Wigan Album

Crikey! Fancy demolishing a building like that…what a waste.

I'm sure I sent a very similar pic to the Album....
It's a pity there isn't a tagging facility on the site, so that images such as this can be filed under more than one subject heading.

I used to live on the next street to there, Cambridge Road. As kids we used to sometimes hang around there, where the bus used to terminate in the early/mid 1960's.

The Old Engine pub in Orrell, not far from Heinz was demolished a few years ago, and used to be the 21 route later 621 bus terminus.

Rev, as I said , the same image is on the site under ORRELL I Thought I would put it under PUBS for people just looking for OLD Pubs. Saves them scrolling through all the categories...

For some reason I've walked past the pub umpteen times either going to the Legion or more often up to the Stag, but never once went in there, can't remember why, and I never knew why it was named the Old Engine, until I read about it on here, our own wigipedia of wiganworld.

There was two possible reasons as was discussed on the Forum, though that's gone, however there is this one on the photo by David, link below, and from Fred Foster @20:22, who was a mine of information about Orrell, Pemberton and Newtown, and being a mine water engine pump. https://www.wiganworld.co.uk/album/photo.php?opt=5&id=30752&gallery=Orrell&offset=40

The other that it was the engine that hauled coal wagons up and down Gathurst Road, to and from the canal, hence the small opening under the rail bridge, and now used by pedestrians.

But what you didn’t say, Ron, was that it is my image….

The ale in there wasn't actually Tetley's which is brewed in Yorkshire. In Lancashire at that time the Tetley pubs which were brewed and supplied by Greenall Whitley, which was awful stuff !

i think an old mate of mine had it . tony blundell .

I remember Tony having the Plough in Shevvy, didn't know he had this one too

i knew about the plough . i might be wrong but i,m really not sure if he had the engine or not .

I remember Dennis Slater had it in the 70’s I was mates with his lad at the time…

I worked with Tony Blundell until the mid 1980s and socialised with him then and when he later went into the licensing trade.
He never had the Old Engine, which was one of my locals.
Landlords who did have the pub were Dennis Slater as already mentioned, Graham Goodlad, and Billy Latham.

It's sad to hear that the owd pub is gone. My grandad lived in Marsh Green and we lived in Up Holland, we passed by that pub several times a week all through my childhood.

I've lived in the USA for the past thirty years but childhood memories of Wigan are still with me. Thanks to everyone who posts pictures, they mean a lot to keep in mind things that are gone.

I lived in Spring Road until 1962 when i left to go to university. As a small boy (early 1950s) i used to visit the pub with my dad The landlord then was Billy Moss who had a false leg presumably from the first world war. i used to sit in the kitchen with his wife Anne and cook toast on a fork on the open coal fire delicious.

I worked in the old engine back in the late 70's in the kitchen serving basket meals when Madge and Graham had it. I remember Julie and her bodyguard Marcus the bull dog he followed her everywhere, lovely memories the place was buzzing back then always busy.

I used to go in there regularly during the late 60's early 70's, always a nice atmosphere.
I too was surprised when I went past a few years ago and and it had been pulled down and either flats or houses built.

I am looking for the sons of Denis Slater who had the pub in the 70s…. Neil, Jeremy and Johnathan if anyone happens to know them?