Swinging Sporran / Carlisle Club / Barbarella Club / Legends / Devonshire, Liverpool Road

Swinging Sporran, Liverpool Road, Eccles, 1979. (c) TBC at SalfordOnline.

This Eccles club and pub on Liverpool Road has gone through many names over the years, first opening as the Carlisle Club in 1963. The functional flat roof building had actually been built after the First World War when wood salvaged from an army building was used to build the frontage [1].

 

Barbarella Club, Liverpool Road, 1972. (c) TBC at SalfordOnline.

After a fire in 1966, the club reopened as the Barbarella Club, which itself also burnt down in 1971, leading to claims the site was cursed. Following acquisition by McKewan's Brewery, the rebuilt building, still at No.46 Liverpool Road, became a pub - the Swinging Sporran [1]. 

Former Swinging Sporran, Liverpool Road. (c) Google 2017. View Larger Map.

Opening in May 1976, the Swinging Sporran was described unfavourably as "a licensed amusement arcade" popular with youngsters, and with a pool table vault named the Q Room. The main room had a Scottish theme with tartan kilts and claymores on display [2]. In more recent years the pub was renamed Legends and the Devonshire, before closing and becoming a restaurant.

1. http://salfordonline.com/26126-50-years-ago-carlisle-club-eccles-goes-flames.html.

2. A History of the Pubs of Eccles, Tony Flynn (1983).