Wigan Album

All down to greed, Ron. Wigan Council should have its own motto - 'Snouts In The Trough, Lads'.

Agree with you Mick

A really big thankyou Ron for posting these wonderful old pictures of Wigan. I remember walking through Commercial Yard as a young lad. What a pity our town planners have destroyed Wigan's heritage so that it looks like any other town centre.

I can only just remember the Commercial Yard.My Mum had an uncle who ran a barber's shop there.

I went to that barbers. It was on the right hand side, more or less where the lorry is, but It was also lower down, on the right up some stairs if I remember correctly? Can't remember where it was first, but I know they moved from one location to the other. I think it was called the 'Moot Hall'

Wasn't Moot Hall barbers across the way near the Black Horse, Ron? I know it later went down Market Street, above the end shop opposite the Market Square. The late Ted Whittle used to have it.

my boyfriend Peter,(now my husband of 35 years), worked at Sawbridges Butchers as a young lad in the 60s.What wonderful, atmospheric alleways and arcades we had in Wigan then!Now it's full of modern, air-conditioned shops that all look the same and have about as much character as a bin-bag! But that's progress, isn't it?...Isn't it?

I'm sure the barbers was called the Moot Hall? I remember I went there regularly, when I was at the T.L.S. Once when I went. I told the barber I wanted a NERO style haircut i.e. short all around and brushed forward as the Emperor Nero ( Don't know why it must have been the fashion at the time?) The barber said "Are you sure? you need to be a'nero to walk about town with a haircut like that"
I can remember him saying that to me as though it was yesterday. Still had it though L.O.L.
As I said before I can remember the barbers being upstairs, about half way down on the right. near McGregor's decorators. Then it moved, to the second shop on the right, next to the tobacconist which was on the corner. When I first went there for a haircut I was amazed that there were 3 barbers. I was only used to there being one barber in the places I went when I was in junior school. I remember going after school at about 4.30 and only getting out well after 6 o'clock. My heart would drop when I walked in and saw about 8 people in front of me. Even then if a workman came in after me, the barber would cut his hair first.

The barbers on the right as you went down from the Market Place was Greenhalgh's.

My recollection of Commercial yard is slight yet somehow very memorable. I visited the Conservative Club in the late 1940's,as a seven year old, not sure what for except that my grandmother had a cleaning job there at the time. I remember the climbing of the outside stairs, the billiard table in the Club and the "unusualness" of the Yard. Visiting it in the dark also probably added to the mystique, certainly there's nothing around with the same atmosphere, not in Wigan at least. Why else would it remain such an indelible memory so many years later?

wigan, should be renamed ....we-gone! because it almost has gone.. thanks to the councelors and all the so called. do gooders.

What a tragedy.

If you think Wigan has destroyed its town centre, you've obviously never been to St Helens! Snouts in the trough lads doesn't even come close! Compared to St Helens, Wigan is a paradise! You lucky people!