Looking Back: Road dug up in front of 'lost' Bolton pub, the Commercial

One of Bolton’s much-missed town centre pubs, the Commercial Hotel, features in this photograph from 1961.

It shows the road being dug up on the corner of Victoria Square which at that time was open to traffic. In the background is the former Bolton Evening News building on Mealhouse Lane.

Crompton Place shopping centre now stands on the right with Marks and Spencer down on the left

Source

My cousin held her wedding reception at the Commercial.

It was a typical wedding for those days, all the women and children were left in the function room on the first floor after the wedding meal had finished and all the men (even the groom!) went down stairs to the bar below for a pint (and mostly stayed down there thereafter!).

Happy days!