Described as a dinner time, factory workers type boozer in the 1970s, the Old Shears offered hand-pulled Wilsons plus Carlsberg and Watneys Red for the less discerning drinker [1]. The Old Shears on Greengate, just over the River Irwell into the neighbouring city, can be traced back to about 1760. The pub was also named the Rising Sun (1805-1809) and the Iron Bridge Tavern (1824). Wilsons Brewery took the Old Shears in the 1940s and it thrived until the late 1970s when the nearby bus stations at Chapel Street and under the Greengate arches closed, and the new Trinity Way ring road cut Greengate in half. The pub shut for good in 1987 and was derelict and roofless until its demolition in 1993 [2]. Its location was on Greengate just at the end of New Bridge Street where the car park is now. Back in the mid 1800s it would have faced the old Green Gate fruit & veg market here at Salford Cross / Market Cross [3].
Former location of Old Shears, Greengate, Salford. (c) googlemaps.
Stu Forster remembers "...whilst frequenting Manchester in the early-mid-'80s this pub became an institution. When the Hacienda closed its doors at 2am, we would knock landlord Barry Johnson up out of bed and sup beer, play pool and pump the jukebox till daylight. We would often return on Sunday afternoons when other boozers locked their doors at 2pm, again supping beer till the pubs in town opened again at 7pm. I remember jumping in a cab at about 9am one Saturday morning and saying 'take me to the Old Shears in Greengate'. The cabbie replied 'do you like antique beer?'. Great days [4]".
1. The Manchester Pub Guide, Manchester & Salford Pub City Centres (1975).
2. Salford Pubs - Part One: The Old Town, including Chapel Street, Greenate and the Adelphi, Neil Richardson (2003).
3. Manchester Victoria 1849, Alan Godfrey Maps (2009).
4. www.flickr.com/photos/deltrems/2671236402/.
My great grandad has this pub in the 1920s! And my great grandma after he died.
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