Wigan Album

I think I should have described the location of the bus as Millgate rather than Scholes, which is in the distance, starting as soon as you cross the River Douglas.

your a bit mixed up there the horseshoe hotel was millgate, not scholes

It was a lot easier crossing the roads in those days compared to today. I had forgotten what substantial buildings most of the pubs were then. The photos seem to be a lot more recent in colour. I walked past there many, many times but never been inside the pub.

I remember walking past The Horseshoe pub on Saturday mornings as a child, on my way to the Powell Children's Library.

When younger the exterior architecture of pub buildings wasn't on my mind and I doubt it was on other folks either with only being here for the beer, but now on looking at these photos, especially now Keith has colourised them, you can see the superb details in the brickwork and stone that architects included, giving the buildings character, and they certainly wasn't plain blocks like they are now which resemble being made out of Lego Duplo, though I suppose they are now built 'Not To Last' and in a few years time when their life-span is finished they'll be easier to flatten and recycle to make more of the same.

The bus is inward bound on the No.14 New Springs route. The car to the left of the bus was identical to my first car, an Hillman Minx. Mine was 1954 vintage with a side valve engine - wouldn't pull you out of bed!!

In the top photo showing the bridge and the embankment its come to mind of when they were bulldozing the embankment that ran at the side and back of Palatines pop makers, and when hordes of bottle collectors descended there after stories that ancient codd and cordial bottles which had been dumped years ago alongside the embankment had been uncovered, I heard a lot of good finds were found.

Derek B, we have a Hillman Minx, 1959 vintage; Column change gear, choke etc but no seat belts! She is called "Dorothy".

Irene, I later had a 1964 Hillman Minx. By then they had reverted to a floor gear change and the car offered a pretty nifty performance for the time, and the bodywork had been modified to a more square appearance. I suppose your car will be the MkII version of the completely revamped Minx of 1956, prior to which the bodywork of all post war Minxes had been modified versions of the innovative shape of the 1948 model. Your Minx will have plenty of character, unlike today's cars, where you can't tell the difference until you can read the badge on them

Ours is a 1959 Series Three, which my husband says will be very similar bodywork to your 1964 model, which he believes was a Series Four or Five. We get a lot of "thumbs-ups" from people who see it, and even get small children pointing at it as they think it is Harry Potter's car! Harry's was actually a Ford Anglia from the early sixties, but "Dorothy" is the same colour and it is so nice to see small children who recognise something "different" to today's cars.

Great picture. Does anyone have knowledge of Timberlakes who were advertised on the bridge? Seems to be a used car dealers.

Timberlakes was a main dealership company for Austin cars. They had
a fine car showroom on the left of Library Street, not too far down.
They had a large building on Wallgate, opposite where Bristol Street
Motors is now. It involved a car showroom, a car maintainence workshop
and car spares and components products, spark plugs, engines, etc.

DerekB and lrene, I share a similar experience with you both, in the sense that our first car in 1951 was also a Hillman Minx. At the time cars were not that easy to acquire, certainly not new ones, there was a considerable waiting list. That explains why our Hillman Minx was a 1938 version, first acquired by my father’s family in Wales. It limped along until 1956 but we children loved it. It had a name “Betsy”, my Welsh grandmother christened it after a favourite cow they owned with a similar name, when they had a 22 acre smallholding in South Wales.

Love hearing tales of Wales Keith. What is your Welsh surname? Mine is Morgan.

"Captain Morgan and his Hammond Organ"

Can you play the organ, Vanessa?

Hi Veronica, my surname is Bowen. My Welsh father (from Llanelli) joined 15 other Welshmen on Wigan Rugby League’s books when he signed in 1938. I, like my mother, was Wigan born and bred. My DNA result shows l’m 94% Celtic, 0% English, family research shows my mother’s antecedents were also from Wales, Prestatyn area.

Ray, do you remember that in addition to Timberlakes fine showroom on the left on Library St. where new cars were on show, they had a smaller one opposite where used cars were on show ? They also had a showroom further down Library St. on the right where they showed commercial vehicles and one petrol pump on the corner of the alley leading through to King St.

Veronica, I'm of Welsh origin too...my grandad was Welsh as were both his parents. I was a Griffiths before marriage, and still had a Welsh name even after marriage....Roberts!

I still haven’t done my DNA Keith but I know there’s Welsh and Irish in it, probably more than English. Have you ever read “How Green was My Valley”. ( Richard Llewelyn ) also the film? Really good book and film.
Spaced out Mick no I.’m not musical at all. My ‘talents’ lie elsewhere…I’m quite ‘crafty’ and creative though.

Guilty on both counts Veronica, although I’ve heard many favourable references to both.

A bit of history. In Henry VIII's Act of Union in 1536, Wales was legally incorporated into England, with English as its sole official language. The Welsh have been quietly
“infiltrating” England ever since and I suspect, there are perhaps, hundreds of thousands, living in England, unaware of their distant Welsh heritage.

My Welsh came from the Valleys of South Wales Irene. Do you know where yours came from? We might end up related yet! I am sure those Catterall’s you have spoken of from Ince could be.

Keith you can find the film on ytube. I watched it again a couple of weeks ago.
You can still find the book in the library or Amazon even.

Veronica, my great-grandma came from a village called Minera and my great-grandad from a nearby village called Brymbo....they are both in the Wrexham area. It was quite uncanny how I found out where my great-grandma was from. I won't tell how on here but will tell you privately at some point. xxx

Yes Wigan Mick, I play the organ in church most Sundays when I'm not flying.

WN. Welsh Not !

Thank you Veronica. l’m often on you tube these days, so l’ll give it a go. Not surprising that my early Bowen antecedents were farmers (earliest born 1793) but there are various stories of where our earliest ancestors came from, non provable (so far). One was that 4 Bowen brothers landed at Fishguard in the 1700’s. They could have been Irish (possibly from Cork) or returning Welshmen who had been recruited by the various English Armies over the years to quell problems in Ireland, something the English started I think. I probably have a few thousand Welsh relatives, some of whom I’ve met, and hundreds of "Kansas Cousins”, a result of a Bowen brother and sister emigrating in 1887. We were lucky to go over there in 1998 for their bi-annual Bowen re-union, there were 88 present, it was a memorable occasion.

I don't think i'm Welsh, although I've been to Rhyl several times.

Thanks Keith interesting bit of history - I think we are all a bit of a mixed bag.
(Incidentally you have to ignore the boring bone- heads!)

In 1962 I had driving lessons at. a driving school on the left just past the bridge. A couple ran it and had two Wolseley 1500 s.

It does amaze me how often the content from contributors deviates from the subject at hand, I am probably just as guilty!
On the subject of the Horseshoe Pub I remember it very well having lived first in Harrogate Street and Douglas House across the road.
I was quite distraught when the pub was pulled down, not because of the pub itself but because it had amazing original and intact detailed stained glass windows on the Millgate side, I would have asked the contractors if I could have them but would not know where to put them, they probably finished up in a skip.
I had a mate Paul Entwistle who introduced me to his work mates from Triangle Valve, we all used to go in the Horseshoe 1967/68 although it had a bit of a seedy reputation (I can still hear the Four Tops on the Juke Box) and the Black Horse in Standish.
People might remember some of the crowd of Paul Entwistle, Malcolm Bishop, Fred Moss, Aubrey Taylor (Aubrey's parents had the Black Horse, now the Lychgate) and John Dean in particular and two girls Pauline Boulton and Anne Hewitt.
Paul and Aubrey are sadly no longer with us and I haven't had contact with the others since those Happy Days. If they pick up on this it would good to hear from them.

I agree with you Colin, subject matter often deviates from the original post, it occurs so frequently we should not be surprised I suppose. After all it’s mainly Wiganers or ex-Wiganers talking amongst themselves and to be quite frank often the deviation becomes as interesting, if not more so, than the original topic. However, your excellent posting stuck 100% to the topic in hand.

The Horseshoe was one of my first boozers. The jukebox was the best in Wigan at the time, there was also a table football machine in the vault. Had some good times in there.

I played darts in there a couple of time when it was in the Burtonwood League, ironically for the Black Horse in Standish !! As I remember they were a good set of lads and not a bad darts team. The Pear Tree was the team to beat at the time though, some good Town Team players went in there.

My memory of the stained glass windows being binned at time of demolition must be flawed as they do not feature on this or other pictures of the Horseshoe.
I do though recall them being removed but it must have been much earlier, it would be nice though to think that they were say shipped of to America or put to good use and not scrapped.

speaking of timberlakes ,there was a garage on the left going out of wigan towards goose green ,does anyone remember the lady in the parts department who knew all the parts and the stock numbers off by heart ? and the name of the garage ?

Peter Walsh re; your comment from the 3rd November, I remember the people who took the driving lessons, it was Sammy and Florrie Bradshaw. They ran the newsagents next door as well. My dad had lessons there round about 1962/63 and my mam started learning with Florrie in about 1967/68, sadly Florrie had a heart attack and died while out with my mam and a coal delivery driver stopped and ran for help to the police station.