28th August 2025
The past few weeks had been a hectic time for myself with my 90-year-old mum being admitted into the Royal Bolton hospital which had caused me to postpone a couple of adventures. Thankfully my mother is now well and safely back home. It’s times like these that you learn to really appreciate having a terrific brother like I have.
I had checked the weather forecast for this evening and it wasn’t looking good with heavy thunder showers forecast. I messaged Graham and we said we will see what the weather was like after work before we made our decision for our adventure. We really needed this adventuredue to us both going to Corfu in a week or so and would be missing adventures late into the season.
As myself and Graham exchanged messages regarding the weather we decided because we hadn’t been out for a number of weeks that we would go for it. The weather forecast was still for thundery showers, but it looked like it would brighten up as the evening progressed. Arrangements were made. Graham was to meet at mine. I had no route or ideas in mind for our adventure, we would just go old school and wing it. I was just getting changed when there was a knock at the door and then the doorbell rang. I could see Graham peering through the glass in the door. As I opened the door, Graham asked “you having a poo? “, “no pal just a wee“ I replied. The toilet humour had commenced early this week as I commenced to get my bike out of the garage. Graham then broke wind “oh excuse me, I did a little pump”. Just then Peggy Lou arrived home from work and was surprised to see us going out on an adventure “well I didn’t think you’d be going out tonight in the rain” Peggy Lou said, Graham replied“ Nah we’re extreme bikers aren’t we”
Graham asked had we a plan for tonight and I explained that we hadn’t. I suggested due to the weather and restriction on time with the evenings drawing in we just have a potter around Bolton town centre.
We were soon on our way to the town centre via the Darcy Lever viaduct. Just as we reached its end as it crosses Saint Peters way the heavens opened. I had an idea we could shelter under the subway that ran beneath St Peters Way. We headed down the path towards the subway. As we approached we noticed in the darkness a person bent down in the entrance to its entrance, he politely apologised saying “sorry lads“, but as I stopped, Graham passed me and as he did so the lad called out“ watch out there’s another one of us there” the lad was completely hidden in the darkness and Graham did well to avoid crashing into him, his Extreme Biker skills being put to the test. The two lads were actually Urban artist and were spray painting designs on the subway walls but we couldn’t see what they were in the darkness and wondered how they could see what they were doing. We went to the other side of the subway into the daylight to wait for the rain to stop. As we waited I managed to take a stealthy photo, it was just of their silhouettes against the light. Graham commented that it must be an expensive hobby. They had about 20 tins of spray paint and with an average price £5 each that’s a few bob.
We passed back by the Urban artists and we thanked them as they let us pass again to retrace our path up to Manchester Road but our timing was wrong. No sooner had we got to the top of the hill. The heavens opened and we had to make a dash for the shelter outside Screwfix. Luckily these were only thundery showers but by then we were already soaked through, but we’re Extreme Bikers nothing really stops us. With the rain easing we proceeded up Manchester Rd past the now derelict Churchill pub, which was a very popular pub on match days back in the day when Bolton Wanderers FC played at Burnden Park. I suggested to Graham we have a ride onto the footbridge crossing the railway. Once on the bridge Graham was like a little child “ Look Ebay a train” then shortly “ Ooh look another one , get a photo!”. Where I work trains pass within a few metres, so to me it wasnt interseting but Graham was obviously excited.
We now headed towards the town centre itself. As we had no route I let Graham decide which way to go. We passed the Alma pub and shortly after we spotted a new electronic information display unit on the footpath. It looked like it was a touch screen display but sadly it wasn’t’, it was just a lit up map of the surrounding area.
We rode along Bradshawgate where Graham turned off down the side of the now closed Courtney’s bar, a sign of the things to come. As we rode down Graham spotted a strange thing, a couple of foreign looking men standing outside a building drinking tea. They looked out of place and then Graham noticed a large number of suitcases just inside the open door. We pondered what was going on and came to a possible conclusion that it could be accommodation for asylum seekers. It could be something completely different though but as in these difficult times it is easy to jump to the wrong conclusions.
We rode back up the street to rejoin Bradshawgate as we did Graham called out ” Its a One Way street pal you’re going the wrong way “ , I explained ” But Im only going one way “ which brought us both a chuckle. On Bradshawgate we paused to take a look at the frontage of the Crompton Place Shopping Centre which is shortly due to be demolished. It was at this point we decided to take a look around the other side of the Crompton Place Shopping Centre. We rode up Deansgate pausing outside the large now empty building that was once Marks & Spencer’s . It was here we spotted at the top of one of the beautiful looking buildings an old sign that simply read M.M & Co Ltd. Neither of us had a clue what it was and was surprised neither of us had spotted it before now. After a little research we found that the building was erected in 1927 by beer brewers Magee Marshall & Co. Ltd. to replace an older pub building of the same name. The company is identified on the stone plaque at the top of the building. Originally the pub was fronted by six Doric columns, but these have long gone. The pub finally closed its doors in 1989 and the building is now occupied by a bank.
We turned up Market St and as we headed towards Hotel St where the side entrance to what was Crompton Place., we passed a group of people obviously the worst for wear for drink with cans of cider in their hands effing and jeffing. Graham wanted to head around to the opposite side of the shopping centre as well, where entrance to the underground car park was. To get there we had to ride across the main square in front of the Town Hall. It was here we saw various people sat on the floor with cans of beer in the hands, and others obviously high on drugs either begging for money or curled up on the benches. It was quite intimidating even for us Extreme Bikers and we kept a cautious eye on them as we took photos of the buildings. It was a sorry site to see, the state of Bolton and most likely the state of the country as a whole. We rode down exchange Street to the entrance of what was the underground car park here we noticed that a lovely little shopping arcade known as St Andrew’s court also looked like it was all closed up. Here once again we came across people sat in doorways drinking cans of cider.
The Food Hall in Bolton Market was to be our next port of call as an old friend has a business there called The Grumpy Baker who I can highly recommend. But first we had a stop off in Elizabeth Park for our regular catch up. We sat on the one of the large wooden benches even though they were wet due to the heavy rain. We chatted about our upcoming holidays to Corfu, and Graham‘s new diet strategy. He said he’d been on in three days and could I tell if he’d lost any weight? I replied? “No not really pal sorry”.
I spotted a magpie in the middle of the grass and being superstitious I saluted it. I asked Graham if he was superstitious but due to his hearing difficulties he replied“ suspicious , suspicious what of ?“ . I remarked ” No superstitious , are you superstitious“. ” No pal I’m not , was wondering what I had to be suspicious of “ he replied laughing to himself . As we got up from the bench, I noticed that there were two dry patches were we’d been sat , we had obviously dried the areas of our bottoms. After a quick selfie we headed over to Bolton market to take a look at the new Food Hall. From the food hall we went to look at the Bob Inn pub on the other side of the market. It was a very very tiny pub and Graham noted that there were no seats inside.
Graham then suggested we have a ride over to see Bolton Little Theatre on Hanover Street the theatre has been going since 1931. Graham said he’d enjoyed visits there couple of times over the years .
After passing by the new housing development on the site of the old Moor bus station, we rode over to the spectacular building that was once Bolton’s main post office, but this is yet another building that has sadly shut down. Surprisingly, there were still four old red telephone boxes outside, but they were gutted and the doors welded shut. It was here we spotted a gold post box obviously it was painted gold to celebrate Queen Elizabeth II golden Jubilee.
I suggested to Graham the we go and take a look at the old culvert we visited quite a few years ago that allows the river Croal to run under the town centre. Our progress was hindered by the large new housing development which was built on site the old Central St car park, so we had to find another route. Eventually we found our way around to the start of the culvert, but our pathway was blocked once again this time by a fence but Graham being Graham found away through . It was here we noticed a commemorative stone on a building that had been laid back in 1898 but unusually it was surrounded by bricks numbered from 1 to 154 which we found very strange indeed.
The entrance to the culvert is a creepy dark place and Graham commented that it was quite scary so we didn’t hang around long but we did notice an old builders sign on the wall of one of the buildings ( see photo) . It was here also Graham sustained his injury whilst looking after my bike whilst I took the photos. We decided it was now time to head for home, but first we wanted to stop off and see Fred Dibnah’s new memorial pave stone which had be replaced on Churchgate thanks to the generosity a local company.
We stopped off to take a couple of photos one of which was outside Booth’s music shop and I commented to Graham that the shop had been there for years.“Yes since 1832” Graham said reading the sign outside the shop, I immediately replied ” What since 6:32pm tonight ? “ . Graham looked at me and sighed. There was also another sign above the shop about Richard Arkwright who invented the water frame spinning machine and that occupied the shop as a barber and a peruke maker. To laymen like us Peruke means wigs . Just shows you’re never to old to learn.
We saw Freds new stone which now looks terrific, but now it was really time to head home as we set off I heard Graham call out behind me there “They think it’s all over“. I thought he meant our adventure at first . It was in fact because he’d spotted another memorial pave stone in memory of. Kenneth Wolstenholme who commented on the 1966 World Cup final and his famous commentary Some people are on the pitch… they think it’s all over… it is now!. Sadly, I hadn’t noticed it so we will have to revisit it in a future adventure.
We continued on our route home and took the road past Fred Dibnah’s old house to let Graham have a look at what it is like now. As we left Freds house behind us we proceeded to join the Route 6 cycle way back over the Viaduct and home, but on our way we spotted an unusual micro car, even Graham with all his AA knowledge couldn’t identify it, even on close inspection it wasn’t clear what make it was, so it was over to detective Ebay to find out, which I have successfully done. It is in fact a Saturn City Bug, and no I hadn’t heard of it either. As we parted company with a fist pump with a don’t forget to text when you’re home, Graham called back ” See you in Corfu pal “
