Appley Bridge - Appley Bridge Inn

Name: The Appley Bridge Inn

Address: Appley Lane North, Appley Bridge

The Appley Bridge Inn was one of the village's earliest pubs and the original building, located on the right side of Appley Lane North (walking from the bridge) is no longer immediately obvious today but appeared in local records as early as 1835 when William Ranicar was the landlord.

At some stage later in the 1800s the Inn moved to a new building, built on the opposite side of the road by the brewery, which was later to become known as the Railway Hotel in the 1900s. This can be seen further down the page on the 1892 map.

1845 Map

1835 Poll Books

Listed landlords at the Inn were William Ranicar (1835-41), James Sephton (1841), James Ranicar (1851-61), Mary Ranicar (1871), Richard Catterall (1881-83), Hugh Morris (1889-91), Thomas Halliwell (1894), Henry Butler (1895-01), John Wren (1911) and Charles Molyneux Parkes (-1944)..

1841 Census

1851 Census

Burial of James Ranicar 1859 @ St Wilfrid's

1861 Census

1869 Preston Quarter Session Records and Petitions Mary Ranicar

1871 Census

Wigan Observer and District Advertiser 05 July 1873

1881 Census Mary Ranicar

Appley Bridge Inn c.1900 (left)

1881 Census

Chorley Standard and District Advertiser 01 September 1883

Back yard of the Railway 1960s

Wigan Observer and District Advertiser 16 April 1884

Wigan Observer and District Advertiser 22 November 1889

1891 Census

Wigan Observer and District Advertiser 25 November 1891

Appley Lane North looking towards the bridge - the horse and cart pictured
on the right were outside the Railway Hotel

1892 Map

Wigan Observer and District Advertiser 29 June 1894

1895 Directory

The following excerpt is taken from The Memories of Mildred Yates (February 12, 1999): -
....I remember the older people used to call Mill Lane “thowd cart road”. As you enter Mill Lane from Appley Lane there are two houses which stand back and have gardens running down to the road. Facing them is a newly built house on the tight hand side and then a row of six cottages called Glovers Row. When electricity came to Appley Bridge in the 1930’s a sub-station was built opposite them. Further along on the left is another row of houses known as Butler’s Houses. Mr. ButlerSenior was landlord of the Railway Hotel and he had six daughters; he built a house for each of them at the beginning of the 1900’s. By 1911 he had built two more houses next to them, one of which was for his son, my Uncle Harry, who married my mother’s sister, my Auntie Maggie. 

1901 Census

Wigan Observer and District Advertiser 16 September 1905

1907 Map

Draymen making a delivery to the Railway Hotel c.1930s

1911 Census

Following comments below I have completed some checks and confirmed that in 1944 Charles Molyneux Parkes was living at the Railway Hotel when he died, almost certainly as the landlord, as it is shown as his permanent abode on the burial record below.

Burial 1944

Probate Record 1944

Elizabeth Jane Stanley was born in Liverpool in 1908 and was one of seven children by George and Annie Stanley. Her younger sister Julia Judy Stanley married Alfred Lennon in 1938 and on 9th October 1940 she gave birth to John Winston Lennon. Julia died at the tender age of 44 years and as we all know, John Lennon was shot dead in 1980 at just 40 years of age.

The site of the Railway is pictured above and below, now demolished and serving as a car park for a local business.