Brock Mill / Haigh Foundary

Hi all

As you cross the River Douglas on Leyland Mill Lane heading for Hall Lane - what are the old brick factory buildings with the chimney on the left down in the valley? An old OS Map says Haigh foundary but I suspect it's just the site of. Wasn't the Post & Chronicle based there or was that the other side?

They were Leyland Mills, hence Leyland Mill Lane.

Makes sense - thank you

Telling Oy anything about Wigan is a bit like telling David Attenborough about the Kalahari !

By the way, did you know that they built the Laxey Wheel there ..... and then they rolled it all the way to Speke Airport and sent it over on a Ryanair flight for 99p ? (that's Haigh Foundry, not the Kalahari!)

Probably.

Then again ...... Probably Not !

Oy, some interesting information here:
Foundary

A couple of Wiganworld images too: Images

Tonker, this info seems to put the Laxey Wheel story to bed:
Laxey Wheel

Whenever there is a discussion regarding the Laxey Wheel,there is a point that is always stated. Quoting from the above link, it usually goers something like this:

"Realistically it would make more sense to construct the wheel's components in a port city such as Liverpool, rather than inland in an area such as Wigan, thus requiring land transport to the nearest seaport before shipping the components to the Isle of Man."

There are a couple of things that are never said. Back then, heavy items such as castings where usually carried on the canals, not roads. The Leeds/Liverpool canal carried so many items, there were even specially constructed boats for the purpose. So to get the (unassembled) wheel to Liverpool would not have been a problem. The wheel was transported in this way, there are photos showing it being unloaded on an Isle of Man beach. It was too big even in that state for the harbour.

There are/were other wheels on the island that were certainly made in Wigan. Isle of Man historians can confirm this fact. So the Haigh foundry would have been well known on the island.

About the only concrete evidence that says it wasnt built in Wigan is tha fact that the foundry was in Haigh!

@ uncle joe, what about the sentence above the one you quoted, which says; 'However, when an archivist with the Manx National Heritage was contacted in Douglas by us a few years ago, he clearly stated that the wheel was constructed by the "Vauxhall Foundry, Liverpool and the Mersey Iron Works, Ellesmere Port, Lancashire, and transported and erected on the Isle of Man"'.
Surely that IS concrete evidence.

If it is backed up by sources available to us to inspect, then it would be a pointer to (them) concrete evidence, otherwise it is 'hearsay evidence'.