Wigan Album
PARR’S COURT
15 CommentsPhoto: Keith
Item #: 33487
Thank you Keith it all falls into place. My grandmother attended the Church/school just
up the road passing Atherton St. It's strange I always thought where she lived may have been on the side of Darlington St where Orwell lodged.
The school became Wigan Agency's in the fifties where my Mam would take us for clothes. So I must have walked in her footsteps. Sadly she died very young before I was born aged only 37. Thanks again, I have been looking at maps but couldn't find Parr Court and gave up.
Veronica, I'm so glad that you have found where your grandmother was born.I have been trying to do the same, not succeeded as yet.
Edna
What were your grandmother’s maiden and married names , the year she was born and the area she was born in?
Just to add a little more about Parr’s Court, the houses were incredibly small. I was young at the time I visited, but from memory, the house seemed to consist of one room up and down.The view, if that’s how it can be described, consisted of seeing nothing but brick wall, there was, a wall blocking the road to the left (I presume that’s the line you can see on the map), brickwork in front of you and to the right.
As I was studying the map Keith I realised just how much space there was at the back of the houses, hardly any room to hang their washing in a small communal back yard? In the fifties just after the war they may have been glad to live in those tiny houses. Many people lodged with parents as my mam and dad did, until things got better.
After Marriage my grandmother lived in Grt George St Wallgate and that's where she died.. New Year's Eve of all times. So sad.
Keith, Do you know the approximate date of this street map picture ?
I expect it to be pre 1930 because the tramlines are there.
The railway goods shed on the left of the map was the banana ripening
operation of Fyffes Bananas, later to become the office and storage
warehouse of Transport firm, Robert Baillie & Co Ltd from mid 1960s.
Hi Ray, the extract came from OS 25 inch 1892 - 1914. Veronica, I agree with you, it must have been extremely difficult, if not impossible, for newly weds in my case, to find a home of their own just after the war and for a number of years afterwards. If my memory serves me right, curtains were used to ‘divide’ the two rooms.
Yes curtains came in very handy sometimes. our stairs were in an alcove off the kitchen and I distinctly remember a curtain across hiding the big iron mangle! They couldn't be posh if they tried. Even if they were clean! ;~)
I suspect the name ‘Parr’s Court’ has connections to Parr in StHelens and the Parr family who were wealthy landowners.
The only thing that I remember is that as you came out of Parr’s Court, into Darlington Street, as you turned left there was a chemist shop. Opposite was the Borough Police garage. This would be late fifties. Near the police garage there was a shop that sold some quite good paintings.
Thank you Keith, I have very little information about her. I don't know where she was born, I only know she lived in Soho St. When she was about 33yrs.Her name was Mary Mcdonald, and she married Thomas Greenhall.
Edna, your grandmother married Thomas Greenall in the fourth quarter of 1911 at Wigan Register Office. The document reference is volume 8c, page 153.
Quoting the document reference gets a discount if you order online a copy of the registry entry at the Southport registry office. To go back further in time your grandmother’s year of birth is needed. The marriage certificate will show her age at the time of marriage.
Taking an educated guess re her birth year it looks like, in 1901, your grandma was living with her widowed grandmother Bridget who was born in Ireland. The census records them living at Ironmonger Lane which was in the Chapel Lane area.
If you looked on the 1901 census Grandma's approximate age would be on that. The History Museum would help. You have a good start with knowing where she lived now in Ironmonger's Lane Edna, thanks to Keith.
Keith, thank you so much for this information.I am a step nearer than before.What would we do without this Wigan Album.
Stumbled across this post whilst looking up information on the neighbouring Atherton and Foy Street, I've just found 2 Great Aunties and a Great Grandma all lived within a few houses of each other on these streets on the 1939 register and then in the case of one into the early 1950s when she died.
Very interesting to read about the houses, as I'd imagine those around where all very similar.
Just talking to my dad and he said they used to visit on Sundays and the houses where small but it was a lovely community.