END OF AN ERA AS A BELOVED FORMER BOOZER IS TO FINALLY MEET THE WRECKING BALL

Despite a 'Save Our Wooly' campaign to bring it back to life as a community hub/pub back in 2013 and only as recently as a few years back Coffee4Craig securing a 25-year lease to use the building, time has ran out for a much loved part of the Pendleton community as soon the Woolpack last orders will be called as it faces demolition.

Former successful publican Carole Moore and her sister Gene Houghton fought tooth and nail to try and save the pub so it could be brought back to life as a part of the community once more, sadly that was not to be, it was not without trying though.

The local boozer built in the 70's was once part of a once thriving local community, the area saw its issues with crime and antisocial behaviour over the years as did too many others, but the locals loved the place, the elderly patrons felt safe and the younger folks who frequented always treated it with respect, it was always busy up until the day of its closure.

In an area that once boasted pubs on every corner it was soon to find itself as one of the last true community pubs standing, as over the years those around it were torn down as the area was developed.

Once described as the best pub in Salford it had a unique atmosphere to it, and it many said that the last grasps of a long gone true sense of Salford local community went with it as its doors closed for the last time.

Opened just in time for Christmas on the 22nd of December 1970 the Wilsons Breweries drinking house was ran by John Shortman who had ran the Wheatsheaf on Broad Street before moving to the Wooly after it too closed its doors in the 70's. 

The building itself was actually prefabricated and built further down the A580 in St Helens, it was then transported piece by piece by truck and constructed in situ where it stands today.

Sadly the landlord retired in the summer of 2008 and not long after the pub was put on the market for £175,000, leaving a community broken hearted and longing for the good old days.

Salford Council bought the pub and the land around it back in 2011 as part of its twenty year plan for Pendleton which was to see over £650m pumped into regenerating the local area, there were plans to save it and talk of it becoming a community hub and even at one point Salford University’s Centre for the Built Environment students showed off redesigns for the building - but sadly despite assurances by former MP Hazel Blears, it was just not to be.

Speaking at the time, Blears, who was then MP for Salford and Eccles, said:

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"This is an exciting venture. We are holding a meeting to pitch to the contractors the plans for The Woolpack. 

"We have got to make sure there are social facilities in the area. Definitely there should be a pub in that area owned by the community." 

 

That was about as far as that plan went.

As time went by the pub remained closed, neglected and in an every increasing state of disrepair, however, their was a brief moment in which the building looked like it was going to be brought back to life as a homeless shelter renamed as 'The Meanwhile' as part of the Coffee4Craig project which had managed to secure a 25-year lease from the Council to take it over. 

The plan being to turn the derelict building and the land around it into a community hub growing fruit and veg for local families who were struggling. A provisional deal was signed which was to allow the group to seek funding and come up with a plan for its use but sadly the building was in such a state that the only real option was to demolish and replace it with whatever comes next.

Legendary Happy Mondays front-man 'Bez' was also linked to the pub after his team of guerrilla gardeners planted 30 apples trees which he had grown in his own back garden, sadly that ship also sailed and the poor Wooly was left standing alone, left to decline and rot from within. 

A look at council documents reveal its fate is sealed as yet another of Salfords former fine drinking establishments looks like it is destined to be reduced to rubble in the name of 'progress and development'.

For the proud pub patrons of Pendleton, all they have now are photographs & memories, it truly is an end of an era.

Article with help from Tony Flynn