Wigan Album

What a fascinating photo.....I could study old photos from the 50s and 60s for hours! I actually remember that part of Greenough Street from the sixties when I used to go to Central Park with my friend and her Dad and yet in recent years I have had to ask, "Where was Greenough Street?". It's unbelievable how things have changed.

Was the building on the very top left the Drill Hall.

It was the Drill Hall Maureen.

Thank you flower.

I had to go every day this way to work. I rushed passed the toilets , awful smell.

The corner “shop”…..Tickles (Printers). Next door…..Dickinson’s….
Paper Shop (never Newsagent!). The herbalist was in Scholes.

Apparently before it was the Newsagent’s it was Bolton’s Herbalists Mike.
I do remember it as a ‘paper shop’.

Great picture. I, (just about) remember Scholes as it used to be. I also love the darkening sky here.

Another memorable scene Keith expertly brought back to life.
On the right those ‘unforgettable’ cast iron enclosed urinals packed to the gunnels on match days.
On the right Santus’s Motor Body Works and the Drill Hall on the other side of Water Street.
In the mid 1960’s I knew one or two members of the large Santus Family, they once lived at The Mount, Appley Lane North, a huge property with its own tennis court.
I think they moved to Lancaster Lane in Parbold after Mr Santus retired and the business closed.

One of the many ways we went to Cental Park,this photo makes me feel good.I once had a paper shop but it blew away.

The Drill Hall played a big part in people’s lives. I remember my dad telling me when he was called up in wartime the soldiers went there. They were detailed to shift the snow around Wigan in that really bad winter. They had their meals there as well I believe. One chap who had children would go around and scrape the plates of any left overs and take them home. I couldn’t believe what I heard but he said it was true. Later when they were posted to different places “This particular soldier would ask my dad could he put a letter inside my dad’s letters home. My grandmother used to take the letters to his wife nearby. All to save a few pennies -unbelievable!

Correction: Santus’s etc on the left!!!
Pw, nice to see a bit of humour, it made me laugh.

The man stood to the left of the urinal block looks not to like the smell in there either Dot, as he's stood in a aiming pose against the wall.

When the new road layout and bridge was being built they found old rusty army bombs near the old stone bridge, it was suspected that they had been dumped in the river from the Drill Hall, however on reading this -
Comment by: cliff higham (wigan, uk) pre 2009.
I recall, a kids playing about in Calderbanks yard, chucking old used Artillery shells over the wall into the Duggy,daft things you did as kids. Some years ago I remember the bomb squad investigating a shell spotted in the river, just before the main bridge,all the usual precautions were made, policemen, keeping the rubber neckers at a distance, me being one. I told one bobby if they looked back beyond the the footbridge they would find another 30.
From here - https://www.wiganworld.co.uk/stuff/mem9.php?page=20

we now know who to blame :¬)