One afternoon in May 1979 the club was raided by police and the club lost it licence for 
serving drinks to non-members.
The decision was taken to close the club.
However, the club reopened again a year later but debts soon started to mount.
Substantial funds which the club had built up over many decades were now all gone and in May 1982 a General Meeting of members voted to sell the building.
Furniture and fittings were taken out and put into store and an estate agent's 'For Sale' sign went up outside the building.
In the summer of 1982 the Club stood empty, awaiting sale.
But in a dusty corner of the attic, abandoned and unnoticed for decades, a large pile of minute books was discovered.
On the cover of the first was written 'Social Democratic Federation 1896'. The long forgotten history of the Bolton Socialist Club was about to re-emerge.
As the story unfolded, It captured the imagination of the members who read it and inspired them try and stop the sale of the building.
Talks were arranged, the local press printed a series of articles, and gradually socialists and labour movement activists in the town began to realise what they were about to lose.
However, legal difficulties arose. it was discovered that Bolton Socialist Hall Ltd owned the building and its committee had not met for ten years and not one single shareholder could be found.
Though there was opitimism it took a year to find a way forward.