Fountain Head, Wheathill Street

Fountain Head, Wheathill Street, Salford, 1972. (c) Helen L Thickett at Memories of Pubs of Manchester Facebook [1].

The Fountain Head at No.11 Wheathill Street off Broughton Road can be traced back to at least 1848 as a beerhouse.  By the 1890s, Groves & Whitnall owned it and the house next door, and although the front gardens were lost in the early 1900s as the Wheathill dyeworks expanded, the boozer lasted until 1972.  Under Frederick and Joyce Thickett (the latter pictured above with her daughters [1]), the Fountain Head was included in the 1971 Trinity clearance area [2].
 

Fountain Head, Wheathill Street ('30'). (c) Neil Richardson [2].

A petition to the council to save the pub described how the Fountain Head was the social centre of the new Trinity estate, and that the older and infirm residents would have nowhere to go.  While the neighbouring Broughton Tavern ('12' on the map above and highlighted on the map below [3]) was saved, the Salford City Engineer decided that the Fountain Head would have to go.  The reason given was that it would "materially diminish the effectiveness of the proposed open space" [2], and the Fountain Head was sadly demolished in 1972.


(c) Fountain Head, Wheathill Street. (c) Salford Pubs of the 70s at flickr [3].

1. www.facebook.com/groups/260111990702604.

2. Salford Pubs Part One: The Old Town, including Chapel Street, Greengate and the Adelphi. Neil Richardson (2003).
3. www.flickr.com/photos/61756486@N05.