Wigan Album

That looks really pretty and makes you wonder why those houses could not have stayed...

I can remember Ince bar looking like this and it was a lovely place

Great pic, I remember Ince Bar very well during the 70's as I attended Ince C of E School. We did a school play and sang "Ince Brittania... there'll never be a better place than Our Ince Bar". Shame they demolished the old houses for a KFC and other non-descript buildings, all in the name of progress.

The Orange coloured Door was Postelthwaites butchers shop which later moved across the road next to the Squirrel

i agree with the comments that have been made i also remmember it like this

I also remember the mobile library parked outside the butchers and opticians in the 1960s and the Fish from Fleetwood van parked just to the right of the hot dog stand nearer the bus stop.

Note: The fish mans van used to read "fish from Fleet oo" on one side with the W and D missing,never did find out where Fleet oo was!

i feel i could walk down ince green lane to our house,1950s and 60s. we lived opposite the "long neck",(anderton arms), a row of 6 houses set back behind the wall of st. william's presbytery...anyone remember it? thankyou to everyone out there for these wonderful scenes of Ince...things I thought I'd never see again.

Irene,yes the houses set back from the lane,Mrs Grimshaw lived in one of those she was a dinner lady at St.Williams.

Irene, are you the daughter of the Mrs Grimshaw mentioned earlier

The few cobbles under the hot-dog stand still exist to this day. I always wondered why they was there with the new tarmac and now I do! lol

hi JOSEPH! glad you remember our row. It's good to share memories.....hi EVELYN! Mrs. Grimshaw did have a daughter Irene,but my name was Griffiths. we liwed a few doors away from the Grimshaws.

I remember Mrs Grimshaw the dinner lady living there too I also remember Mr Riley the caretaker and Mr Fleetwood his replacement.. and the doctors surgery higher up with Dr Hyde and a Dr with a polish name we could not pronounce so of course to us he was Dr Jeckyll..

Oh yes the doctors Hyde and Cheznack(spelling?)Dr Hyde loved a chat about James Cagney films.Mr.Fleetwood,i can see him now in his boiler suit shoveling the coke in the school yard,tall willowy chap.

dennis the barbers shop was here

Is the gap between the buildings in the background the way through to Stopford St.? My grandparents John and Edith Owen lived at no 16 Stopford St. for approx. 60 years until 1962 we used to stay there on holidays. My memories of the area are mainly of the 40s and 50s. Does anyone remember the cinema known as 'The Ince Bug House' was its real name The Doric? was the pub on the corner ever known as The Glass Barrel? any help with these questions would be much appreciated.

Yes, the gap led to Stopford Street, and there was a building, (a warehouse I think), down there that we used to pretend was haunted. The Bug WAS really called the Doric, and I believe the pob on the corner of Manchester Road and I have heard of The Glass Barrel but not sure which pub it was.....may have been the one on the corner of Pickup St.

Sorry, made a bit of a mess of the above comment. Hope it made sense.I had altered what I had first intended to say but omitted to erase some of it.

MANY THANKS IRENE ROBERTS I saw the name DORIC on a building when walking around Ince over the 'other side' of Manchester Road about 1952 and thought that it could be the 'Bug House' my parents had told me about. I don't think they could remember the proper name of the place - it was always the 'Bug House'. It looked as though it was no longer a Cinema and I wonder WHEN DID IT CLOSE ? WAS IT OPEN AFTER THE WAR ?
My mother used to mention the Glass Barrel when she talked of 'the old days' and I thought it was on the corner of Ince Green Lane but it is a long time ago !!
My mother Edith MAY Owen married William Jarvis who lived at 15 Whelley and they moved to Leicester in 1938.
On holidays I walked miles with my Grandad John Owen and talked about when he worked in the mines, went to the 'Rec' where he played bowls and sailed my model boat on Mellin's Flash - GREAT DAYS !!
Towards the end of his working life he was Park Keeper on Walmesley Park. He retired in 1946 and died in 1962.

Hello Stuart. I was born in 1952 and I believe The Bug closed around 1957, but I have a hazy memory of being taken to see The Wizard of Oz when I was a very small child, and of hiding under the seat when the green-faced witch appeared. My brothers, many years my senior, used to attend the Penny Rush on Saturdays, when orange-peel flew through the air and a hundred Lancashire voices yelled "E's be'ind thee"! I used to write for a local heritage magazine called Past Forward and one of my articles was about cinemas and my family's memories of The Bug. I remember when there was a park-keeper in Ince, (Walmesley) Park, and the cry of "T'Parky's comin'!" if we were caught up to mischief!

Hello Irene. My mother was born in 1913 and used to go to the 'Bug House' in the 20s. She and my father said that some kids took bags of small hard pears, ate some and then threw the rest. There was a man with a long stick who tried to keep order and the lights would be turned on if people threw at the screen which started everyone yelling and stamping.
I was 'surfing' around W.W. and saw thet 'aitch' posted a comment saying the Doric building was still there in Humphrey St. I 'Googled' the Street and saw the building at the bottom on the right. Is it the one? l

Yes, the building is still there and is the one you saw.In the sixties, Hesketh's ironmongers on Manchester Road used it for their storage room, and I went with my brother to collect some hardboard he had bought; there is something sad and rather eerie about a disused cinema and I was glad to get back out to the bustle of a Satuday morning on Ince Bar. My Grandma, who I sadly never knew, told my brothers of the days of silent pictures at The Bug. Some elderly Incers in those days couldn't read and would take along a child to read the captions, and in the silence, perhaps during a scene with a jealous lover, a deaf old lady would shout "Wozzee say"?, and her young companion would bellow "'E sez 'e's gooin' t'porr 'im!". The man who used to shove the kids along with a clothes-prop was an ex-wrestler known as "Cocker", (pronounced "Cock-Ker" in the ince dialect), and a relative of his manned the pay-desk. She was a very smart lady with beautifully- styled blonde hair, and once when she was holidaying on the Isle Of Man, a family from Ince were staying in the same boarding-house, and during the polite, murmured conversation in the dining-room, the little lad of the family spotted her and yelled, "Ey look Mam, it's T'Bug-Lady"! Like Queen Victoria, she wasn't amused! I will happily send you a copy of the article I did for Past Forward about local cinemas if you would like to read it.

i think irene robert should be classed as a wigan treasure with her wonderful memories that give such happy memories thanks irene