Login   |   Register   |   
Photos of Wigan
Photos of Wigan



Wigan Album

Market Place, Wigan

32 Comments

Market Place 1950's/60's
Market Place 1950's/60's
Photo: RON HUNT
Views: 4,221
Item #: 30373
View of shops 1950's early 60's

Comment by: Scaramouche on 31st March 2018 at 21:35

and what have we got now??? An ugly, concrete, closed. Market Gate...

Comment by: irene roberts on 31st March 2018 at 21:55

You only have to look at this scene to see what we lost. The Camera doesn't lie.

Comment by: Veronica on 31st March 2018 at 22:05

A town with its own identity and full of curiosity shops- now each town is much the same with all the same stores in every town up and down- and many closures in the same! The Wigan of the past gone forever and the main streets are just skeletons of how it was!

Comment by: Janet on 1st April 2018 at 03:04

This was the Wigan I knew and loved.. All gone now, such a shame.... I've been gone from Wigan since the mid 70s, was that when Wigan became part of GM and lost it's soul and identity...?

Comment by: Maureen on 1st April 2018 at 07:56

My Sister in law worked at Hunters Chemist..My wedding ring was from Bakers jewellers,but that aside..didn't these shops have class,character,shops nowadays have a coldness about them..we have lost an awful lot through so called progress.plain square looking buildings isn't progress to me,they just look soulless...I think as lots of people say "we've seen the best ".

Comment by: Helen of Troy on 1st April 2018 at 09:02

The words of a song come to mind...You dont know what youve lost till its gone.....

Comment by: Elizabeth on 1st April 2018 at 09:36

I agree with all the above comments. So much character lost, and as Veronica says, same in many other towns as well.

Comment by: Ray Smyth on 1st April 2018 at 10:00

Thanks to Ron Hunt for this great picture of Market Place, Wigan. F.W.Waterworth had about 70 fruit and vegetable shops
throughout the North West.

Comment by: irene roberts on 1st April 2018 at 10:27

I remember when we went decimal in 1971. It was going dark one late afternoon and I was walking past Waterworth's when a smiling, very pleasant
old lady touched my arm. She had just bought herself a bunch of early daffodils and was thrilled that they were only ninepence. They were actually nine new pence, which was more like 1/9d and I stood ages with her, trying to explain how much they had really cost, but she just couldn't understand it. She was obviously a pensioner and I imagine she wondered where her money had gone at the end of that week. I worried about her for a long time and have never forgotten her. I imagine she wasn't the only one in that situation.

Comment by: Veronica on 1st April 2018 at 10:57

Like Maureen my wedding ring came from Bakers. I felt nervous going in there as it was so 'posh'! Another personal service where you were made to feel special. If I remember you went into another room which was more private!

Comment by: Maureen on 1st April 2018 at 12:15

Nothing but the best Veronica eh!!

Comment by: GW. on 1st April 2018 at 12:22

Lovely tale of a moment in time Irene. Funny how so many people pass through our lives but some can touch us and we are never the same again.

Comment by: Veronica on 1st April 2018 at 12:37

Lovely story Irene - reminds me of my husband' s grandmother who wasn't much older than I am now- she couldn't get over the fact that a loaf of bread cost 8 shillings ( 40 pence!) She was forever transferring the new money back into the old! The old un's didn't like the decimal money - they thought they were being robbed everytime they went shopping!

Comment by: Philip Gormley. on 1st April 2018 at 14:32

A sensitive retelling of a sensitive situation from Irene.
And Veronica's mention of 'loaf of bread' is delightful; much sweeter sounding than 'thick-sliced loaf', of yore, and more permanent than the fleeting 'toastie', of today.
A 'slice of toast' still sounds good, though.

Comment by: Albert. on 1st April 2018 at 17:32

Ron. In the late fifties, early sixties I have no recollection of a pedestrian crossing in front of Bakers the Jeweller's. I can only remember the one outside of Woolworth's

Comment by: Dave on 3rd April 2018 at 17:20

The people in this picture are better dressed than some of the scruffy ones who walk about in Wigan town centre these days!

Comment by: irene roberts on 3rd April 2018 at 18:06

You're not kidding, Dave.....I think some of them have got dressed in the dark! The ladies and gentlemen on that lovely photo had tin baths hung up in the yard, and a shower was way in the future, but they had pride.

Comment by: Veronica on 3rd April 2018 at 20:37

It's true they did look smart - wearing a hat made them look doubly smart. They were classy in those days no doubt about it. I remember hats were practically compulsory on Sundays at church in those days. If I remember most women teachers I knew wore a hat.

Comment by: Julie on 4th April 2018 at 00:54

Dave , would you prefer we stay in the pictures era and never move on? Many on here would not even be looking at these pictures without the advantages of progress. It is okay to remember the past, but to try and shield it above the merits of progress, good or bad, is, like looking at our own death , it is going to happen to all eventually. This has been the case since the dawn of time , and I can assure you, it does not stop at Wigan.. Taking into account my observation how very few, if any , of the younger generation there are on this particular forum , I doubt very much, they would even know such a building, in the same way as many of the pictures on here, even ever existed, and would care even less.

Comment by: Veronica on 4th April 2018 at 11:21

Looking back is a preoccupation on this site it's obviously what it's all about. Technology is wonderful in allowing that aspect but it also has evils and dangers attached - which we all know about. For instance, the 'F' word is common in language today used by both sexes it wasn't then. Dress was more modest - not as much flesh on show. Men were smarter too. We had progressed even then in the fifties after the mean and hungry thirties and war torn forties. It was 'our time'. Time and progress marches on and we are in a constant 'state of flux' it's only natural to look back and compare. The young will get their chance to look back to ' their time' in the future. How great it is to see these pictures that trigger so many memories of half forgotten times.

Comment by: tom on 4th April 2018 at 14:02

Julie chill out these photos are for everybodys pleasure

Comment by: Irene on 4th April 2018 at 15:03

Very well said, Veronica.

Comment by: GW. on 4th April 2018 at 15:06

Me smart more wif bigg bwain Veronika.

Comment by: Veronica on 4th April 2018 at 15:57

'Shurrup' Gdub - 'av getten an headache after all that looking back into mists and cobwebs of decades!

Comment by: Dave on 4th April 2018 at 18:01

Julie i am not talking about the buildings as smart as the are i am referring to the appearance of the people being much smarter than most that you see in town these days.

Comment by: Helen of Troy on 5th April 2018 at 12:49

A bit late in the day but Veronica has it in a nutshell, well said, I heartily agree with her.

Comment by: Albert. on 5th April 2018 at 15:10

Reference my earlier comment. Has anyone any recollection of a pedestrian crossing in front of the jeweller's?. My wife worked at Baker's Jeweller's in the fifties, and early sixties, and she has no recollection of such a crossing.

Comment by: tom on 5th April 2018 at 15:46

Albert ithink they were called beleesha beacons and they were a warning for drivers to be aware of pedestrians . I am sure there was no crossing near bakers.

Comment by: irene roberts on 5th April 2018 at 16:44

Can't remember one, Albert. There was one near Woolworths and one at the junction of Market Place and Wallgate, near what was once, I think, Meadow Dairies. My daughter superimposed a photo of Peter and myself in our 1940s clothes on an old photo of that one, as if we were crossing the road. I am 99% sure there wasn't one in front of Baker's.....it would have been pointless with the other two so near, and would have been a hindrance rather than a help with traffic.

Comment by: Susan on 16th April 2018 at 16:02

Sorry but I agree with Julie. The people may appear smarter but close up a lot are scruffy. Threadbare suits and shirts with collars that are grey. There are many things from the past we have lost and they were better than what we have today but equally, there is much today that people in the 40s, 50s and 60s would have only dreamed about. Progress is relative. Don't forget, someone from the Victorian era, looking at these pictures, may wax lyrical about what they had in the 1880s or 1890s and think that these shops are a backward step. On the whole, we are better off today and the advantages far outweigh any disadvantages.

Comment by: baker on 6th May 2018 at 19:40

progress good or bad ? souless wigan is bad progress ,plenty of people begging on the steets today never mind dressed scruffily.

Comment by: talktalk on 16th May 2018 at 00:04

thanks to ron for putting this photo on, they was my great grand fathers family

Leave a comment?

* Enter the 5 digit code to the right of the input box. Don't worry if you make a mistake, you will get another chance. Your comments won't be lost.