A TREASURY of documents and photographs on Barrow’s drinking places - and the police force which tried to keep them all in order - was on show at the town’s archive and local studies library for the launch of a new book.

Author Alan Wilkinson signed copies and gave an overview of the more than 100 drinking places in his publication called The Beer Houses Barrow in Furness.

His book has been the result of research spread over four years and involved consulting more than 3,000 archive records.

Much of the information came from microfilm editions of old Furness newspapers dating back to 1855.

The rapidly growing town - particularly in the years from 1849 to 1874 - brought mostly young men from all over the country to find work and to spend what little spare money and leisure time they had on looking for a drink of beer.

Mr Wilkinson notes: "The opportunity to earn good money from selling ale offered local folk a lucrative investment.

"You will find that the vast majority of beer house owners resident in the town of Barrow during the 1860s had made a short journey to the town, having previously lived in the surrounding towns and village of both Lancashire and Cumberland."

Not all of them stuck to the licensing laws. There were illegal drinking places in the living rooms of ordinary houses.

There was a pecking order to establishments and as Barrow developed it became much more difficult to get the full spirits licence which you would expect as any modern pub or hotel with a bar.

Builders and speculators often built "beer houses" to the standard of a public house - hoping to get a more extensive licence later.

Many would be disappointed, as from 1869 the Beer House Act granted powers to close down places seen as being of "ill repute".

Mr Wilkisnon noted: "Thousands of beer houses across the UK were closed down with immediate effect as a result of the new law. Barrow lost less than a dozen inn."

Many of the oldest Barrow beer houses are found on the outskirts of the modern town centre, such as the Sandgate at the old Salthouse Village.

It was opened in 1854 by John Thompson.

Mr Wilkinson notes: "The new Sandgate was built to serve for lodging accommodation for the many sailors who visited the port.

"The upper floor was inclusive of12 bedrooms."

It took four failed applications and even a petition signed by more than 100 people to get the Sandgate a full spirits licence - eight years after it had opened.

Some establisments were very short lived and left little trace in the official records.

An example is Gardner's beer house in Raglan Street which traded from 1865 to 1866 with the licence granted to Catherine Gardner. It was the fifth beer house in Raglan Street at that time.

The Black Swan on Rawlinson Street was known as "The Dirty Duck" and in 1866 PC Tomlinson found 14 men and a woman drunk on the premises.

In 1869 the Black Swan licence holder Thomas Nightingale was one of three beer house keepers arrested for harbouring prostitutes after police raids.

The Shakespeare Tavern, on Mount Pleasant, made the unusual change from selling beer to become a temperance hotel, probably in 1868. It was later converted to a house.

Greengate Street had The Union Tavern - offering beer, lodgings and even a shop.

Mr Wilkinson said: "By the 1860s the inn was more commonly referred to under the nickname it had attracted as The Blood Tub."

The first beer house to open on Greengate was Mashiters House and was renamed as the Welcome Inn during 1861.

In March 1863 a worker fixing a Union Jack to a pole lost his footing. His cap and the flag fell to the street and he was seen hanging over the guttering.

He fell from the roof but managed to grab hold of a drain pipe and avoid serious injury.

It had a couple of years as Liverpool House in the 1870s before getting its old name back as the first local inn owned by James Thompson - who later had 52 licensed premises.

The Welcome Inn was refuurbished in 1983 and became The Sheffield, after the Barrow ship lost in the Falklands War.

Among unusual beer house names is Hamlet, Prince of Denmark which was on Forshaw Street from at least 1865 with the only known landlord being Frank Brookfield.

The site was used for the building of the Market Tavern by Willim Skeels and it opened in 1869 - named after the nearby cattle market.

Mr Wilkinson notes: "The Market Tavern was granted a full licence in 1882 despite fierce opposition from the neighbouring Forshaw Street Methodist Church."

The building was demolished in 1995 to make way for a town centre development - the fate of many Barrow drinking establishments since the 1960s.

Beer Houses Barrow in Furness is available for £13 at Heaths on Dalton Road, Barrow and from the Slater Street Newsagents.