Friday 2 September 2016

Black Cock, Harwood





The Four Lane Ends area of Harwood where the Black Cock stood for over 30 years.

The Black Cock was situated at Four Lane Ends, Longsight, Harwood at the junction with Brookfold Lane, Hardy Mill Road and Ruins Lane.

The pub was established in the middle of the 19th-century by John Greenhalgh and it was run by the family for almost all of its existence. 


John Greenhalgh was already noted as the licensee of a beerhouse according to the 1853 Bolton Directory, but this is not believed to be the Black Cock. In his diary Samuel Scowcroft notes that on 6 October 1860 that Mr Greenhalgh had opened a ‘jerry shop’ at premises named the Black Cock. A ‘jerry shop’ was a name for a low-grade beerhouse. [1]


John Greenhalgh – ‘Black Jack’ to natives of Harwood – died in 1881. The Black Cock continued until 1894 when its licence was revoked. At the Brewster session hearing in September 1894 the police objected to the renewal of the licensee, Patrick Riley, claiming he was not a person of good character. Furthermore, the house had been run in a disorderly manner and that the licensee had twice been charged with permitting drunkenness and gaming on the premises. [2]


The Black Cock closed shortly afterwards.


[1] The Scowcroft diaries. Transcribed by AW Critchley for British Isles Family History Of Greater Ottawa.


[2] Manchester Courier, Saturday 29 September 1894.






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