Derek Crompton, There was a big series running in the Bolton Evening Newspaper, in the late 1980's about the strange or more obscure names of Bolton Public Houses. One opinion about the Doffcocker Inn name, seemed to think that the name came from was a saying from an old Scotsman that used to walk past this Public House on Chorley Old Road either going into Bolton or going in the opposite direction to Horwich. Running past the public house which had a different name then, was an old stream, so the Scotsman who liked a drink stopped at the Public House, bought the drink and then stepped outside to rest his acheing feet. He took off his socks and soaked his feet in the stream, much to his relief. One day he was asked by a stranger what are you doing? And in his best Scottish accent replied that he was "Doffing his Cockers." He explained that in Scotland the term Doffing your Cockers" simply mean't "taking off your socks" and soaking your feet after a lengthy stroll, in the stream. As this procecedure went on outside the public house for a good few years with other travellers, the name of the Public House was changed to the Doffcocker Arms which then became the Doffcocker Inn. It was also known locally as a "Calender Pub". Everything in the Public House when it was built, was based on a Yearly theme. There were 6 exits, 12 rooms, 144 glass panes etc. I don't know how much of this is true, but you could always write, phone or email the Bolton Evening News to confirm whether this tale or story has any truth in it. If you have access to the Internet, find a search engine and simply type in Doffcocker Inn in Bolton, there are hundreds of articles and pictures about it's history. Jeff McGowen ENG-LAN-BOLTON-D-request@rootsweb.com wrote: ENG-LAN-BOLTON-D Digest Volume 06 : Issue 229 Today's Topics: #1 doffcockers [Dellcrom@aol.com] #2 RE: [ENG-LAN-BOLTON] doffcockers ["Martin Briscoe" #3 Re: [ENG-LAN-BOLTON] doffcockers [Dellcrom@aol.com] Administrivia: To unsubscribe from ENG-LAN-BOLTON-D, send a message to ENG-LAN-BOLTON-D-request@rootsweb.com that contains in the body of the message the command unsubscribe and no other text. No subject line is necessary, but if your software requires one, just use unsubscribe in the subject, too. To contact the ENG-LAN-BOLTON-D list administrator, send mail to ENG-LAN-BOLTON-admin@rootsweb.com. ______________________________Date: Fri, 11 Aug 2006 14:36:31 EDT From: Dellcrom@aol.com To: ENG-LAN-BOLTON-L@rootsweb.com Subject: doffcockers What or where is a doffcockers ? I was reading .................... Dobson, Sir Benjamin Alfred (1847-1898), textile machinery manufacturer by D. A. Farnie _http://groups.msn.com/PatterdalePatter/yourwebpage1.msnw_ (http://groups.msn.com/PatterdalePatter/yourwebpage1.msnw) In 1876 Benjamin Dobson married Coralie Palin (1853–1904), daughter of William Thomas Palin, a railway engineer serving in India. They had six sons and three daughters. In 1886 Dobson bought the Doffcockers estate,..................... .............As the first citizen of the borough he held official functions for his fellow Boltonians, a ball for children in the town hall, a garden party at Doffcockers, and an autumn ................... In his fifty-first year, and apparently still in the prime of life, Dobson died at Doffcockers on 4 March 1898. The military funeral was attended by some 20,000 people,................. Derek Crompton London South- East ______________________________Date: Fri, 11 Aug 2006 20:02:08 +0100 From: "Martin Briscoe" <mbriscoe@zetnet.co.uk> To: ENG-LAN-BOLTON-L@rootsweb.com Subject: RE: [ENG-LAN-BOLTON] doffcockers IN Britain in Old Photographs Bolton & District By Chris Driver Picture of ... Doffcockers 1909. Named after mid-eighteenth century ... Originally the home of Mr Whitaker, proprietor of Doffcocker Mills. It was later the home of Mr Benjamin Dobson .... Demolished 1913. Its site is known locally as Doffers Wood Martin Briscoe Fort William M&LFHS | Gwynedd FHS -----Original Message----- From: Dellcrom@aol.com [mailto:Dellcrom@aol.com] Sent: 11 August 2006 19:37 To: ENG-LAN-BOLTON-L@rootsweb.com Subject: [ENG-LAN-BOLTON] doffcockers What or where is a doffcockers ? I was reading .................... Dobson, Sir Benjamin Alfred (1847-1898), textile machinery manufacturer by D. A. Farnie _http://groups.msn.com/PatterdalePatter/yourwebpage1.msnw_ (http://groups.msn.com/PatterdalePatter/yourwebpage1.msnw) In 1876 Benjamin Dobson married Coralie Palin (1853-1904), daughter of William Thomas Palin, a railway engineer serving in India. They had six sons and three daughters. In 1886 Dobson bought the Doffcockers estate,..................... .............As the first citizen of the borough he held official functions for his fellow Boltonians, a ball for children in the town hall, a garden party at Doffcockers, and an autumn ................... In his fifty-first year, and apparently still in the prime of life, Dobson died at Doffcockers on 4 March 1898. The military funeral was attended by some 20,000 people,................. Derek Crompton London South- East ______________________________Date: Sat, 12 Aug 2006 08:58:26 EDT From: Dellcrom@aol.com To: ENG-LAN-BOLTON-L@rootsweb.com Subject: Re: [ENG-LAN-BOLTON] doffcockers Martin Briscoe wrote that Benjamin DOBSON house was already called Doffcockers by the previous owner (WHITAKER) who also owned a mill by the same name. So why did he call it this? from _http://www.thefreedictionary.com_ (http://www.thefreedictionary.com) Doff´er n. 1. (Mach.) A revolving cylinder, or a vibrating bar, with teeth, in a carding machine, which doffs, or strips off, the fiber from the cards. 2. (Spinning) A worker who replaces full bobbins by empty ones on the throstle or ring frames. Derek Crompton London South- East

The caption to the picture in the book referred to the 18th Century hamlet. The area is marked as "Doffcocker" on the 1849 OS map which seems to be before Doffcocker Lodge was there. I can't a house called Doffcockers there at that time. The trouble is that when you do a search on the web and find lots of answers is that often they all come from the source. The Wiki page quotes the same story but I bet the writer got it from the BEN. I suppose the "dark winding stream" could refer to Captain's Clough stream which must pass through there but there are often many theories on the origin of a name like that Martin Briscoe Fort William M&LFHS | Gwynedd FHS -----Original Message----- From: Jeffery McGowen [mailto:gnasher49@yahoo.co.uk] Sent: 12 August 2006 15:12 To: ENG-LAN-BOLTON-L@rootsweb.com Subject: [ENG-LAN-BOLTON] Re: ENG-LAN-BOLTON-D Digest V06 #229 Derek Crompton, There was a big series running in the Bolton Evening Newspaper, in the late 1980's about the strange or more obscure names of Bolton Public Houses. One opinion about the Doffcocker Inn name, seemed to think that the name came from was a saying from an old Scotsman that used to walk past this Public House on Chorley Old Road either going into Bolton or going in the opposite direction to Horwich. Running past the public house which had a different name then, was an old stream, so the Scotsman who liked a drink stopped at the Public House, bought the drink and then stepped outside to rest his acheing feet. He took off his socks and soaked his feet in the stream, much to his relief. One day he was asked by a stranger what are you doing? And in his best Scottish accent replied that he was "Doffing his Cockers." He explained that in Scotland the term Doffing your Cockers" simply mean't "taking off your socks" and soaking your feet after a lengthy stroll, in the stream. As this procecedure went on outside the public house for a good few years with other travellers, the name of the Public House was changed to the Doffcocker Arms which then became the Doffcocker Inn.

Hi All, Until this topic started I'd never heard of Doffcockers Estate, in spite of living right next to Doffcocker, so I've been trying to find information about it; but so far with no success. Yesterday I'd followed a similar trail to Martin Briscoe's, and reached similar conclusions. There are also these relevant quotes to be found on the internet. They are all cached references, so I've included them in full, rather than just their URLs: From the Evening News, June 11, 1904: Doffcockers sale - not to be missed. MESSRS Lomax, Sons and Mills announce an important sale from Tuesday to Friday next at "Doffcockers," the residence of the late Sir Benjamin A. Dobson. The sale consists of drawing, dining, smoke and billiard room furniture, library and hall appointments, antique carved oak, the contents of 17 bedrooms, wines and spirits, oil-paintings, water-colour drawings and engravings, silver plate, cutlery, cut and engraved glass, china, breakfast, dinner, dessert and tea services, books, toy railway, etc. And ... From the Evening News, October 18, 1904: A MEETING for the waifs and strays was held at Doffcockers on the invitation of Mr and Mrs B Palin Dobson. And ... Funeral of Lady Dobson From the Evening News, March 11, 1904: This afternoon, in the vault in the churchyard of St Peter's Smithills containing the remains of her husband, Sir Benjamin Alfred Dobson, who was interred on March 7, all that is mortal of Lady Dobson, of Doffcockers, aged 51, whose good deeds will for many years to come be a grateful memory, was laid to rest. I've just been looking at the 1891 census information for Benjamin Dobson. He's on RG12-3103-104-9 at "Doffcockers", with his wife, 6 children and 7 servants living in, and with a coachman and family living in the stable yard, and a gardener and family living in the Lodge. The sequence of entries goes as follows: Bob's Smithy (still there, between Horwich and Bolton) 11 houses on Land's Fold, (?) Harper's Farm, (where Harpers Lane is now) Isherwood's Farm, (?) Fleet's Farm, (?) Old Hart's Farm, (?) Harwood's Farm, (?) Langshawford Farm, (?) Thurston's Farm (?) 20 houses on Mill Street (several of them unoccupied) then Doffcockers then 378 Chorley Old Rd. The sequence from Bob's Smithy, then heading towards the Bolton town centre via Harper's Farm and Chorley Old Road makes sense as a reasonably straight walk for the census enumerator. This would perhaps give a clue about where Mill Street might have been, and presumably it was in the Doffcocker Area, but I haven't yet found it or Doffcockers on any map. On the 1901 census, RG13-3608-130-8, his widow Coralie is shown living at "The Doffcockers". The preceding entries are for Faith St, and the succeeding entries start with 600 Chorley Old Rd. Faith St still exists, between Whitecroft Road and Doffcocker Brow. I'd be very interested to know exactly where Doffcockers was located. Rgds, Bob Thornley, Bolton From: "Martin Briscoe" <mbriscoe@zetnet.co.uk> > The caption to the picture in the book referred to the 18th Century > hamlet. > > The area is marked as "Doffcocker" on the 1849 OS map which seems to be > before Doffcocker Lodge was there. I can't a house called Doffcockers > there > at that time. > > The trouble is that when you do a search on the web and find lots of > answers > is that often they all come from the source. The Wiki page quotes the > same > story but I bet the writer got it from the BEN. I suppose the "dark > winding > stream" could refer to Captain's Clough stream which must pass through > there > but there are often many theories on the origin of a name like that > Martin Briscoe > Fort William > M&LFHS | Gwynedd FHS