DEDICATED elbow-benders of today can only sigh over the golden days of the heavy duty pub crawl.

That was during an era when just one St Helens town centre street alone had no fewer than 14 pubs, some next door to each other.

Mrs L. Feeney of Thatto Heath thumbs through the ale-soaked pages of the past in digging up that little gem, and even adding the 14 names of those cheek-by-jowl watering-holes which once stood along Bridge Street.

There were some intriguing titles among 'em: Black Bull, Bee Hive, Volunteer, White Horse, Adelphi, Nelson, Cock & Trumpet, Black Horse, Queens, Red Lion, Crooked Billet, Shakespeare, Old House at Home and the A1.

And Mrs F. moves from booze to holy water in also forwarding an artist's impression of the town's original Chapel of St Elyn, from which the town of St Helens apparently derived its name.

It then stood in an idyllic setting, with sheep grazing by a rippling brook

At least four other places of worship have since replaced that pioneering edifice, adds our Thatto Heath correspondent.

"The town was a really beautiful place in the distant past," she adds, "more of a rural village. But by the 18th-century there was no doubt as to the way in which the town was developing. Eventually there were to be iron and brass foundries, a ropery in Green Bank, a tan-yard in Crab Lane (later Crab Street), potteries at Gerards Bridge and collieries and glass factories springing up all over the place."

And with all that industrial development came a mighty working-class thirst which all those local pubs competed to quench.

WHAT a change from today's slurping scene when shrinking employment - and consequently a reduction in pay packets - has led to quite a number of popular pubs putting up shutters or disappearing altogether.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.