REGULARS heading to this Blackburn pub could have been forgiven for seeing double - even before they had enjoyed a beer or two

For overnight, the Dolphin Hotel, tucked away on Mount Street just off the town centre had gained a new sign - and an extra name.

Taken in 1968, this photograph shows the pub - which was on the side now occupied by Morrison’s car park - complete with its twin signs.

The reason for the double signs wasn’t even down to the pub changing names - it was actually due to its location next to Dutton’s brewery.

Dutton’s had been taken over by Whitbread in 1964 and when Dutton’s bosses were looking at a new design for their pub signs incorporating the new owner’s emblem - the white Whitbread tankard - they used their handiest hostelry.

By then, the Dolphin was virtually part of the brewery, being only accessible from Foundry Hill and a narrow ginnel running from the Boulevard to Ciceley.

The expansion of Dutton’s five years earlier had cut off the approach to it from Well Street and then shut half of Mount Street to all but trucks going to and from it.

The brewery actually made a mistake with the new sign for the Dolphin - it had not intended to replace the Dutton’s name with Whitbread’s.

Sadly the Dolphin was a name that vanished less than two years later joining the ranks of Blackburn’s lost pubs.

It was demolished in January, 1970, due to further expansion of the brewery.

It closed only the night before it was pulled down - and it was reported that it was literally drunk dry by regulars who wanted to give this small pub a proper ‘send-off’.