THIS year in Looking Back, we have been sharing lots of your memories of some of Warrington most famous pubs.

This week we are remembering the old Blackburne Arms in the town centre, known as The Cock and Trumpet.

The pub was pulled down in the 1970s as part of a major redevelopment of the town centre.

Francis Costello worked there as a full time barman from September 1958 to February 1961 when Tommy Farmington was the landlord with his good wife Olwyn.

Mr Costello worked there again from 1967 to 1969 for his father-in-law Jed Rigby.

He said: “I’m saddened to see the photo, right, boarded up on the top two floors, and it’s a pity you couldn’t see the ground floor, which was the hub of the pub.

“The Cock and Trumpet, which is the name most people associated with the pub, was the Coat of Arms of the Blackburn family, who lived there a long time before it was a pub, at least that’s what I was told.

“The cellar had a tunnel that ran all the way to the Barley Mow in one direction and another tunnel that ran under Sankey Street, all the way down to Bridge Foot.

“I have a lot of happy memories of my time working there, and I remember a lot of names of people who drank there, including the famous Snug, which you could only enter by going behind the bar, that must be a first.

“I also have a floor plan of every inch of the place in my head.

“A lot of the custom came from the drinkers of the Carlton Club which was owned by Mr Morris and run by his three sons, Vernon, Stan, and Gordon, which was next to the church, and the old Woolworth’s store, in Sankey Street.

“As I was only 15 when I first started working there my memory is very crisp.

“Yes I know I was under age but in those days you didn’t have to show any documentation, my memory is very crisp.

“And I haven’t mentioned the famous Cocktail bar, which was run by brother Kevin.

“This is just a brief introduction of my knowledge about one of Warrington’s most popular drinking dens.”