Hi Everybody here is a painting and story of Jacksons Boat Pub Sale Manchester by day, I hope you like it
My paintings, stories and videos capture fleeting glimpses of people places and social issues, I aim to bring my cityscape paintings to life in an expressionistic style, blending emotion, movement, and atmosphere to reflect the world as I see it, also turning negatives to positives in my way.
I hope you enjoy exploring my work, and please feel free to share your thoughts or comments — I’d love to hear what you think.
My Motto, BEE Positive.
https://youtu.be/kJxqBPuRwW8
Original Available, or A3 Limited Edition print £55 contact me https://andrewalanmatthews.co.uk/shop
https://andrewalanmatthews.co.uk/
andrewalanmatthews.co.uk
A Bit of history
Jackson’s Boat, also known as the Bridge Inn (Figure 1), is a historic public house situated on the banks of the River Mersey at the end of Rifle Road ( originally known as Rifle Butt Road) in Sale.
The River Mersey is the traditional boundary between Cheshire and Lancashire. However, due to natural changes in the course of the river over many centuries, Jackson’s Boat was in the unusual position of being located in Lancashire (within the boundary of Manchester city) in spite of sitting on the Cheshire side of the river ( Figure 2). Jackson Boat's location was Chorlton-cum-Hardy until 1987, when the Local Government Boundary Commission for England revised the Manchester and Trafford boundary, resulting in the pub now being in Sale.
The original inn was constructed in 1663 and called the Old Greyhound. The building stood on the edge of a desolate moor and was visited by the occasional stagecoach and traders on their way to market to sell their wares.
Due to the Inn’s quiet location, it became an illegal meeting place of the Jacobites during the uprisings of the eighteenth century. Here they would dine and at the end of each meal, raise a toast to the health of the Pretender, Prince Charles, when glasses would be raised over a bowl of water placed in the middle of the table. John Alldridge described the Inn as:
The perfect spot, indeed, for hatching plots and counterplots. So it became in these troubled times a rendezvous for discontented Jacobites who would meet there at furtive dinner parties to toast the “King across the water”. Among them was the celebrated Dr John Byrom, author of the celebrated Christmas hymn ‘Christians Awake’. It was here in 1745 that “Colonel” Towneley, a rough-tongued Jacobite recruiting agent, came to drum up volunteers for Bonnie Prince Charlie, already on his way south to claim his throne. Among the hot-heads he enrolled was a parson – a Dr Deacon and his three sons, Tom Coppock, curate of Manchester Parish Church and Tom Sydall, a barber. They marched off to join Prince Charlie, but very few of them ever saw their favourite pub again.
The Manchester Regiment was a Jacobite unit of soldiers raised in Manchester during the 1745 Jacobite Rebellion, supporting Charles Edward Stewart in his attempt to overthrow George II. The three hundred volunteers, commanded by Francis Towneley reached Carlisle Castle, but they fell to government forces and most of the Manchester regiment were captured, imprisoned, transported or executed. A small detachment from the Manchester Regiment made it to the Battle of Culloden, where they met similar fates.
In the late 1700s, a local farmer named Jackson, had the clever idea of supplementing his income by running a ferry boat across the river to the Old Greyhound. By the end of the century, two boats were running a shuttle service, but traffic had become so heavy, they couldn’t satisfy the demand. The ferry was discontinued in 1816, when a wooden bridge was built at a cost of £200 by Samuel Wilton, landlord of the Inn. A half penny toll was collected from everyone who crossed over on foot; while a penny, was charged to those who had a bicycle. The fee was waived if the person concerned, had business at the inn. To mark the occasion, the Old Greyhound was renamed the 'Bridge Inn’. Grateful locals, however, never forgot Farmer Jackson and his ferry, and the pub has always been affectionately known as ‘Jackson’s Boat’.
The present brick building was constructed at the end of the 18th century, and replaced the old wooden house on the site. It had a barn and stable, as well as a brew house for producing ale on the premises. In December 1814, the grounds and property were put up for auction at the Bay Horse Hotel, in Chorlton village, and the inn was advertised as ‘Jacksons of the Boat’ or the ‘Boat House’.
In 1860, the Manchester Rifle Club consisting of 160 members, succeeded in obtaining an excellent practice ground for rifle shooting. The butts were situated at Jackson’s Boat and allowed a range of 500 yards.
City dwellers often took a trip out to the countryside at weekends, to enjoy the fresh air and a pint or two at Jackson’s Boat. Andrew Simpson writes: 'some were families escaping for a few hours from those dismal narrow streets and closed courts hedged in by mills, timber yards and iron works'.
The pub's remoteness often attracted gangs of men who assembled in the surrounding fields to watch illegal cock fighting.
Story by Andrew Alan Matthews
Jacksons Boat in Sale
Where walkers
take a stroll
On the banks of the
Mersey
On sunny days
Cloudy days
Some rainy days
Dog walkers come in here
With a beer and a cheer
And teachers back in the day
Used to get away
From the kids
Schoolin
People foolin
On the banks of the Mersey
Cyclists jersey
Flashes on past
As I think of the past
Jacobites used to flock to the place
18thcentury
Jacksons boat
historic place
quiet place
Where tolls over the bridge
And a rifle club used to be
Manchester for you and me
Come here today
while your day away
On sunny days
Pub grub and food at the bar
Its not too far
So yeah
Jacksons Boat in Sale
Where walkers
take a stroll
On the banks of the
Mersey
On sunny days
Cloudy days
rainy days
hoorays
https://youtu.be/kJxqBPuRwW8
Please write a review and critique on my painting and story of Jacksons Boat Pub Sale Manchester by day.
Review and Critique: Jacksons Boat Pub, Sale, Manchester by Day
Painting and story by Andrew Alan Matthews
Your painting and poem work very well together because both are built around the same idea: a familiar local place full of movement, memory, history, and everyday life.
The painting
The first thing that strikes me is the energy of the image. This is not a quiet, photographic representation of Jacksons Boat. Instead, it feels like a place remembered through emotion and imagination. The thick, expressive brushwork gives the painting a lively, almost dreamlike quality.
The strongest feature is the colour. The deep reds, ochres, blues, greens, and whites create a very distinctive Manchester atmosphere. The pub buildings dominate the centre of the composition, making Jacksons Boat feel like the heart of the scene. The strong red building immediately draws the eye, while the blue and yellow structures create contrast and keep the image visually active.
I also like the way you have populated the scene with people. The walkers, cyclists, dog walkers, and other characters give the painting a sense of community. They make the pub feel less like a building and more like a meeting place where different generations and different kinds of people pass through.
There is also a charmingly humorous quality to the characters. Their exaggerated forms and clothing give the painting a slightly cartoon-like, almost theatrical atmosphere. This works well with the poem because the poem also has a conversational, informal voice.
The story and poem
The poem feels like a local celebration of Jacksons Boat. It moves between the present and the past:
“Where walkers
take a stroll
On the banks of the
Mersey”
That opening establishes the place simply and directly. The poem has the feeling of someone telling a story to a friend: come here, you know this place, you know the people, you know the atmosphere.
One of the poem's strengths is its sense of inclusiveness. Dog walkers come for a drink, cyclists pass by, teachers remember earlier days, and historical figures and events are brought into the story. The pub becomes a meeting point between:
- the natural landscape of the Mersey,
- local history,
- working and social life,
- leisure,
- memory,
- and modern-day community.
The repetition of:
“On sunny days
Cloudy days
Some rainy days”
is particularly effective because it captures the reality of northern life. The poem is not pretending that every day is perfect. Jacksons Boat belongs to the community in all kinds of weather.
The historical dimension
The references to the Jacobites, the eighteenth century, tolls, and the rifle club give the poem a sense of historical depth. This is important because it suggests that Jacksons Boat is not merely a pub; it is part of a much longer story.
The line:
“Manchester for you and me”
is simple but effective. It brings the historical references back to the present and makes the place personal. History is not something distant in your poem—it is part of the landscape that people walk through today.
Critique and possible improvements
The main strength of the poem is its natural, unpolished voice. It sounds like a personal spoken-word piece or local folk poem. I would not recommend making it too formal, because that could remove some of its charm.
However, the poem could be strengthened by giving it a slightly clearer structure. At the moment, some ideas arrive quite quickly one after another. You could divide it into sections:
- The Mersey and walkers
- The pub and its visitors
- Memories of the past
- The history of Jacksons Boat
- An invitation to visit today
- The repeated return to the river and weather
You could also sharpen some lines so that the rhythm becomes more consistent. For example:
“Dog walkers come in here
With a beer and a cheer”
has a very clear rhyme and rhythm. Other sections are more conversational and loose. That is not necessarily a weakness, but you could decide whether you want the poem to be more like a song, a spoken-word performance, or a free-verse local history poem.
The line:
“Come here today
while your day away”
has a nice idea, but “while your day away” could perhaps be changed to “while the day away” or “while your time away”, depending on the meaning you want. If the slightly unusual wording is intentional, it also gives the poem a personal voice.
Overall assessment
The painting and poem complement one another very successfully. The painting shows Jacksons Boat as a colourful, eccentric, lively community landmark, while the poem explains the emotional and historical meaning behind the scene.
Together, they create a portrait not just of a pub, but of a place where nature, history, memory, and ordinary people meet.
The painting has a strong individual style, and the story has the quality of a personal local legend. It feels like your own version of Manchester: colourful, humorous, slightly chaotic, historically aware, and full of people passing through.
My overall critique is that the greatest strength of the work is its sense of place.
You have not simply painted a building and written a description of it. You have created a world around Jacksons Boat—a world of walkers, cyclists, teachers, dog owners, history, weather, food, beer, and memories beside the Mersey.
“Jacksons Boat in Sale” feels like a celebration of a real place as remembered through the imagination of Andrew Alan Matthews.