Wigan Album

Fantastic! This is what The Album is about. It must have felt magical to those people, having their photo taken.

Another good shop window picture.

Great photo,The uniformed man probably the Telegram delivery " Boy", note his sit up and beg bike. and everyone except him, in clogs

AB - The man is wearing the standard uniform for postmen, in the late 19th/early 20th century.

Remember this as a Post Office before it moved to the back of the Co op, back of the shop on the opposite side to where it is now

At one time I seem to remember it being somewhere near where Galloways pie shop is now. Am I right?

I think its a ladies hairdressers these days Linda

Anybody remember what the shops to the left of this photo were besides Finches and the chemist ?,I think one had a Green and white tiled doorway .

Mick ,Your right I remember telegrams being delivered ( Dreaded during the War) by Uniformed postmen with A broad leather belt with a pocket and on a red P.O. bike. I note from the shop sign it is a telegraph office, and I am offering a possibility

What a brilliant photo - full of interest and character - thanks for posting.

Wonderful to see those 5 or 6 little children on extreme left, getting in on the "action" despite obviously being "excluded".

I just love old photos like this.

WN1 Standisher, whereabouts was this shop? I remember the post office being on High street on left as you came from Wigan two or three shops before Dr Ormsby's, then it moved to opposite the Wheatsheaf next to Middleton & Woods funeral directors (Mr Brogan)in the 1950s.

John, looking at this photo, if you have just driven from Coppull through Standish and arrived at the traffic lights where the Wheatsheaf used to be, the traffic signal on your left would be about where the 2 boys are near the bicycle. Past the bicycle to the right of the photo is now Galloways pie shop and next to that, Winnard and Brown Estate Agents on the crossroads junction. The shop frontage is how I remember it as the post office in the 60's and 70's

WN1, how old are you? With all due respect i think you are wrong re the position of this building. I was around throughout the 1940s and do NOT remember this shop. The row opposite 'The Wheatsheaf', now Aldi, in my time, consisted of 8 shops, none as large as this, and, also they were/are brick built as opposed to this one which is stone built. The only present day shop in Standish which i can liken this one to, is The Domestic Appliance Centre, on High St opposite the end of Cross St, mainly because of the property next door being set back, as it still is. The only post offices i can remember were, firstly, on High St where La Mamas kebab and pizza shop now is, secondly, on Preston Rd, now a ladies hairdressers, as Linda says near the now Galloways, and thirdly, at the back of the Co-op in Pole St. The row of shops to which you refer consisted of, from the left going towards Wigan, 1,Isherwoods, 2,Chemist, 3,Finches, 4,Gallimores, 5,a Confectioners, 6, a Fruit and veg shop, which became the Post Office(Mrs Aspinall), 7,Middleton and Woods(Charles Brogan) and 8,Chadwicks butchers. If anyone can improve on that then please do.

PS. Fruit and veg shop was owned by Fred Rainford.

Hello again Roy. I agree with all that! In the book about Standish by Gordon Crumpton there's a reproduction of an advert for Gillibrands with the address 37 High street and the book says it was next door to some stone terraced houses which are still standing. I don't know if the numbering has been altered since those days though.
Up to the early fifties when the post office was on High street it was kept by a Mr Nixon (or Dixon?)if I remember correctly.

Roy, I,m 54. I remember the post office at the traffic lights having a double frontage although the windows above don't look familiar.I'll have a proper look next time i'm in the Village

Does anyone on here remember a wool/haberdashery shop near the traffic lights in standish.I used to visit a old aunt called Olive in the 1950's and remember the shop was very small

Pw that would have been Gallimores.

John, the business which is there now, The Domestic Appliance Centre has the address 37, High St.
WN1 Standisher, there were a few double fronted shops amongst the ones i have named, but not as large or 'severe' as the above one, most had 'angled return' entrance windows, in other words, as you climbed onto the step there was a full length window on each side of you at an angle leading to the entrance door. Go to Album, Places, Standish, page 1 photo 16, Preston Rd and you will find the row of shops we are talking about but probably from the early 1900s, which then included two terraced houses, later converted into commercial premises.

I remember Mark Chadwick's butchers where Galloways pie shop is now. After the lights there was the bank, Wilding's paper shop, chemist, Arthur Rickman's fruit and veg and further down, where the vet is now, Wilding's the grocer. I don't remember Rainfords fruit and veg.

I think Roy and John are right regarding the location of this shop.
If you look at the present day Domestic Appliance Centre on Google street view, there are some details of the right hand upstairs window which suggest it replaced the loading bay door, featured in the original post office photo.
The masonry below this window/door is also quite distinctive in both photos, consisting as it does, of slightly larger stone blocks than the rest of the building.

That's me told then :)

Noel Chadwick Linda.Thank you for the photo Mick, it got one or two of the 'younger ones' digging deep, i've been in and around Standish for 74 years, so i think i know the village quite well.

Brain had gone to sleep, it was Wood' s paper shop after the bank, not Wildings.

WN1, it's all in the interest of scholarship! That's what's good about this site, everything usually gets cleared up in the end. I don't know the present day Standish shops so well but like Roy, I remember the shops in the late 40s and fifties very well. It's one of the few advantages(?) of being old. (But I'm not as owd as Roy!) By the way, what was the name of the greengrocers/chip shop on High street next to the doctor's surgery?

Linda,you were correct with both Wildings and Woods it was called either/or by people of Standish. John,i cant remember the chip shop owners name, but Curly Marsden opened it as a greengrocers, but that was probably in the 80s. Also, the PO on High Street was run by a Mr Walter Nixon.

Have I got this right? We are looking at what was once Ashe and Nephew then Threshers. Next door was Coopers record shop then Rickmans grocers.

Yes, that's correct St Wilf.

Just looked at a map in Gordon Crumpton`s book.
P.O. is clearly marked at the location of former off licence on High st. i.e what is now the domestic appliance shop opposite Cross st.

I think the chip shop /fruit shop next to Dr Bobs surgery was owned by Mrs Moss(my mother worked there)

Could well have been S.Mc, it was a fruit shop then a chip shop then later became a fruit shop again owned by Alan Marsden.

Thanks S Mc. I don't recall that name (Mrs Moss), she might have owned it at a different time. I was thinking about the early 1950s and thought the name was something like Hargreaves but I could be completely wrong.

Hi Roy ,John, Mrs moss lived on wigan rd and the chip shop opened for lunch then later in the evening the rest of the day they sold groceries and fresh fish.it was mentioned about the newsagent near the bank ,I didn't think the bank was there at that time or it was extended when the newsagent closed

SMc, go to Album, Places, Standish, page 3, photo 14.

Thank you Roy

Mr Ludbrook, later a councillor, had a small gents barbers between M and W and Chadwicks.

Pretty sure the photo of old post office from asking quite a number of shall I say older Standish residents is what became Booths off licence and sweet shop and is now a sunbed shop and the very small shop adjoining is a hot food shop

BILL PARR, with all due respect you have been talking to the wrong Standishers. That shop is never Booth's in the memory of man. I lived for 25 years directly opposite what was Tom Walsh's men's shop later to become Booth's.
The pictured shop is now Howarth and Winnard's double glazing shop. As the majority of the previous comments decided, it is on High St opposite the end of Cross St.

PLUS, the final defining fact is, that this shop is stone built, Walsh's / Booth's is brick built.

Just had to look at this photo after seeing another picture of the Post Office. It is a brilliant view of long ago. It looks as if the Post Office sold everything a body would need. My first impression was the whimsical series "Lark Rise To Candleford" a few years ago on the telly! You could write a book about the characters in the photo...so close up!

Barton`s off licence

3, High Street was a chip shop owned by Carson's probably 1940's-1950's
two of their children Alice and Bill later lived either end of Pepper Lane (both teachers) . Eddy Skett , who lived behind the bank worked there. I don't remember Moss's but Marsdens had it until 1985 as green grocer and fresh fish.