Wigan Album

The houses, on the left way back in the background, are presumably those of Clarington Grove, long since demolished. My mother was born there in 1919 and my grandmother lived in the Grove until the 1960's, possibly the 70's.

I don't know about a chemical works but I do know it was the biggest rubbish dump in wigan and it stunk to high heaven.But if you lived near the canal on a hot day it was like living by the sea with the wading,swimming and fishing and weals disease wasn't even heard of, the rats must have been healthy back then

This is the lock at the bottom of Leigh St the next one up is adj St Pats and then The Long arm entrance then next one just past the bottom of Clarington Grove which you went across to the Chimic

Empress mill chimney stands tall in Hr Ince.

I'll tell you what, people say the good old days? well looking at this photo, I'm glad there gone. What a filthy place the area and canals were then. Much better today.

Thanks for the photo Tony. Interesting to see the old pit shafts on the right bank of the canal. I remember these as a child. My great grandfather lived in this area in 1881, at Whalley's Old Colliery Cottage, and very likely worked down that pit.

PHOTO MUST HAVE BEEN TAKEN NEAR SIGNAL BOX ON RAILWAY BRIDGE JUST TO THE RIGHT OF PHOTO WAS A RAILWAY TURNTABLE WE USED TO PLAY ON WHEN WE WAS KIDS

On old maps of Wigan a public house is shown at the bottom of Clarington Grove on the side of the canal opposite the Grove itself. With the mention of a Chemical works it perhaps makes more sense that it existed at all, since apart from the Grove itself, any trade would have been intercepted by pubs closer to a customer base. The pub disappeared many, many years ago and I have no idea of its name.

Played there many a Sat afternoon with my cousin Roy Pitcher and you Roy and many others cant remember names.

Can any of you snappers take a photo of the same location for p-a-d please.

those 2 small chimneys on the left of empress i think they or bulldog tools in forge st

small chimney on left is Rappaports

Yes some of the pit shafts were still there. As kids growing up in Warrington Lane we would often cross that lock bridge to get to what my father used to call the Kimmick, but we used to call "the fields". In the early days the grass they had planted over the old mining land had poor drainage and you had to walk further over towards to the Ince entrance to get drier ground if there had been rain earlier. My parents were not that keen on me going to the fields because of those pit shafts, which were a danger to inquisitive kids. But the fields were a lovely green area in a part of town that was heavily urbanised.

near the fist pit shaft was a hollow where the men played pitch and toss,which was ellegal,and we used to keep a lookout for the bobbies.this was in the late 40s early 50s