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Photos of Wigan
Photos of Wigan



Wigan Album

Skitters Wood Ashton-in-Makerfield

6 Comments

skitters wood
skitters wood
Photo: Allan Hughes
Views: 3,428
Item #: 15765
skitters wood around 1910 - 1914.

Comment by: Karin on 12th September 2010 at 20:27

Thank you for these photographs I am really enjoying them. I am familiar with the spot from where this was taken. This one was taken just from the spot near where the M6 is now at the bottom of Balliol Way. Allan, are you familiar with this area and do you know how Skitters Wood got it's name? I would love to know the origins of the name.

Comment by: Frank Walford on 14th September 2010 at 11:53

this is just how i remember it as a lad in the early 40s.Totally different now,no lake,no allotments more vandalism, shame.

Comment by: Karin on 14th September 2010 at 17:41

Frank, do you remember if the weir on one of the other photos fed into the lake, and was it just beyond the brige/crossing we can see in this photo.

Comment by: Frank Walford on 14th September 2010 at 18:58

Hi Karin there is something similar to the fence you can see even now,because the water is deep at that spot so it could be where the wier used to be.I don't remember the wier and I used to play in the woods in the early 40's

Comment by: Debbie on 17th October 2010 at 08:54

Hi I agree with Frank, what a mess we have made of this beautiful area, looking at the pictures it could be any of the breathtaking areas around Lancashire, oh havent we lost so much?

Comment by: Keith Roberts on 13th August 2014 at 20:46

You're so right Debbie, this was a truly wonderful place. More than 70 years ago my parents would take me for walks through the Skitters and later, when I was about seven or eight, I wuld go there with friends to catch newts, frogs, tadpoles (taddies), sticklebacks and minnows (cockies). I can't imagine children that age being allowed anywhere near it these days. On my all too infrequent visits to
Ashton I still like to walk through the Skitters but how sad it looks these days. The local council used the lake as a landfill in the 1950s and that's why it isn't there anymore. Shame, and such happy memories.

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