24/09/2026
🍺 Well… this all started because we decided to do a bit of decorating! 😂
During the latest work on the old girl, we uncovered an amazing piece of painted glass that had been hidden behind alterations to the building:
“Licensed Retailer of Ale, Porter, To***co &c. — To Be Consumed On or Off the Premises.”
Obviously that sent Stephen down a bit of a history rabbit hole 🔎😂… and what we’ve discovered about the Help Me Thro’ is fascinating.
Even better, we looked back at one of the old photographs hanging in the pub and realised you can actually see the same lettered fanlight above the old doorway! At some point the doorway was altered and the glass disappeared from view — but incredibly, it survived hidden inside the building.
So here’s what we’ve managed to piece together so far…
👉 1834 – The historic direction stone on Crostons Road was erected, complete with carved pointing hands directing travellers towards Bury, Tottington, Walshaw and beyond. Amazingly it’s still standing today and is now Grade II listed.
There’s a long-standing story that this unusual sign helped give the Help Me Through its name. We haven’t proved that connection yet… but we’ve now been to see the actual stone!
👉 1871 – The earliest definite record we’ve found shows Robert Unsworth selling b**r at 111 Crostons Road — the original number of our pub.
👉 1880 – The b**rhouse appears in the records by name as HELP ME THROUGH.
👉 1880s – And this was no ordinary little b**rhouse… we had our own brewery! 🍺 James Unsworth is recorded brewing mild and bitter ale here at the Help Me Through Brewery.
👉 1913 – It was known as the Help Me Through Inn & Elton Football House. That’s another story we’re still trying to uncover!
👉 By 1936 – the address had changed from 111 to 141 Crostons Road.
👉 At some point the pub became part of the Bury Brewery estate — and here’s another discovery we love…
Our old photograph shows BURY BREWERY across the building and, right alongside it, HELP ME THRO.
So the shortened “THRO” is much older than we realised and was already being used before the pub became a Thwaites house.
🍺 And then there’s the name itself…
We’ve discovered that “Help Me Through This World” was an old British pub-name and sign tradition. We can trace examples back into the 19th century, including an 1860 pub whose hanging sign showed a man literally struggling through a globe.
And what did our old Thwaites hanging sign show?
A man coming through a globe holding a pint! 🌍🍺
One of our older locals even remembers an earlier sign referring to “Help Me Through the World.”
So where did our unusual name really come from?
Was it the 1834 direction stone with its pointing hands?
Was it the old Help Me Through This World pub-sign tradition?
Or have the two stories somehow become intertwined over nearly two centuries?
We’re still digging! 🔎
What we can prove is that b**r was being sold here at least 155 years ago, that the Help Me Through was once brewing its own b**r, and that some of the pub’s history has quite literally been sitting hidden inside its walls.
Not bad for starting out with a tin of paint! 😂❤️
If you’ve got any old photos, stories or memories of the Help Me Thro’, we’d absolutely love to see them — you might just help us uncover the next chapter.
