Last orders
Reporter: DAWN MARSDEN
Date published: 24 January 2011
Pub to close after 150 years
TIME gentlemen please... it’s last orders at Owd Kitts, one of Oldham’s oldest pubs which is closing after 150 years.
Licensees Dave and Carole Marsland will serve their last pint on January 31 after two years at the helm.
The couple will host a party at the Glodwick Road pub for regulars, staff and former licensees on Friday.
They are then moving to Stalybridge to take over the reins at popular pub The Church.
Carole said: “It’s the end of an era. The pub company, Admiral Taverns, decided to sell up, so Owd Kitts won’t be a pub any more. I’m not sure who’s bought it, but there’s talk locally that it’s going to be a shop.
“We’ve made some great friends while we’ve been here and it will be sad to say goodbye to everyone. We have had a lot of loyal customers who will miss their local pub.”
Owd Kitts at Glodwick was opened in 1861 by Henry Hunt Patterson.
The beerhouse was named the Park Inn as work began on Alexandra Park, and Henry’s wife, Ann, took over the day-to-day running of the pub.
Originally three cottages, the pub was altered in 1884 when road improvement works took place.
Oldham Brewery took control of the pub in 1895 and a wine licence was granted three years later.
The Park Inn was granted a full licence in 1961, almost a century after it was licensed as a beerhouse.
In 1982, Oldham Brewery was taken over by Boddingtons, and William Sloan became licensee at the Park Inn. His first act was to change the name to Owd Kitts.
The pub was one of several affected during the Oldham riots of 2001 when groups of Asian males fought police on the street, and threw bricks and petrol bombs. It was refurbished soon afterwards.
Regulars used to join forces with other pubs in the area for the annual Glodwick Lows beer walk, which saw participants don their finest fancy dress to raise money for charity.
Admiral Taverns, one of the UK’s largest independent tenanted and leased pub companies, is selling nearly 90 pubs in the North-West, including the Dog and Duck in Oldham town centre.
