Wigan Album

It's really good to see these old photos, it looks like something is about to happen, with all the people milling round.

I agree with Edna....what a fascinating photo!

It looks like they have spied the photographer with all his paraphernalia and the attention is on him. Or perhaps he was making a film and this is a still…filming was in its early days.. I doubt they ever got to see it if it was. It must have caused some excitement for a while for them anyway.

The missing pub from Item #: 34461

A wonderful photo Ron, with The Saddle and Queen's Head very clear, the folk all look nicely turned out too with their white shirt collars and white pinafores, makes you wonder if they had been told beforehand that a photographer would be there, also is this what the advertisement for The Butterfly on the Wheel alludes to, a film from 1915: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Butterfly_on_the_Wheel

the wall with the advertisements on could be of a pub The New Inn? the building allegedly was a pub before becoming St Edward's Roman Catholic church.

Thank you RON HUNT for supplying the photo is truly an historic photo especially for myself ,it brings back so many memories . One in particular was quite a number of years later my Eldest Sister who has just died recently would take me from our home early in the morning from bottom of ST .PAULS Ave we cuaght a bus down to the Saddle she would then wait for the number 19 Windy Harbour bus ,make sure i got on to take it to Highfield Infants ./Juniors ./Seniors , before she could get on her bus to Pemberton were she attended Pemberton Girls senior many fond memories of her . RIP. SIS .

I remember arriving at St Edwards church a little bit late and father O Hara stopped the mass and stared at me until I settled into a pew. That stare was nothing like the one he gave me when I dropped the collection plate. The church was on the left past the advertisements but I cannot recall it being on the side street.

There is another photo (link below) of the same scene posted by Margaret Holden who's father John and mother Maggie was landlord & landlady of the Queen's Head, she does say the building opposite with the adverts was a pub before becoming St Edward's church, but doesn't say the name of the pub, and later when the church moved it became the Innisfree Irish club.
https://www.wiganworld.co.uk/album/photo.php?opt=8&id=8899&gallery=saddle+junction+newtown&offset=0

Great photo - the pub with the adverts on it would have been the New Inn which was No 2&4 Warrington Road. It dated back to the 1840s and was still open in 1911 when John Thomas Bibby was the landlord.

The Saddle was no 54 Ormskirk Road.

There was a single storey St Edwards club or church on Wood St / France St and was painted green it was on a triangle of land between the rear of the fire station and St Thomas More.
This was derelict in the sixties, I have still got the two inch scar from climbing on the roof.

What an interesting photo Ron. My Bradshaw grandparents lived just along there on Warrington Rd...Victoria Terrace, I think ?

Great picture

Excerpt from Fathers diary -Monday 5th December 1927 " evening went to the Pavillion -saw "The Wreck" and "Josephine's Wife" not one interesting programme. As Father was lodging on the upper part of Ormskirk Road Pemberton he caught the tram home. Quote" Coming home by tram, the trolley jumped the wire at Library Street, the hand brake failing to act we ran to Miry Lane before the tram came to stop." He got home at 10.00pm. I wonder what the other passengers were like during that ride. Father was a regular user of Wigan Trams whilst working at Massey Bros. He was also involved in making the bodies for them to be fitted to Salford Tram company.

Davey, that shed your talking about i remember as a young teenager 1953-54 we had dances in there 2or 3 times a week.Does anyone else remember those days.

Barrie I can’t imagine your father going to the Pavillion unless it was a better picture house in those days! In the fifties and sixties it was awful- walking past was bad enough with the smell pervading the air. I used to walk past quick sticks with my hand covering my nose and mouth. It wasn’t used for dates anyway…

Veronica, you are correct, but there were plenty of picture houses and theatres in the Wigan area in the 20's & 30's. These were some that are mentioned in the 1926-1928 diaries. The Palace, Pavillion, County Playhouse, Princes, Court Theatre, Empire Cinema & Hippodrome Theatre. There was also one in Pemberton close to his lodgings on Ormskirk Road but whether he went there I'm not sure. He always made a comment on whether the film or show/revue was very good, good or poor. Referring back to the photograph, in this century we are embracing the tram as a mass transportation means between cities and suburbs.

Nearly right Cyril, I think it’s a play not the film, the poster reads ‘Court Theatre - Mr Arthur Hardy’s London Company in A Butterfly on the wheel’

A Butterfly on the Wheel (1915)
50m
Director Maurice Tourneur
Writers Edward Hemmerde E. Magnus Ingleton Francis Neilson
Stars Holbrook Blinn Vivian Martin George Relph