Wigan Album
Station Road
4 CommentsPhoto: Frank Orrell
Item #: 32751
Was this photograph taken from the top floor window of Crompton House flats? Wigan Casino and parish church are perfectly visible, as is the Civic Centre council offices and two GMT standard double deckers. Cars are harder to identify from this distance, but there is a three wheel Reliant Robin entering Watkin Street and a parked Bedford CF minibus. Station Road ad Watkin Street have gone, now in the Grand Arcade shopping centre.
Also of note is the Coops factory chimney and I remember until the 1980s the wartime air raid siren occasionally droning across town.
I'd forgotten about that hooter blowing for the Coops staff starting/finishing and also their break times Mr X, you didn't need a watch to know the time when hearing that.
Wigan Central Hall, the Central Station and Makinson's buildings on Station Road all demolished to make way for an extension to the hideous Civic Centre, the extension never did get to be built and the Civic Centre itself now stands empty and unused, and most likely with the heating dial still turned to the usual maximum setting.
Mr X, I took the pictures of Station Road from the roof of the flats. There wasn't the same concern about health and safety in those days.
Mr X - I suspect the photographer has taken this picture on the roof of Derby House and not Crompton House due to the camera angle on Station Road.