History of Burnley's Boot Inn
Published Date: 14 January 2009
TO mark the beginning of the Christmas shopping season a popular event has been held, for a number of years, at the bandstand in St James's Street.
The evening is organised by the Markets and Town Centre Manager. This year it was held in mid-November.
The event drew large crowds, as it usually does, and after I had made my contribution (an interview on Radio Lancashire) I found myself looking around this part of the town centre. It is something I have done so often that it might be thought there is nothing more for me to learn about this part of town.
That evening, however, my attention was drawn to the former Yates's Wine Lodge which has been closed for some time.
The site of Yates's has a long and interesting history and I thought it might be possible to write about it in this column. The building we know today dates from 1911 and was designed as a pub, the Boot Inn, by Blackpool architect H. Thompson, who also designed the White Lion which stands on the other side of Parker Lane. However, the pictures which accompany this article are of the building Mr Thompson had to demolish before he could construct the structure with which we are familiar.
If you look at the two illustrations you will notice one is a close-up of the Boot Inn, whereas the other shows the same building as part of an interesting street scene. In the latter picture the Boot is in the building painted white just off the centre of the photo. It is difficult to date either of the images with precision, particularly the one which shows only the pub, but it is possible to give you estimates.
There are a number of clues in the street scene image. For example, the tall shops directly behind the Boot date from 1876. They were the work of Padiham architect Virgil Anderton and remain one of the most impressive rows of Victorian shops in Burnley. Notice also there are tram lines in St James's Street. They were first constructed in 1880 but the trams were not electrified until 1901 and, as there are no signs of electric cables or the columns which supported them, we know the picture dates from before 1901.
If you look closely you will see the track is reduced to single as it passes through the narrow stretch of St James's Street. In the earlier part of the 19th Century this section of the street took its name from the Prussian general, Blucher, who contributed to Wellington's great victory at Waterloo.
In the foreground, notice the track ceases to be single. The section of St James's Street at the bottom of Manchester Road used to serve as the Market Place and was much wider than the rest of the highway. The building left of centre was famous before it was demolished. The shop was occupied by Bob Munn, who was a chemist and acted as the town's Registrar of Births, Deaths and Marriages. Next door was Richard Webster's first Burnley pawn shop, but that was in Water Street whereas Munn's was in St James's Street.
The shops designed by Anderton postdate the Boot. This can be seen in a number of ways but the tall chimney is clearly one of them. The chimney stack was constructed out of brick, necessary as smoke from the fires at the Boot would have not been able to get away from St James' Street without it.
The image which shows only the Boot confirms that the building, though much altered, pre-dates its use as a pub. It was originally a small farmhouse with stables and a number of such properties were converted into pubs in the late 18th and early 19th Centuries when Burnley centre moved from the St Peter's area to what became St James's Street.
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