Ben Jonson pub

how did it get the name? The only B.J I know was an Elizabethan playwright. Why a Wigan pub would carry his name I can't imagine. Maybe a coal pit owner locally was Ben Jonson. Can anyone give the answer?

does Terry newton's family still run this pub?

The pub was recorded under Pemberton as "Ben Jonson" in Baines Lancashire 1824 when the landlord was Peter Aspinwall. The earlier building appears to have been the cottages, still standing, next door to the building in use to day. Last time I looked the name was still visible painted on the side of these cottages. I would have thought that it WAS named after the poet and playwright. In the early 1800s, Rev. Edmund Sibson describing his investigations into the route of the Roman Road from Wigan to Wilderspool, recorded that:"..the ridge of the road appears again, very plainly in the Puet Meadow, in front of the Ben Jonson public house.." so there has probably been a hostelry on the site for some time!

The landlord of the Ben is Keith Holding, who was Terry Newtons father in law.

I was told that the original Ben Jonson was the cottage across the road (now Fulbeck Avenue) if you look at the gable end of the cottage it still has Ben Jonson written on it.

Great info,thanks to all for the posts

I had noticed the writing on the wall of the 'cottages'. Does anyone have a photo of the older one, when did it stop being used - I'm assuming it must be when the current BJ was built.

just come across a reference to a pub called the Ben Jonson in Pemberton in the 1820s and 30s in Donald Anderson's book on the Orrell Coalfield.Was there another one as the current B.J. surely isn't in Pemberton, is it?

This is the same Ben Jonson. See above ref. "Baines Lancashire". On the 1841 census, Park Lane, Goose Green, Hawkley, Poolstock Lane and Worsley Mesnes are all listed under Pemberton.

Thanks for that Strabismus