece Inn boarded up.  And the last straw, which broke the Shire horse’s back, was finding out Daniel’s was now a training centre.  Out of sheer desperation the travellers decided to invade Star Brewery and try and get in touch with a bloke called Crafty Dan, whose name they liked and they had heard was based somewhere inside.

But it wasn’t to be for these travellers this bank holiday weekend.  Crafty Dan was nowhere to be found and neither were the famous dray horses, who they had also wanted to meet – with their jam jars at the ready.  After all, they were on their way to a horse fair and it wasn’t just the system they wanted to milk.

And so these travellers had to settle for a night in their caravans watching telly, having to settle for cocoa and Horlicks.  They proved they couldn’t manage to organise their own piss-up in this brewery.  These unhappy wanderers were told Thwaites do still have outlets in Blackburn town centre and they could get a pint of Original in the Sun.  But they declined this offer, saying they had heard this pub might be a bit too rough for them.

Thwaites, quite rightly, are angry about what happened to their brewery over the bank holiday weekend.  Taking away people’s jobs and livelihoods is very unfair and drinkers should be given the opportunity to enjoy beer in their local pub.

On the bright side, at least we now know not all of Thwaites’ licenced premises have a restrictive covenant in place.

Blackburn town centre has a new nightclub.  Switch is its name and it could be one of the final pieces in this jigsaw of improvements to our town centre’s pub and club scene.

I first went in an earlier incarnation of this club as a 16 year old. It was known as the Mecca and was the venue for my student freshman’s ball. Most 16 year olds looked older back in those 1970’s days.  But not me, I looked like a street urchin out of Oliver Twist.  Amazingly, I still managed to get served that night. Those three pints of bitter finished me off.  Fortunately my sobriety had recovered enough by the time I got home, enabling me to sneak off to bed without disturbing my parents.

At the time, Blackburn’s Mecca, or to call it by its proper name, the Golden Palms, was one of a number of town centre nightclubs we had available when I first called in.  This building was built in 1909 and started out as stables for the Old Bull pub.  Its use changed to a skating rink a couple of years later.  It then became the Olympia Theatre for ten years, before being converted to a cinema, though still keeping its Olympia name.  This closed down in 1957.  Mecca then bought it two years later to turn it into a dance hall and it became the Locarno Ballroom.

Many of us will have stories to tell about the Mecca under its various different guises.  But now we have a brand new nightclub known as Switch.  It has all of today’s latest technology on offer and should help fill a generation gap which has emerged in Blackburn town centre over these last few years.  Daytime drinking seems to have become the norm down town, but there looks to be a demand out there from younger people who want to have a good time at night.

Security is a big issue with nightclubs and Switch is determined it won’t become a 3D nightclub.  It has put measures in place to prevent Drugs, Drunkenness and Disorder taking place.  Over the years this place, like our town centre, has had its ups and downs, but always seems to come back again.  Hopefully this tenacity can bring it success and reflect the good work going on in Blackburn town centre and its continuing pub, club and nightlife rejuvenation.

Blackburn’s former Jubilee pub has now re-opened as the Lemon Tree.

On April Fool’s Day last year, I asked the question:  What next for Blackburn’s Jubilee Pub?  This followed its recent closure at the time.  Sadly for this pub, not only had it been dying a slow death commercially, structural damage was also blighting the building.  So things looked bleak and there seemed little possibility of it ever opening as a pub again in the present difficult economic climate.

But this is Blackburn and things are happening.  They are certainly happening on Blakey Moor and an opportunity arose to do something with the Jubilee.  This is where James and Katy Quayle stepped in.  With their other pub, the Drummer’s Arms, they have turned a derelict jeweller’s into Blackburn town centre’s jewel in the crown.  What was stopping them doing something similar with the Jubilee?

A decision was taken to rename the pub.  This was down to its intention to sell food and attract students from nearby Blackburn College and its University Centre.  Their next job was to sort out building problems and refit and decorate the pub throughout.  This included providing catering facilities and turning the Lemon Tree into one of only a handful of Blackburn’s town centre pubs to have food available.

The Lemon Tree opened its doors in December and looks very nice and clean and bright.  My only worry was being shocked by these old school desks which act as tables.  They brought back nightmare memories of my own school days, back in the 1970’s.  I sat at one which looked like my old school desk, but fortunately it was empty when opened.  There was no sign of my catapult or pea-shooter inside.  Neither was there any sign of the material we used to read under our bedsheets with a torch while listening to the wandering wavelength of Radio Luxembourg.

Another worry which also turned out to be a red herring was the price of real ale in the pub.  Rumours about its cask beer being too expensively priced have proved to be totally unfounded.  It costs the same for real ale in the Lemon Tree as it does in the Drummer’s Arms.

And so another pub re-opens in Blackburn town centre, continuing the good work being done by a lot of people and organisations.  This pub might be aimed at students, but it’s looking like it’s going to be a class act for the rest of us to follow.

Blackburn town centre’s nightlife is starting to go places.  Hopefully it will bring people here from other places.  But this hasn’t been an overnight improvement.  Various factors have led to this resurgence in its fortunes.

A low water mark had been reached just over a year ago and there was talk at the time of even more pub closures.  Fortunately we were saved from boring nights in front of the telly or expensive trips out of town by things starting to happen in our own town centre.

The turning point seemed to be when two major events happened in 2016.  These proved to be a catalyst for starting the ball rolling in this resurgence of Blackburn’s town centre pub scene.  Yet both were so very different in how things panned out.

Thwaites’ decision to close their Sir Charles Napier pub angered many regulars of Blackburn’s only rock pub.  They were determined this pub wasn’t going to die and a spirited campaign was organised.  This gained support from Judas Priest lead singer, Rob Halford, and rock concerts with groups giving their services for free.  There were also those tee shirts and the Napier being awarded an asset of community value.

A year-long struggle eventually led to a famous victory for this gallant band of Napier regulars.  And it also put across the message that things can be done if enough people are prepared to try.  Almost a prophetic overture to what was going to happen in the rest of our town centre.

Around the same time as the Napier came back from the dead, a brand new pub was born.  The Drummer’s Arms was a result of James and Katy Quayle noticing a demand for real ale in Blackburn while working during events in the museum and at the Bureau of Blackburn.  The Drummer’s Arms opened and was joined by its nextdoor neighbour, Tiki Monkey, which is bringing a taste of Hawaii to our town centre.

Another major player in this town centre revival came back from temporary closure.  The Adelphi reopened after various issues were resolved by its management.  It has gone on to re-establish itself as one of the town centre’s well known hostelries.  Things have been helped in its location by all these new developments on the former Boulevard site and an emergence of a new Cathedral Quarter.  This has attracted new high quality restaurants to the area, something which Blackburn needed badly.

Since these exciting new developments, Blackburn’s town centre boozer bandwagon has kept on rolling.  New pubs have opened, including the Bees Knees and Shh! Bar.  There is also another reopening in the pipeline with Blakey Moor’s Jubilee becoming the Lemon Tree.  Plus, The Squire, which was formerly Molloy’s, has been secured.  If this had closed down, it would have been a crucial loss to Blackburn town centre’s pub scene.

What has also been crucial in helping bring about this revival of Blackburn’s town centre pub scene and nightlife are those people who decided to do something about changing things for the better.  These have included Richey Pull and his ‘Closed Pubs of Blackburn’ Facebook page.  Alex Martindale and his tenacity in the Save the Napier campaign.  The Quayle family for opening the Drummer’s Arms and soon to be Lemon Tree.  And of course, Blackburn Nightlife Project for never giving up on our town centre and helping to promote all the new developments.

Things have not been entirely plain sailing.  We have still had some pub closures, just like everywhere else across the country.  But it’s been a case of two steps forward and one step back in Blackburn.  In these difficult economic times, it’s definitely a step in the right direction.

Blackburn town centre’s latest addition to its pub scene, the Bees Knees, opened up in the old TSB Bank, in November.

The building, on Lord Street West, first opened as a bank in 1863, costing £1834.15s.  There was a cotton famine going on at the time, due to it being during the height of the American Civil War.  This meant many Blackburn people were feeling the effects of unemployment and poverty.  So no grand opening of this new building took place at the time.

Over 150 years later it wasn’t a grand opening for the Bees Knees either.  This was down to decorations running late and paintwork still being wet.  So a decision was correctly taken by management of the pub to postpone its opening Friday night until next day.  I managed to get in the pub a day later, early on Sunday dinnertime.  As the pub’s name suggests, it was a hive of activity, with lots of punters calling in to check the new pub out.

My only problem was wearing a pair of suede boots with crepe soles.  This led to my feet sticking to their polished floor while walking to the bar.  Other people made similar squelching sounds, so a mop and bucket was found and this sorted things out.

No doubt, like me, those punters would have liked what they saw.  The pub is big and roomy, with lots of seats and tables.  It reminded me a bit of Blackburn’s former Blob Shop on Church Street.  For the real ale fans there were three cask beers on sale.  Much to my surprise was their reasonableness of price, with real ale around £2 a pint.  Plus, they gave me a reward card which would bring another pint my way once it was filled.

This pub looks like it is aimed at all ages.  Their WIFI works very well and so do the vast array of TV screens throughout the pub.  There is also a varied collection of lighting and sound equipment which gives the place a nightclub effect.  This should bring plenty of young people in.  Whereas the decent beer prices should attract a good afternoon and early evening trade from the middle aged and older clientele.

Hopefully the Bees Knees will help boost this growing revival of Blackburn’s town centre pub scene.  Apart from the opening night, things are looking good in here and going to plan.

Blackburn’s Molloy’s pub has been put up for sale.  But despite not meeting its reserve price at auction in July, it’s still business as usual for the popular hostelry on King William Street.

Molloy’s has had a positive impact on Blackburn’s pub scene, despite it being one of our town centre’s ‘newer’ pubs.  It was well-known book shop, Seed & Gabbutt’s, for many years, until bought by Irish themed pubs group, O’Neill’s.  Duplicates of O’Neill’s familiar blue and yellow liveried pubs suddenly started springing up across Britain in the 1980’s and Blackburn was included.

Sadly for local CAMRA members, O’Neill’s was a real ale desert.  This reflected the Emerald Isle at the time, where cask beer was also very difficult to find.  But like Ireland and its own microbrewery revolution, that all changed when it became Molloy’s.  Despite its Irish name, this theme bar culture was gradually squeezed out and it became a proper pub.  No more trying to figure out what Fir and Mna meant on the toilet doors.

Molly’s soon became a mainstay of our town centre real ale scene and carried on flying the flag while other pubs either shut down or stopped selling cask beer.  This pub is now established as one of the best in Blackburn.  It is one of three, including the Napier and Postal Order, which serves food, along with real ale in the town centre, and has a good mix of young and old punters in during the day and at night.

‘Molly’s’ owner, Stonegate Pub Company, part of the Cayman Islands incorporated TDR Capital group, are also selling off many of their other interests.  They are Britain’s fourth largest managed pub chain and currently own nearly 700 outlets, including Yates, Walkabout and the Slug and Lettuce restaurants.  It would appear the latter may be where Stonegate may have their main focus, leading to them possibly wishing to offload some of their pubs to release funds for further investment in their prime interests.

Unfortunately Stonegate’s pub downsizing plans has had a negative effect on business, certainly at local level.  Many punters think Molly’s has either shut down already, or will be doing so in the very near future.  This is certainly not the case and the best way of ensuring the future of this popular friendly pub is to carry on supporting it and keep the momentum going in the rebirth of Blackburn’s pub scene.

Holy Trinity Church on Blackburn’s Mount Pleasant is famous for its former vicar, Chad Varah, who went on to form the Samaritans.  Trinity was an apt name for Chad as he and wife Susan had triplets while he was vicar of this church in Blackburn’s Larkhill area.

Photo courtesy of Jason Walker

This Grade 2 listed building no longer holds weekly church services.  Like me in my first job, it was made redundant in the early 1980’s.  But these days it hosts various activities and on this St George’s Day weekend, Trinity Church provided us with a beer festival.  Jason Walker along with James and Katy Quayle, who run the Drummer’s Arms, were amongst the many good Samaritans who helped put on this festival, along with some of the local breweries and tradesmen who supply their pub.

I was able to get to Saturday’s afternoon session.  My first pint of the day actually started off on my way there, in the Postal Order, where it was appropriately St George’s by Acorn Brewery from Barnsley.  Mighty oaks from little acorns grow and more good beer was anticipated for me today.

Off to the beer festival next, landing there around quarter to one.  Darwen’s Hop Star was my first pint in the church and guess what?  I was on their St George’s ale.  Blackburn’s Three B’s was next with Bee Proud, which was another ale related to England’s patron saint.  My next beer was Blonde Vixen from Wigan’s Wily Fox brewery and was my favourite on the day.  Porter from the Big Clock took my attention later.  It had filled up at the festival by now, a lot of people were enjoying the sunshine outside as well as those inside.

Today’s entertainment was pretty good but the show was stolen by teenage singer and guitarist, Georgia Farrar from Brighouse.  She brought this house down and gave us an excellent performance.  St Georgia’s Day would have been a good name for today after listening to her music.   Great things look destined for this talent and many people will soon have Georgia on their mind.

I really enjoyed this visit to the Trinity Beer Festival.  My only regret was not covering myself up enough with more layers of clothing.  Being a church, it felt as far away from the fires of Hell as you could probably get.  My jean jacket and Hobgoblin tee shirt left me feeling a bit cold inside this building and it certainly wasn’t Mount Pleasant in my case.  But with free entry and all real ales pegged at £2.50 a pint, there was plenty of holy water available and an enjoyable time was had by all.  Let’s just hope the next beer festival here is in July or August.

A rare glimpse of the Jubilee’s door open

Blackburn’s Jubilee Hotel seems to be bucking the trend in our town centre for all the wrong reasons.  New pubs have recently opened and others have come back from the dead, but the Jubilee seems to be in a state of inactivity.

This Blakey Moor pub has had its ups and downs over the years.  I remember it having flagstone floors in the 1970’s, which were often stained with blood from fights which broke out in here.  This hostelry was a contender for Blackburn’s roughest pub, though similar things could be said about plenty of others at the time.

Things changed for the better when Tom and Linda Fox took over the pub in the early 1990’s.  After spending money refurbishing the place and kicking out anti-social elements, their Jubilee became a great pub.  My happiest memory of those days was when Rovers won the Premier League in 1995 and joining many fans celebrating inside and outside the pub, closing both Blakey Moor and Barton St.  Tom was a massive Rovers fan and these times were the zenith for his pub and his team.

Tom and Linda left to run the Golden Cup and their former pub has never been able to emulate those happy days.  Years of decline followed and a seedy reputation developed.  It was closed under a police order in 2008, but re-opened a year later.  Attempts have been made since those dark days to make a go of the Jubilee, but this pub seems to have continued on a downward spiral.  Now one of Thwaites’ last town centre pubs looks to be closed once again.

This is very sad, yet seems so unnecessary.  Very few pubs in Blackburn are in a better location for attracting passing trade.  Our college and its University Centre are nearby and have provided this pub with a lot of custom over the years.  There has also always been trade from many events across the road at King George’s Hall.

Unfortunately attracting trade to a pub which seems to only open sporadically doesn’t help matters.  Nearly every time I have walked past this pub lately it has been closed.  On those rare occasions when it was open they never had any real ale on sale, so it might as well have not bothered in my case.

But there is always hope around the corner.  With great news about the Adelphi and a new version of Liquid Nightclub both re-opening, perhaps we could see a return of the Jubilee.  Anything’s possible in Blackburn these days.

Who is being sheared, James or the sheep?

The Drummer’s Arms may be Blackburn’s newest pub, but it didn’t take long to establish itself among the real ale drinking enthusiasts of the area.

Owners, James and Katy Quayle, who you may have seen on TV recently, following Blackburn scooping the national High Street shopping award, have a range of five real ales available.  These often include local beers Three B’s, Hopstar and Big Clock, which are all brewed within five miles of the pub.  They also sell real ciders in various flavours, such as rhubarb and strawberry.

This new micropub, right across from Blackburn’s old town hall, is a real gem and refreshing in more ways than one.  The Drummer’s staff are very friendly and so are its clientele.  There are not only real ale enthusiasts calling in, but shoppers and workers from nearby offices and workplaces are starting to frequent the pub on a regular basis.

Inside there are displays of pub memorabilia, some you don’t notice at first, such as the tables and chairs.  But once you take hold of your barrel glass, you then start to remember when you came across some of these items.  I particularly like the round copper-topped table, which took me back to my misspent youth.  Some of the memorabilia is very interesting, but it is the pub signs on the walls which really do catch the eye of most customers.

Perhaps the most memorable pub sign in the Drummer’s is one from Blackburn’s closed down Fleece on Penny Street.  What makes it stand out is an uncanny resemblance between owner James and the sheep-shearer in this sign.  It also seems to symbolise comparisons between Blackburn’s former pub scene and what is starting to happen in the town centre now, this is thanks in large part to the Sir Charles Napier and Drummer’s Arms which have both helped spark new life into our local scene.

Maybe one day the Fleece and other neighbouring pubs will re-open and continue building this resurgence of Blackburn town centre.  It would be nice if some kind of ceremony with the sign could be organised for the new Fleece, if it ever opened.  Sadly, that doesn’t seem to on the horizon for the foreseeable future, those old pubs still remain in their mothballed state.  Fortunately we do have the brand new Drummer’s Arms and can look forward to further real ale enjoyment and a bright future.

On 17^th September the official opening took place of Blackburn’s Sir Charles Napier.  It was performed by Rob Halford of Judas Priest and was the culmination of a year-long campaign to re-open the town’s only rock pub following closure in June 2015.

I was given a sneak preview of life in the newly refurbished pub on the Friday night before its official re-opening.  So Sylvia, my girlfriend, and I toddled across to the Napier and had a few beers and a mingle with various regulars and guests.

Best start to the evening for me was their selection of real ales.  Appropriately for a rock pub, Robinson’s  Trooper was one of their cask ales.  Iron Maiden’s Bruce Dickinson created this with head brewer Martyn Weeks and it has sold millions of pints in 40 different countries.  Thwaites Golden Wainwright and Hop Star’s JLS are also currently available.

We talked to lots of people in the pub.  There was a good mix of younger and older people, all really happy to see the Sir Charles Napier back open once again.  Some were rock music fans who would use the pub mainly to watch bands, whereas others saw the Napier as the pub which would help rejuvenate this side of the town centre’s nightlife and would bring in passing trade.

With Blakey’s, Blackburn Times, Molloy’s and the new Drummer’s Arms soon to be opening, the Napier could entice more punters out for a wander round the town centre both during the afternoon and later in the evening.

Although the battle to re-open the Napier has been won, the management committee will not allow complacency to set in.  They would like to eventually buy the pub, which is still owned by Thwaites, to protect its long-term future.  In the meantime they don’t intend to rest on their laurels and the hard work continues.  This includes their efforts to keep bringing new people into the pub through various events and activities.

Key to this strategy is the concert room upstairs.  Bookings have been taken from different groups and many have signed up to play gigs there.  Hopefully this will continue into the future and help the Napier build upon the success which saw it fight a great campaign and return from the dead like a phoenix from the ashes.  The future is looking good for the Napier.