History of the King’s Arms before last orders were served in 1961
MANY Ormskirk residents still remember the amazing King’s Arms building which was demolished in 1961 because Higson’s Brewery wanted to build the Yew Tree Pub on Scott Estate.
The Licensing Committee would not allow another licensed establishment and the brewery were offered a large amount of money by a Liverpool based conglomerate for the land the Kings Arms stood on.
Taking the offer, the brewery moved the landlord from the King’s Arms to the new Yew Tree pub.
The building of three single story retail units on the site was not quite the ‘modern shopping centre’ the conglomerate had promoted.
The three new retail units were initially taken by a small clothing outlet, a domestic cleaning service provider and Boots the Chemist.
Boots had originally been at number 9 Church Street, the old Woods Chemist Shop.
Hygienic Cleaners opened in 1962. The business already had shops in Winwick and St Helens.
They were a dry-cleaning company which was an area Ormskirk was well catered for at that time with a new Johnsons the Cleaners store having moved from Moor Street to the corner of Church Street and Burscough Street at around that same time.
Dorothy Perkins had a single unit at first but in the early 70s they extended into the vacant Hygienic unit.
After around 50 years Dorothy Perkins has now closed. Like many businesses across the World between the pandemic and the internet it was a challenging time for the High Street.
There are now some exciting plans to return the unit into licensed premises.
A cocktail bar operating on that site would give an opportunity to acknowledge our lost King’s Arms.
There is a deed of sale that survives concerning the sale of the plot of land behind the King’s Arms and dated 1706.
Hugh Naylor, innkeeper, sold the land and the dwelling on it to Richard Woods.
At that time the inn would have been quite a low thatched roof inn, as were the majority of inns in the town at that time.
A farm came with the deeds to the inn, a large field on St Helens Road was part of the tenancy and in later years, long time landlord James Bryers gave free use of the field to the Ormskirk and District Agricultural Society to hold their very first annual show in August 1857.
John, son of James Bryers, married Elizabeth Holland of Lathom in 1866 and became Farm manager of the St Helens Road farm.
John and his family are remembered on a stone flag inside Ormskirk Parish Church.
James Bryers came to live in Ormskirk in 1826 when he took over the Wheatsheaf Inn, which he ran for four years. He married Elizabeth Fazackerely in 1831 and his father-in-law Thomas Fazackerley of Halsall had operated the King’s Arms for a few years before the Bryers family took over.
James Bryers then raised a large family there and ran it for over 40 years.
It was during this time that the town experienced the huge increase in population due to the influx of young people arriving from Ireland on a permanent basis.
The land to the rear of the
King’s Arms and all along Moor Street became packed with densely populated courts.
Despite competition from a dozen other public houses within a two minute walk of his inn, James Bryers was able to continue to trade successfully throughout the development of the market, when it started to change from livestock to a wider variety of goods.
His inn continued to be a staging point for coaches visiting on market day despite the arrival of the railway in the 1840s.
He was heavily involved in civic matters, being a member of the Local Board of Health and prior to becoming a landlord he was a surveyor of the highways and his experience meant he was involved in the development of the towns’ infrastructure.
James Bryers died in July 1871 aged 76 at the King’s Arms, his widow Elizabeth died in 1880 aged 81, their grave is in the Parish Churchyard.
Part two of the story of the historic Ormskirk King’s Arms will continue in next week’s Advertiser.