A LONG gone pub called The Silver Vat closed in 1927, explains reader John Ryan.

He responded to a request from an elderly reader to find out more about the pub as she had found a postcard showing the building in Deansgate with her grandmother standing outside.

John tells us the pub was situated where the Nationwide Building Society is today.

The first pub on the site was the Horse Shoe, he says and later the Four Horse Shoes which opened as long ago as the 18th century.

At some stage it became the Lions Paw, owned by the Manchester Brewery Company and they rebuilt the pub in 1907 “about the time the photo in the article appears, and named it the Silver Vat”.

It was knocked down for an extension in mirror style to Parrs Bank which later became the Natwest, he says.

“It certainly is a substantial building and the lady who sent the card is lucky to have such a good representation of it in her postcard.

“It appears to be well documented suggesting how popular it was, despite it being gone for 90 years,” he says. He mentions Gordon Readyhough’s book — Gordon, at one time, worked at The Bolton Evening News in the library — which he says is widely available.

The book contains has information about the Silver Vat and other long lost Bolton pubs.

”I wonder how many people realise how Bolton was, relatively recently,” he says.