Stowell Spire, Howard Street, Weaste, 1993. By Stanley Horrocks, with kind permission and (c) Rose Horrocks.
The Stowell Spire was a modern estate pub that opened in 1988 after Banks's Brewery gave up the Druids Home estate pub on Silk Street (which itself was a replace for an original Druids Home), in return for this land on the corner of Eccles New Road and Howard Street [1].
Though I was never lucky enough to have a pint in here, I did go in to use the gents toilet during a days' work logging car tax dodgers in the summer of 1998. It must have been early afternoon on a week day but I remember being glared at - can't remember if it was staff, customers or both.
The Stowell Spire only lasted 13 years before closing in 2001, but the following year a Pub Co reopened it and it lasted a while longer until its demolition. In 2012 the old Banks's sign was still poking through the trees.
Stowell Spire, Howard Street, July 2012. (c) Google 2013. View Larger Map.
Houses have gone up either side but the Banks's sign has been retained, a strange little reminder of a fleeting new estate pub, built to replace an older estate pub that had replaced an original...
Stowell Spire, Howard Street, 2016. (c) Google 2016.
1. Salford Pubs Part Three: Including Cross Lane, Broad Street, Hanky Park, the Height, Brindleheath, Charlestown and Weaste, Neil Richardson (2003).