Wigan Album
MAKINSON,S ARCADE
7 CommentsPhoto: Mel Carter
Item #: 30934
When I was a kid, this place was buzzing on a Saturday. I seem to remember an Ice Cream parlour somewhere in the arcade.
I can recall the sounds of the bustling of folks rushing along there, the traffic passing the top, the chirping sparrows and the call of the newspaper vendors - evenen possst. Looks all quiet there, shops closed I suppose.
Makinsons Arcade, as well as the Royal Arcade were refurbished around 1983, with plants installed in Makinson's Arcade. Don't think there were any gates so anyone could go through in the dead of night, and I'll never forget once seeing a Ford Corsair car being driven through by an errant fool. There was also an old man selling the Post and Chronicle newspaper at the top end.
Newspaper vendors would cry out...Wigan Obssseeerrrvvveeerrr.
Top of Wigan and Wallgate station,1960s.
I wish the Makinson still had the same variety of shops.
Coming home from WGS in the mid 1960s we would often go upstairs in Boots to listen to new 45 singles which they used to sell there. Funny how things trigger your memory it seems like only yesterday when I was stood there with mates listening to "Substitute" by The Who for the first time.
Can see the pigeons up there, these pests still to this day make an awful mess of building interior and the floor.