Queens Arms (Little Queens), Regent Road

Queens Arms, Regent Road, Salford, 1962. (c) Arthur Brougham with family's permission.

The Queens Arms, or the 'Little Queens', nicknamed to avoid confusion with the other Queens Arms (the Big Queens) on Regent Road, stood next door to the Bridge Hotel.  It can be traced back to 1848 and later that century it belonged to Chesters Brewery.  They acquired two cottages to the rear of the beerhouse with an eye on expansion, but one of them nearly cost the Queens Arms its licence in 1892.  Police mistook its rare telephone line to Manchester as evidence of a betting shop, when in fact it was just the licensee's way of keeping in contact with her businessman husband in town.  

The Queens Arms avoided WWII bombs which fell on Regent Road and Wilburn Street in 1940 (the beerhouse was 5 doors along from Wilburn Street).  Chesters wanted to extend the Queens Arms over the bombed-out shops next door to the Little Queens but the 1962 Regent Road widening scheme prevented this.  Instead, a new Queens Arms was built on the site and the original was demolished.  This estate-style pub changed name to the Sportsmans Tavern in 1985 but closed in 1990 [1].  The Campanile Hotel stands on the location of the old Queens Arms and its replacement estate pub.  The Queens Arms is pictured above here thanks to the late Arthur Brougham.

Former location of Queens Arms, Regent Road. (c) Google 2014. View Larger Map.

1. Salford Pubs Part Two: Including Islington, Ordsall Lane and Ordsall, Oldfield Road, Regent Road and Broughton, Neil Richardson (2003).