Wigan Album

Being a great fan of the forties, (even though I wasn't born then!}, it is lovely to see Wigan in the forties, but surely that is Woodcock Street with the Market Hall entrance,and The Park Hotel in Hope Street over to the right?

Look how nice the lamp standards are painted?

Irene I understand how confusing this picture does look , imagine looking up market st from the lights were the college now is you can then see that it was the market st side and entrance during that era.

Sorry Irene, that isn't the Park Hotel, THAT is the start of Woodcock St, with i think Meesons, bottom right, on the corner.

Irene, do you not remember buying a Quality Sreet tin from Meesons to hold your Christmas cake which you made at school ???

Does anyone remember how many entrances there were to the market hall? I can think of three -the one as above on Market St, the entrance overlooking the Market Square and the one opposite the arcades. Was there another one? It is 'bugging' me! It seems so long ago I can't remember!

Is that entrance facing the Queens Hall.

It is Maureen, i walked past it every school day for five years going to TLS.

There were 4 entrances to the Market Hall, the fourth was on the Hope Street side and was opposite Owen Owen's fruit and veg wholesale warehouse

Vb, There was another entrance onto the market square via the fish market through the shellfish stalls.

Yes, got my bearings... thanks everyone. I can see it now.....it was the outside stalls at the front that threw me; it looked like the Woodcock Street entrance with the stalls there. Yes, Roy, I did get the Quality Street tin from Meeson's. It always felt a bit odd entering The Market Hall through that entrance, as most people used the Woodcock Street door.

Thank you for the info. Was the fruiters on the corner Conroys and not Owens?

The entrance on the Market Square side had a revolving door as I remember.

Irene,do you recall when I was telling you about Carley's men's clothing shop..well..it was built next door to that entrance.on your left..and Roy..was
that area called Petticoat Lane.

Thanks, Maureen; I remember the area being Petticoat Lane, and Cassinelli's had a café on the Woodcock Street end. Alan H, yes, I remember the revolving doors on the Market Square entrance. I remember the shellfish part where my Mam used to buy cockles and mussels, then you walked up some dank stone steps into the main Market Hall. I have Geoff Shryhane's dvd of the last few days of the Market Hall. It didn't leave much of an impression on me when I first got it, (it was on video then), as the Market Hall was still fresh in my mind, but oh, how I love to watch it now! Harold Bradshaw's Menswear Stall, Alice Hitchen's Lighting Stall, Santus's Toffee-stall, and Mr. Ali Khan presiding over his jeans stall with his surprising Lancashire accent! You don't know what you've got 'til it's gone.....never a truer word spoken!

I think that there were 6 entrances.. 2 from the market square(revolving door and one that went past what I think was a fish stall) , one from Market St. , 2 from Woodcock st ( main one and then one that went past some toilets and entered near to King s butchers) and the one from the fruit market

Philip Cunliffe – I also remember six entrances.
On the Market Square side, the one nearest the bus station took you past Bolton’s shellfish stall, and the other (with the revolving door) took you into the Market Hall near Moyers’s fishing tackle and toy stall.
On the Woodcock St side, there was an entrance opposite the bottom of the Makinson Arcade, which took you past the key cutting stall and in past Bill Worsley’s crockery stall (Gibson and Young), and a covered entrance near the fish market, which took you in near King’s butchers, as you say.
Also entrances on the Market St side and Hope St side.

I must say what good memories you lot have regarding the entrances - I envy you! I still think the fruit and veg Warehouse was Conroys.

Conroy's rings a bell with me, too, Vb; I have a hazy memory of lorries with that name on near Meeson's toffee-shop,but so many people speak of Owen Owen's....I wonder if Conroy's took over from Owen Owen's?

Convoys was a wholesale potato merchants . They were next door to Owen Owen.

I think I must have had too many jolly robins in my head as a young girl!,
Anyway it's been enlightening... Thanks to all.