Name: The Parker's Arms
Address: 120, Park Road, Chorley
The Parker's Arms was named after one of Chorley's most influential families, the Towneley-Parkers who lived at Astley Hall in the early 1800's and it may be that they owned the pub and their family arms were displayed outside, as was traditional (likewise the Towneley Arms just down Preston Road). The Parker's Arms was opened in 1822 but first recorded on the 1841 Census and remains open to this day.
Listed landlords/tenants included Thomas Withnell (1839-41), Henry Hitchen (1848-1851), Mr. Nightingale (1853), Jane Miller (1861-76), Charles Mould (1879-81), James Mould (1882), Elijah Smith (1889-91), John Broughton (1901-11), George Holland (1920-24), Alex W Birnie (1936) and Roy & Pam Wheeldon (1982-1997).
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| Lancashire Evening Post 02 September 1924 |
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| Parker's Arms 2011 |
In 2011 the Parker's underwent a refurbishment as pictured below.
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| Parker's Arms 2020 - closed with future unclear |
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| ...a year on in 2021 and things remains much the same |
I passed by today. June 25 2021. A faded notice on the door, dated from 2019, states that a demolition application has beem made to Chorley Council. The concil has recorded on it's website that the application (lodged by DFAAA Fires Ltd) was validated in February 2020. Looks like the pandemic delayed matters. This 200 year old premises is to be pulled down and is being reclaimed by nature somewhat. Personally I think developers could be more imaginitive with it and try preserving a bit of town heritage somehow.
ReplyDeleteReading the comment, that the pub is to be knocked down - Comes as no surprise, because many old pubs / halls and aged historic buildings of Chorley's yesteryears, have gone the way of the demolition firms, employed to rid Chorley and surrounding areas of its local history, that we will never see again !
ReplyDeleteFor myself, the Parkers Arms brings back mixed memories from the late 1970s when I moved into the pub when I was 11, because my parents were Landlords of this quiet old pub - which at the time had the Landlady doing her ironing behind the bar, although shortly after moving in - my parents had the whole pub gutted, painted and furnished to modern standards to make the building all new again and they turned a quiet pub into a lively exciting place to go to ! Anyway, living in the pub from the start didn't have the welcoming feeling I had expected, because unknown to me the pub soon showed its secrets, meaning this pub was 'extremely haunted'. The ghosts started in the celler and moved up to every floor and the ground floor bar area - especially the pool room, where frequently, in the middle of the night a horrendous sound of pool cuss being thrown onto the wooden floor - only to be investigated and to see all the pool cues up on the stands ( it turned out my dad had frequently gone downstairs to check out this noise happening - only to find nothing and then got used to it just happening ) - I actually experienced this, when I was down stairs on a Sunday afternoon to practice the piano ( I hated it ) in a little room called a snug, which was directly next to the pool room. I was quite un-happily playing piano - though obviously not very well, because all of a sudden - all hell let loose and the sound of six pool cues being dropped hard onto the floorboards caused me to instantly jump out of my skin & next - run out to check out the noise, only to see the room empty ( I suggest you get a pool / snooker cue and drop it onto some hard floorboards and you will get the idea of what the noise sounded like ) with all cues nicely up where they should be ( How did they do that ? ). I very quickly decided I didn't want to be there and legged it upstairs to tell my mum / dad about the noise - of which they said " I was imagining it " - I never went down again to play piano on my own. The pub had many ghostly visitors including one that frequently used to walk on the 3rd floor over my room below ( if you drive towards the pub, then my room was the 2nd floor room on the left ) where I was subjected to lying in bed with something walking with a limp ( YES A LIMP ) going from one end of the ceiling to the other and back again, ' but with a limp'. That was NOT fun and once again was heavily denied by my parents, of which I found to be annoying at best ! There were many more experiences had by my parents as well as myself - but it wasn't until we left the pub, that they admitted everything was true ! So, the memories I have for the pub are very much mixed, but it is a shame to think all of the pub and it's lives entwined in the Parkers aged memories, are to disappear and that is sad. If all that had happened today - in a time where ghost experiences are wanted, perhaps the pub would be more known & wanted today ! I had many more ghostly experiences in the Parkers Arms, but I will leave them for another writing experience - possibly !