Wigan Album

I know which I prefer.
The grandness of the top picture is lost forever. Just plain facades and worse still further along with drab boards in front of neglected buildings. Reminds me of when people in the sixties covered carved wooden doors with hardboard and inside they would box everything in, such as wooden spindles on staircases…etc.

A planning travesty.....

well dressed people in supposedly hard times, maybe it was a sense of pride in appearance

Spot on freddie !

The top photo shows ageing buildings that are admittedly looking past their best, (a lick of paint perhaps?), and yet you get the feeling of Life going on inside them, of people at work in the Town Hall, and the shop shown has a window full of goods, even in King Street as opposed to the town centre, showing that the street was much-used.....and just look at the amount of people purposefully walking along. The buildings in the second photo seem to say, "There's a light on but there's nobody in.....enquiries to 'nobody-can- be- bothered @ rodneyhouse.com' " Take me back to photo number one, please, every time.

A good comparison Keith but how many folk especially children looked up at buildings and remember them,let’s be honest.It’s a pity they went but I have said before did people at the time care.

The Wigan Examiner at 62 King Street, the paper close in June 1961 after falling sales.
The paper was very similar to the old Wigan Observer then at Rowbottom Square and had the same front page format.
Many employees from the Examiner started work for the Observer, so all was not lost.

Many ‘modern buildings’ are sometimes dismissed as 'flat pack architecture’. I can see their point, they are often characterless, built as quickly and as cheaply as possible to serve, in many cases, a short term need.

....Just like the Civic Centre - How ugly was and still is that. And how long has it stood derelict? Has there been ANY sort of plan for that monstrosity?

Being converted into a hub for small businesses and start ups.

Thanks Colin Harlow, for your comments re The Wigan Examiner. When I saw this picture it started me wondering how long it had been since The Examiner folded. I seem to remember that it went to press every tuesday.

Colin. When I was a little boy in the 1950s and early 60s I would walk past this building with my Mum and Dad. As I had no memory of the paper (only the Observer which we bought every week) I fondly assumed this was the building where they marked the 11+ exams. Honest !

Awww, Carolaen, how innocent were you??!! Look up that young swot Irene Griffiths, (she passed the 11-plus.... with more luck than management, I imagine!!). But she still buys The Wigan Observer every week. xxxx

DerekB and Carolaen, the Wigan Examiner was published twice a Week, Tuesday and Friday. The Tuesday edition was mainly about sport from the weekend.
If you go to work and printers in item number 23980 and 23981 you will see the last edition of the Examiner and the front page of the successful Wigan Observer, with a circulation of over 43, 000 copies a week.

I didn't even know we use to have another weekly newspaper.
Thanks Colin for your newspaper history, and Keith for the photo.

Towards the Wallgate end of King Street I seem to remember a shop selling expensive hats. It was on the left hand side as you walked back towards Wallgate. Any comments am I correct ?

Philip,the only shop that I recall at the top of King Street that sold clothing of any kind was Kinleys..my Mam used to buy my hubbys shirts there when it was his birthday...I hope someone can recall a shop selling hats.

Was it Louis Fisher's shop? It was situated in Dicconson Street in the 1960s when I was growing up, but I believe it was in King Street in earlier years. It was a rather posh clothes shop selling furs and hats as well as dresses, and skirt-suits, (or "costumes" as ladies used to call them).

Yes costumes— you’ve reminded me of my Grandma using that word, I could never understand how a suit could be called that.
Again,thanks for the memory Irene .

Philip, I posted yesterday that I thought it was P.A. Kinlet but the post never appeared?

Thanks for the above . It was a shop I never went in but just remember the posh hats in the window . Also the iconic iron bridge further down that you could walk all the way across, the music shop on Grimes Arcade.

Speaking of fancy hats, a few weeks ago at York Festival of Vintage, there was a pristine bowler hat on a stall with the retailers label inside - P.A Kinley of Wigan……£20 ! Probably could’ve got it for a tenner………why oh why……?

I bet you were gobsmacked when you saw that hat, F. Davies. Peter and I attend 1940s events and a few years ago I spotted a wooden clothes brush for sale on a stall at Grassington, with "Pendlebury's of Wigan" on the back in gold writing. Peter and I have a number of old clothes brushes as people tend to pass period stuff on to us due to our hobby, so I didn't buy it but it was lovely to see it.

I remember the old Wigan Examiner building very well and going inside when I was at college. Len Gibson must have had something to do with the rebuild as he gave us a tour of the redevelopment. There was a particular feature inside still retained, for the life of me I cannot recall what that was.
Why oh why was that lovely exterior replaced with faceless featureless brickwork?
I remember Louis Fishers very well, they moved further along King Street up a flight of stairs near to where the Abbey National used to be, I remember taking a pair of jeans there to be shortened. I am sure that Len Gibson (A.L. Gibson Estate Agents) shared an office with the Abbey, we bought our first house in Shevington from him in 1974, mortgages were in short supply but he pulled a few strings with the Abbey National.
I think the shop referred to by Dave was P.A Kinley but not sure, they sold good quality men's attire. There was one similar small quality shop in the Weind, possibly now incorporated into Wetherspoons, can anyone recall the name ( I have Gee's in my mind) and bought shirts there in the late 1960's. I think that there was a shoe shop on the opposite side. I bought a pair of cheap grey suede shoes there in 1961 to go to the Court School of Dancing above the foyer of The Ritz, I felt very classy however walking home in the rain the soles fell off as they were made of cardboard!!!!!

Wigan council never realised (or cared too) just how important many of the towns old buildings were. Many other towns nurtured their old buildings and they ended up as tourist spots, bring in much needed revenue. If such buildings had been in York and the like, they would never had been demolished. The present "shower" we have infesting Wigan council are doing even more damage.

Could not agree more.
The area behind Standishgate look more like Mariupol after the Russian bombing than the Wigan of old. Even Hitler did not cause that much damage to Wigan.