Salford Pub Signs – The Black Friar

THE BLACK FRIAR *****

Many pub signs are quite literal. A pub called The Dog & Duck usually has a sign with a dog and a duck on it. Some pub signs do not however, have the obvious origins you might assume. This one, on Blackfriars Street, in Salford, is a case in point.

It’s easy to take a pub name and the image in its sign too literally. Despite the monastic figure suggesting a connection to the nearby Manchester Cathedral, just across the border between the two cities, the pub is actually named after an innovative theatre troupe who had a theatre on or very close to the pub’s location in the 1760’s. The theatre, as the pub, was situated close to the River Irwell, but there was no nearby bridge allowing access from the Salford side of the twin cities of Manchester & Salford. Patrons heading for the theatre had to go to the Salford or Victoria bridges to get across. Trade was lost as many were unwilling to make the journey.

The actors and their managers, many of them associated with London’s Blackfriar Theatre, decided to build their own bridge, which served its purpose from 1761 to 1820 when it was replaced by the modern bridge at Blackfriars. This was a toll bridge until 1848 when it had finally paid for its own construction.

The artist who created this sign may well have not known the pub’s true history, or the owners may have thought that depicting actors building a bridge was a little difficult to capture in the art work – the Friar was an easy way round the problem, but he never existed.

Arthur Chappell