As evidenced by the "New Kings Head Yard" street title on googlemaps, this short road off Chapel Street used to have the Kings Head on the corner for several hundred years. The pub can be traced back to 1664 by which time it was well established. Before the advent of the railway, Kings Head Yard was the largest inn yard in Salford and the room above its stable block was used as a school by Sacred Trinity Church, as seen on the map from 1849, below. In the 1850s and '60s the pub was renamed slightly to the Old Kings Head but by this time the pub had become less popular and was up for sale in 1867. The pub was described as "very commodious" and "well adapted for doing a large and profitable business" [1].
Kings Head, Chapel Street. (c) Alan Godfrey Maps [2].
In an article in the Salford Weekly News, the Kings Head Yard was referred to as a place where horse dealing took place and the same article stated "...that ancient institution, the British Tavern, has stuck its roots so deep... that nothing short of an earthquake, a miracle, a railway, or an act of Parliament can possibly annihilate it." It was the latter two which finished off the Kings Head when it was bought by the London & North Western Railway during the planning of Exchange Station. Most of Kings Head Yard was lost to the railway but not after the pub survived a few years under Groves & Whitnall. The brewery eventually transferred its licence to the Salisbury Hotel down at the docks and the pub building actually survived for a further forty years as a lodging house [1].
1. Salford Pubs - Part One: The Old Town, including Chapel Street, Greengate and the Adelphi, Neil Richardson (2003).
2. Manchester Victoria 1849, Alan Godfrey Maps (2009).
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