The New Crown Inn

Bolton’s village inn is shown on the 1861 ordnance survey map as the Malt Shovel. It is not known how old the building is or how long it served the purpose of being an inn. A few years ago when some refurbishment was being carried out in the building the publican found a cache of coins dated in the 1700s above a door lintel. More research may show that it existed much earlier than that because pubs, inns and alehouses are known to have existed since the 10th century providing basic food and accommodation for the traveller. The inn stands about 100yds east of the cross roads and almost opposite All Saints church; close enough to the church to confess your sins and then visit the ale house!

In the 1851 census Joseph Jennings is listed as a maltster and victualler but there is no indication of where he carried out his business. There is no other occupation mentioned for him so his income could have been solely derived from his making and selling of beer and he could have been the proprietor of the Malt Shovel. Mary Nicholson who was a widow was a victualler and carried on her business at Wayside. Ten years earlier in the 1841 census Mary was a publican and living with her husband John a school master. At Bolton Lane Ends lived John Walker who was a farmer of 40acres and a keeper of a beer shop. He would have been restricted to the sale of beer, porter and cider and he would have had to pay two guineas for a licence to do so.

Ale houses started to go out of fashion in the 1830s as the larger brewers started to construct purpose built houses for the sale of beer and spirits.

By 1881 Thomas Hodgeson was inn keeper of the Malt Shovel and also a farmer. William Moore kept the New Crown Inn which was opposite the Malt Shovel. To-day it is a private house known as The Poplars. John walker is no longer keeping a beer house.

In 1891 at the New Crown Inn John Furness is the licensed Victualler. Sometime prior to this the New Crown Inn was closed and part of the name was transferred, with a new proprietor to replace the name. The Malt Shovel became the New Crown Hotel. Sometime later J. H Wilson took over as publican and later gained the notoriety of being the oldest serving publican in Britain.

The Inn was not only a place to meet socially or to stay when travelling, trading would take place between travelling sales men and there would be entertainment. The Malt shovel also served another very important function. It had a meeting room where the Manor Court was held.

Bolton has served several lords of the manor throughout the ages. The Manor was governed by a Manor Court in which a meeting of tenants was convened and presided over by the Lord of the Manor or his steward. The court considered both judicial and administrative matters such as the transfer of property. All tenants were obliged to attend the Manor court and were eligible for election as jurors. Non-attenders were fined. A record of court proceedings was kept by the steward’s clerk including details of disputes and changes of occupancy holdings.

An important meeting convened at the Malt Shovel was one to oversee the enclosure of Common land by an act dated 1808. The principal of the closure legislation was that the Lord and commoners would each receive an allocation of land for the legal withdrawal of their former right. Once it was determined that the principal land owners agreed to and were committed to the enclosure a surveyor and a valuer were appointed by the parish to assist the commissioners in determining the enclosure awards in compact holdings which was equivalent to the combined portions of common land held by a particular claimant. The Commissioners for Bolton were Jo Fryer and Thomas Harrison and the surveyor was John Nicholson from the Malt Shovel ( Eden Vale Inn today) Following the survey and valuation a public consultation was held and the land re allocated.

The cost of administering the system plus hedging and ditching, building of walls and planting of hedges fell on the recipients of the awards. Altogether 562 acres were enclosed mainly along the village street. Observe the 16th/17th century buildings remaining in the village that stand well back from the road; all the land between would have been common land. Some people exchanged small plots for larger ones and vice versa. Some sold their rights and others bought several plots. Altogether 17 plots became freehold passing into private hands.

Mr Max Robinson’s parents were born in Bolton and as children Max and his brother Dent visited Bolton every year in August to stay with family members in the village. Dent has returned every year since, up to the present day at the age of 104. In correspondence with Max he describes how as a lad he watched the sign for the Crown Hotel being painted by an artist who later became famous for painting “The Rower” which made a sensation at the R.A. in 1932. The painter was Lancelot Glasson and the Glasson family owned a brewery in Penrith. Lancelot had lost a leg in the battle of the Somme and he only took up art after the end of the war in which he won the M.C. while serving in the Royal Fusiliers. The New Crown Hotel was a Glasson House.

Max does not remember the sign being painted in situ but is sure it was but says the main work could have been done on the ground and the finishing touches added from the top of the ladder. He can remember very clearly the artist climbing the ladder carrying his Mahl-stick. “the first time I had ever seen one, the use of which I could not comprehend”. Max made several surreptitious journeys to watch the artist at work “my parents were staunch teetotallers they would not have approved had they known”.

Some years later Max was visiting an art gallery and saw a most beautiful picture painted by the same Glasson. It was called “The Rower” and was the study of a nude undressing after an outing on the river. “I don’t suppose my parents would have been particularly enthusiastic about my interest, but it was a most attractive work of art”.

Mr Ellwood was post master at Bolton for over fifty years and he and Mr Glasson senior spent the whole day discussing cricket.

Max’s Aunt Elizabeth Dent remembered the sign being painted by the famous artist Captain Glasson who had an artificial leg. Later the same artist took his easel up the North End and set it up outside what was then Dodd’s Farm and painted a landscape. Miss Dent also remembered the sign being unveiled by the then vicar of Bolton the Reverend Carmichael. Although he was a teetotaller he was a man of very wide interests and no doubt an inn sign painted by an outstanding artist was such an unusual event it appealed to his sense of the historic.

At the beginning of 2016 a new proprietor took over the running of the pub. As far as is known it started life as the Malt Shovel, became the New Crown Hotel, then the Eden Vale Inn and is now the The New Crown Inn