Longridge - Swarbrick's Arms

Name: Swarbrick's Arms

Address: 17, Market Place, Longridge

c.2021

The Swarbick's Arms is a wonderful old building that stands alongside the Dog Inn on Market Place at the top of Berry Lane. Whilst once a pub the premises ceased to be a public house many years ago but has continued to play an important role in the town community to this day, as the following excerpt from the Longridge Heritage Trails attests...

Just beyond the junction, the road widens slightly as you enter Market Place. Across the road on the left is The Palace (now a theatre and cinema). Thought to have been a handloom-weaving warehouse established in the early 1800s, it has also been a roller skating rink and a bingo hall. The stone carving of a horse, above one of the doorways, was once the pub sign of the Grey Horse in New Town. The last property on the right before the Dog Inn is a building with a varied past. It has been a pub (Swarbrick Arms), hotel, dairy, dentists, and grocers shop (B.C.H Stores). Cellars behind the shop were used as an Air Raid Warden’s Post during World War Two. The gable end of the building is much older than the frontage, with evidence that the roof has been raised considerably.

Today (2021) it is the home of Keri Michell's Nails & Beauty but has also recently been Audrey's Haberdashery.

Listed occupants/landlords at the Swarbrick's Arms were Caroline Swarbrick (1841-45), Richard Swarbrick (1845-58), Ellen Wilkinson (1858-71), Caroline Wilkinson (1881), Isaac Wilkinson (1888-91) and Joseph Fletcher (1901).

1841 Census Caroline Swarbrick

The property was the home of the Swarbrick family and I imagine their coat of arms was originally displayed at the inn but an early census record from 1851 confirms the house was then known as "Billingtons", one of a row of houses known as Billington's Houses leading to Market Place.

Richard Swarbrick and his wife Caroline Swarbrick nee Parkinson ran the Inn in the early 1800s and following Caroline's death in 1845 Richard remarried Margaret Rhodes (1847) at Preston Register Office and by 1851 they are recorded as living at the property. He was not recorded on the 1841 census in Longridge but census records confirm he was staying at the Joiner's Arms on Duke Street in Settle, his occupation recorded as a butcher.

1851 Census Richard Swarbrick

The original family business was that of butchery although on the 1861 census we first saw the premises referred to as a beer house when Ellen Wilkinson was the landlord. 

Marriage and birth records confirm that Ellen was a Swarbrick by birth and married William Wilkinson on 17 Oct 1833 at St Wilfred's, Ribchester. She was the eldest daughter of Richard and Caroline Swarbrick and witness to the marriage was a Thomas Billington confirming the two families' links.

Baptism: 26 Mar 1837 St Alban, Blackburn, Lancashire, England

Carolina Wilkinson - [Child] of William Wilkinson & Ellen (formerly Swarbrick)

    Born: 23 Mar 1837

    Godparents: John Swarbrick; Ann Eatock

    Baptised by: Revd. J. Sharples

1833 Marriage of Ellen and William

Ellen and William took over the running of the White Bull in Alston soon after getting married. William died young and by 1851 Ellen was running the Inn on her own and presumably returned to the Swarbrick's Arms in the early 1850s to be closer to her family, who remained living the Market Place area.

White Bull Alston

1854 Directory

It's interesting to note that Ellen was recorded as a Swarbrick on the directory above rather than Wilkinson, probably an assumption made by the author, as by that time father and daughter were running the businesses together.

1861 Census Ellen Wilkinson

1871 Census Ellen Wilkinson

Ellen died in 1872 in Alston and following her death the Inn was then run by both her daughter Caroline and son Isaac in succession.

1881 Caroline Wilkinson

1891 Census Isaac Wilkinson

In the 1890s the property was sold to a local builder Joseph Fletcher and the Swarbrick family's tenure at the property finally seems to have been brought to a conclusion.

1901 Census Joseph Fletcher

1911 Census - Joseph Fletcher

Longridge – Palace Cinema

Situated in Market Place, this building was constructed in the 1860s, starting life as a weaving shed. The premises have been a roller-skating rink, music hall and cinema. It is now one of the oldest surviving private owned cinemas in the North West of England. When the building was initially adapted from part of a handloom workshop, a fine maple floor was fitted, making it suitable for roller-skating. By 1912 impresario, film-maker and distributor of silent movies Will Onda, was the owner and the Palace opened as a Music Hall, with Shakespeare plays also being presented. The same gentleman introduced the first cinema in Preston’s Temperance Hall in 1908.

Films at the Palace were originally shown as short features, within a variety program with new owner Joseph Fletcher establishing the music hall/cinema just before WW1. He was a local builder/entrepreneur and farmer, who was also the landlord of the one-time Swarbrick Arms, further along Market Place on the other side of the road. The stone feature of a horse on the front of the Palace was brought by Mr. Fletcher from the Grey Horse public house in Newtown.

Joseph Fletcher died in 1922, and the running of the establishment was taken over initially by his sons, but later by his daughter-in-law. The family also owner No. 28, the cottage next door, which they rented out, and this became part of the cinema complex, enabling people to sit and have a drink. In a room to the rear of the stage there was a gas engine generator to provide electricity for powering the projector before electricity was installed. Land at the back of the cinema, also owned by the Fletchers, was later used as a car park.