John Bull hopes to reopen for family’s 50th anniversary as pub is cleared ahead of restoration
There was a different sort of gathering at the John Bull this week. No pints, no rock music and, for the time being at least, no famously slow jukebox.
Instead, a gang of people got together to begin clearing the furniture out of the fire-damaged pub, ready for it to be put safely into storage while the long job of restoring one of Wigan’s best-loved boozers gets underway. And what’s happening in Wigan can now reveal when the Bull could finally be back.
Landlord Pete says they have been told not to expect the John Bull to reopen before Easter next year at the earliest. But there is one date the family would dearly love to beat: March 2027. Because that month will mark 50 years since Victoria’s dad, Harold, took on the John Bull. The pub has remained in the family ever since. For Pete, Victoria and the team, getting the pub reopened by March would therefore mean considerably more than simply getting back behind the bar. It would mean reopening in time to mark half a century of their family’s life at the John Bull.
Harold and Margaret took on the pub in 1977, with their daughter Victoria later continuing what they started alongside Pete. Generations of Wiganers have passed through its doors during those five decades. There have been countless pints, bands, friendships, romances, lock-ins, questionable song choices and nights which have become part of local folklore. Now, after the devastating fire on August 4, the family is facing perhaps the biggest challenge the John Bull has seen during their time there.
But on Monday 24 August, almost three weeks on, there were visible signs that the next chapter has begun. A group got together at the pub today to help remove its furniture so it can be taken away and put into storage.
It might not be the most glamorous milestone in the John Bull’s recovery, but it’s an important one. Clearing the building means the work required to restore the fire-damaged Grade II-listed pub can move forward.
And this isn’t a building where you can simply rip everything out and start again. The John Bull is Grade II listed and is one of the few surviving examples of 18th-century courtyard development in Wigan town centre. Thwaites, which owns the building, made clear in the immediate aftermath of the fire that it intends to restore the John Bull to its former glory. Exactly how long that takes remains to be seen. For now, Easter is the timeframe Pete has been given, but March is the dream.
Meanwhile, another much-loved piece of the John Bull is already being looked after.
Following the fire, Sound Leisure, the company in Leeds which originally built the Bull’s famous jukebox, was inundated with emails from people asking if the machine could be saved. The company listened. Last week its team travelled to Wigan, collected the fire-damaged jukebox and took it back to the factory where it was originally made. Sound Leisure has now offered to repair and restore the machine completely free of charge.
Anyone familiar with the John Bull will understand why people went to the trouble of contacting them. The jukebox isn’t just something sitting in the corner taking coins; it’s part of the Bull and has provided the soundtrack to generations of nights out. Sound Leisure has been manufacturing jukeboxes in Yorkshire since 1978 and specialises in restoring old machines, including those which have suffered fire and water damage. So, decades after they first made it, the Bull’s jukebox is back in the hands of the people who know how to put it right.
As Mike Norris brilliantly put it when we previously asked people what they wanted from the restored John Bull: “I honestly don’t care as long as I can go to the bar order a pint and put a song on the juke box which will play 3 hours later.”
Thankfully, it looks increasingly likely he’ll get his wish. Eventually.
Once repaired, the jukebox will make the journey home to Wigan, ready to reclaim its place when the John Bull finally reopens.
So, at the moment, various bits of the John Bull are scattered around for safekeeping. The furniture is heading into storage, Handbag, the famous fez wearing antelope is having an extended holiday at Grant’s Bulldog Forge, the jukebox is in Leeds being repaired, and the building itself is preparing for a major restoration.
There are no guarantees that the work will be completed by March. Pete says Easter is currently the more realistic timeframe they’ve been given. But they’re hoping, and after everything that’s happened since August 4, you’d struggle to find many people in Wigan who aren’t hoping with them.
This week, people turned up to shift furniture. Elsewhere, people have raised money, bought T-shirts, organised gigs and offered their skills. In Leeds, the people who originally built the John Bull’s jukebox are working to make sure that when the doors finally reopen, one of the Bull’s most important sounds can return with it.
Piece by piece, the John Bull is being put back together. And if everything goes their way, perhaps next March we’ll be telling a very different story from Coopers Row.
