Looking Back: 'King Bill' was popular with Burnden Park crowds

Here’s a fascinating photo which will particularly appeal to Wanderers fans and lovers of Bolton’s traditional pubs alike.

We don’t have a date but would think it was taken in the 1950s and shows work continuing on land off Manchester Road at Burnden where a row of houses had been demolished.

Burnden Park, home to the Wanderers, would have been to the left - did the cleared land become a car park on match days?

On the right you can see the King William IV pub. The ‘King Bill’ was a popular pre-match watering hole and was hit hard when the club moved to a new stadium in 1997. The pub, which dated to the 1830s, closed down in 1999.

Source

Well the pub may not be going anymore as it was turned into Menerva Print but the pie shop is still there further down.

I never went into the King Bill, my meet up pub was always The Trotters.

By the time we moved on to the ground the King Bill was packed solid so there was no point in trying for a last minute drink before kick off.

Similarly I never visited the pie shop although I vaguely remember a chippy further along Manchester Road and passed the ground?

I also haven't a clue what was built where the workmen are in the picture?

Isn't this just some 'spare land' and was where the BEN van used to park and print the Buff immediately after the game had finished?

Never went in the King Bill, as Sluffy said, it was always packed on match days. 

We did used to go in the Waggon & Horses a bit further up on a Saturday night occasionally and it was a bit rough to say the least 

Think i went in Churchills on occasion but too many pubs and too many pints so my memory is a bit hazy.

I do remember seeing Nicky Brookman coming out of the King Bill on a matchday many years ago so guess he wasn't in the squad that day 

From the picture that does look like the land in front of what was the club shop.

Norpig wrote:I do remember seeing Nicky Brookman coming out of the King Bill on a matchday many years ago so guess he wasn't in the squad that day 

From the picture that does look like the land in front of what was the club shop.

Looking at the picture it would seem to me that the photographer is looking down on the workmen so I'm guessing he is probably on, or thereabouts to, the embankment Bridge that crosses the 'Manny Road'.

I can't recall now if the Buff van was before or just after the bridge (as you were leaving the ground) - I think it was before wasn't it?

(Did it move perhaps nearer to the town when Normid was built, or had the Buff had its day by then?)

The workmen would be working I imagine where the road entrance to Normid (Big W) was later constructed, so if the Burnden car park extended to the bridge (which it probably did), then I guess the workmen were in the initial stages of 'laying' the whole car parking surface at the front of the ground?

Norpig wrote:I do remember seeing Nicky Brookman coming out of the King Bill on a matchday many years ago so guess he wasn't in the squad that day 

From the picture that does look like the land in front of what was the club shop.

Looking at the picture it would seem to me that the photographer is looking down on the workmen so I'm guessing he is probably on, or thereabouts to, the embankment Bridge that crosses the 'Manny Road'.

I can't recall now if the Buff van was before or just after the bridge (as you were leaving the ground) - I think it was before wasn't it?

(Did it move perhaps nearer to the town when Normid was built, or had the Buff had its day by then?)

The workmen would be working I imagine where the road entrance to Normid (Big W) was later constructed, so if the Burnden car park extended to the bridge (which it probably did), then I guess the workmen were in the initial stages of 'laying' the whole car parking surface at the front of the ground?