6 days Ago
This week’s pub is a 'Bolton institution', having been on site since the 1700s. The Hen & Chickens has been under the management of Paul Kirkman, 58, since 2017, who previously ran The Albion on Moor Lane for 12 years. We spoke to Mr Kirkman and asked him all about the pub.
Tell us about the pub It’s been here since the 1700s. This is a proper old boozer, it’s an original, old-fashioned boozer. We do live music on weekends, everything from soul music to Irish music to rock bands, punk nights.
The pub's beer garden (Image: NQ) We’ve got the best beer garden in town, nobody ever sees this beer garden, nobody knows it’s here. There are only a few beer gardens in the town centre so it's good to have one. How regularly do you update your cask selection? During the winter months we have three, in the summer months we have four casks, then one cider that changes every other day, it’s not the same beer all the time.
(Image: NQ) Their selection includes: Black Sheep Lancaster Blonde Brakspear Guinness Prahva (Image: NQ) Do you do food? We do pies. What drew you to this pub after running The Albion for 12 years? They shut the bus station so overnight The Albion just went, it went. Luckily, I had this come up the year before I left, so the customers from there came here, so I already had a base, it was alright.
But things change, don’t they? Things have gone quieter, pubs are shutting, this does alright though, we’ve got a good variety of ages coming in. (Image: NQ) Weekends we get a lot of younger ones, over 25s. We get a lot of people coming from Albert Hall's round the corner.
Any upcoming events? We have music on Fridays and Sunday evenings, normally 5.30pm to 7pm and monthly punk on a Saturday night. After the music, we have Karaoke.
Second Saturday of every month we have a band on from 9pm onwards, this week we’ve got Red House on, they’re from Stockport. The Hen and Chickens also has a digital jukebox, pool table, a weekly quiz, and karaoke nights..
