MY fascination with the Bolton Curling Club produced a telephone call from local historian Denis O'Connor..

December 8, 1904, saw the 40th annual dinner of the Bolton branch of the Royal Caledonian Curling Club and more than 70 people turned up at the Swan Hotel - suggesting that winters usually provided enough frost to maintain this activity locally.

I asked recently if any readers had inherited any photographs showing curlers doing their stuff at Doffcocker Lodge or other stretches of water.

Pictures have not materialised yet, but Denis has drawn my attention to a short item which appeared in the Bolton Evening News on August 6, 1898.

It read: "The Committee and members of the Bolton Curling Club have resolved to form a concrete rink adjoining their pond at Lady Bridge, which will enable the curlers to play their favourite game after one night's frost.

"The undertaking is estimated to cost a sum approaching £300, one half of which has already been subscribed by the Committee and a few members.

"The ceremony of cutting the first sod was performed on Thursday, by the hon sec, Mr B. Hannan.

"The rink is being constructed by Mr John Dickinson and Mr M. W. Tong is acting as surveyor."

Denis tells me that in the 1950s and 1960s he used to see a concrete structure on his right - now built over - as his train pulled out of Lostock Junction Station.

It was featured on a mid-1930s Ordnance Survey map.

Does anybody know anything else about the days when curlers thrived in Bolton?