Sunday, 28 April 2013

Golden Quoit / Bee Hive / Crystal Palace, Watkin Street

Former location of the Golden Quoit, Watkin Street, Salford. (c) Google 2013. View Larger Map.

The Bee Hive beerhouse is first recorded in 1843 on the corner of St Simon Street (formerly Sandon Street) and Watkin Street, streets which still exist off Blackfriars Road near Broughton Bridge.  In the case of Watkin Street though, only a couple of yards of it remain.  By the 1870s, the Bee Hive had become the Crystal Palace, and when William Whittaker, a champion quoits player took over, he renamed the beerhouse the Golden Quoit.  It was a wedge-shaped boozer with the vault at the thin end with the parlour or newsroom on the St Simon Street side.  Hardy's Crown Brewery took over the beerhouse in the early 1900s and in 1939 they modernised the Golden Quoit inside and out [1].  The beerhouse passed to Cornbrook Brewery and lasted until about 1970 having stood on its own for a few years after the surrounding houses had been demolished.

1. Salford Pubs Part One: The Old Town, including Chapel Street, Greengate and the Adelphi (2003).

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