Places   (Help with places, streets and buildings in Wigan.)

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!