Wigan Album

Frank, Thanks for the great photo,this picture has everything,iv'e been waiting for years on here for someone to show the saddle pub,and the house's,down the side of the pub at the bottom was swift and house,later smiths coaches garaged there coaches on their for a few years,you've made my day has i was born in hopwood st the one behind the pub,thanks again.

I've always wondered why it was called The Saddle,does anyone know?

Would have looked great Frank it had a train going by, was you up the fire station tower.

Looked on Google Earth, is this the Bowling Green now?

Great photo. Does anybody know which year the Saddle pub was demolished?

What is the square structure in the background?

Great photo thanks Frank. I can really show the kids where dad is from! hey Viv, me mam and dad must home got fire on in my house!!

Very odd to see a railway line embankment in the 1960s without seeing telegraph poles. That would be the wallgate to liverpool exchange line.

Does anyone know why this district is called Robin

This photo makes the area look so miserable and run down but I bet the people who lived there remember it with some fondness.

I suspect the Pemberton line.

Paula;the square structure is thompsons wholesale warehouse[oldfields brewery]. below to the right is poolstock dog track [speedway]stand.chadwick st is behind the dog track

fantasitc picture of the old Saddle, thanks for this Frank.

What a superb photo, it'll certainly make folks recall some great memories, the man with the towel reminds me of the miners who stood there waiting for the pit buses.

Just to the left of the Oldfield's brewery tower you can make out St Mary's Steeple at Lower Ince.

"Robin" is a corruption of "Robbing". Ormskirk Road at this point was known historically as "Robbing Lane". Or so I've been told.

Thanks Michael

Frank a superb set of photographs This is what wiganworld is all about. Bringing back memories for us older folk. as well as showing the younger generation what Wigan once was like. I've got all your books and look forward to your next publication.
Thanks to Brian and Ron for a wonderful website

Superb picture. I remember it well.

Got any more Frank?

The big building at the back of the saddle pub, just to the right, is where I served my time in engineering at Swift and House ,it’s was the engineering shop

Thanks everybody for your comments. At the moment I have five books out:-the Just One More series of Volume One, Two and Three, Wigan Rugby League and Wigan Athletic. This year I will publish Volume Four, Wigan At Leisure, Wigan Amateur Sport and finally Wigan In Times Gone By which will contain pictures from the 1880s through the decades up to 1970, including these latest posted ones, and a few pictures which I couldn't fit in my other books. I will post a few more pictures shortly of Newtown from the same sequence of the Saddle one.

Not that I would want to live in the house I was brought up in again. It warms the heart to see these houses we called home and the various communities around Wigan, They are what most of us look on Wigan World for.

AH Thank you for your info. Although I'm not from the Wigan area, I've worked here for the NHS for 26 years and find the history and photos very interesting.

With reference to the use of the word robin. Is this perhaps where Robin Park ,as was , got its name from ?

When i was a lad,Alexandre park in Newtown was always known as Robin park.

i think the saddle pub closed in about 1970,one of the last landlords to run the pub was Dougie & May Richardson,when Frank took this photo,the fire station was'nt even at newtown.

The old fire station roof bottom left.Cracking pic. Thanks for sharing.

What a great photo,and great memories of where my grand parents and my dad lived in Hopwood st.Viv where abouts would it be(middle) can't quite make my mind up,thanks again for a great pic

Hi Theresa,Looking at the photo im thinking your grandma and fad as you called him,and your dad lived looking at the roof where theres a black line in the middle theres was the one before the line,what wonderful childhood memories,happy days going over boards as we called them (Railway sleepers)upended to keep us kids out,over railway lines (if mam and dad was'nt looking) and over to the red pond spending most of the day there.
Across the road from where the man is waiting for abbey lakes, pem, bus were the lady with the pram is was a pub thinking black bull not in the photo maybe wrong ive got maggie brown was landlady anyone remember it.
it may look rundown in the photo but it was'nt everyone looked out for one another,lovely little place.viv

Viv...The lady with the pram, and the Saddle Inn were at the
start of Warrington Road, The Corporation Buses that passed
the Lady and the pub would be en route to Ashton and Bryn.
The Abbey Lakes and Pemberton buses went via Ormskirk Road,
also buses to Norley Hall and Kitt Green. The Ribble buses
to St Helens, Ormskirk, and Southport also travelled via
Ormskirk Road. Regards, Ray.

Is that workshop in the background new town boilers formerly houghs I was an apprentice plater there in the early 1990s

If you look at the old ordnance survey map Scot Lane used to be called Robbing Lane, presumably a reference to highwaymen? It seems to have evolved into Robin, which ended up as Robin Park road nearby. There used to be playing fields at the end of Soho Street called Robin Park playing fields, site of the new complex and stadium now.