From the Evening News, March 26, 1992 - THE shutters have finally gone up at the Boar's Head in Churchgate, Bolton, calling time on more than 200 years of tradition.

In the end, it was the state of the building itself which forced closure, because it was "crumbling away".

CAMPAIGNING residents have blasted plans to build a massive student campus on green fields at Darcy Lever. They are bombarding planners with protest letters against proposals to build a hall of residence off Radcliffe Road, Darcy Lever.

25 YEARS AGO

From the Evening News, March 27, 1977

HOUSEWIVES are wanted to work part-time as street sweepers to keep their neighbourhoods free from litter. This follows a four-months' experimental scheme in which two women were employed to keep their housing estates clean. It is now hoped to extend the scheme throughout the area - including Little Hulton and Worsley.

BUTCHER Norman Brooks will happily hand over 20 pieces of best steak, free of charge, to a special customer next week. The steaks are Bolton Wanderers' striker Neil Whatmore's reward for scoring more than 20 goals this season. Mr Brooks, who has a shop in Hough Lane, Bromley Cross, bet Neil at the beginning of the season that he wouldn't score more than 20. But with plenty of games to go in the Wanderers' drive for promotion, Neil has already hit 24.

50 YEARS AGO

From the Evening News, March 27, 1952

TWO Lancashire words come under review this week by a reader who asks to be told something of the meaning of "tharcake" and "pace-egg". The former word, of course, has been superseded by the familiar "parkin", which is modern by comparison.

It is doubtful if tharcake is truly a Lancashire dialect word, for in spite of being used formerly for the Guy Fawkes Day treat, it has a much wider known meaning, under the old-English "tharf", i.e. "unleavened" has been used by writers in the middle ages.

The pace-egg is the paschal or Easter egg. It was once a Lancashire custom for children to go from door to door asking for a pace-egg in a childish song. Small money or fruit would do if a pace-egg was not forthcoming.

100 YEARS AGO

From the Evening News, March 28, 1902

WE regret to announce that Mr Cecil J. Rhodes died at his residence near Cape Town just before six o'clock last evening. A great Englishman has passed away, one that did "bestride the narrow world like a Colossus". To him more than to any other man we owe our South African Empire. Cecil Rhodes left a quiet Hertfordshire parsonage for South Africa. "That is my dream," the youth said, drawing his hand across the map of Africa; "that all red."

For the fulfilment of his dream, money was necessary, he amassed a fortune; politics were a useful weapon, he became Prime Minister; Griqualand and Bechuanaland rounded off the future Empire, he annexed them; Matabeleland obstructed the path of his advance, it was wiped out. And yet he has not lived to see his dream come true. Dying before he was fifty he has left the lands of his birth and of his adoption face to face, leaving in South Africa a void which cannot easily be filled, and in the Empire a name which will rank with that of the most famous of her sons.