Wigan Album
Ince
11 Comments
Photo: dk
Item #: 5157
The Springs Branch line took a good bearing NNE after leaving the sheds at Springs branch and apart from a slight lean to the left just after crossing Ince Bar - in the region in June's picture 4518 in Ince section - it didn't deviate until it had passed over the Old Arm at Top Lock.
Just beyond the crossing in Belle Green Lane this direction took it up along the backs of the houses separated from the end of Elizabeth Street by only a sleeper fence and under a bridge over which ran the Whelley Loop.
This photo is taken from in the shadow of this bridge. The Rabbit Rocks are due left from here and Belle Green Old School or Little School is up the embankment immediately to the right with the playground adjacent to the railway above us. These houses are the end terraces of Bryham Street, nearer, and John Street. The deep cutting we are in continued almost the full run under Kirkless Lane bridge, the focus of this view, alongside the 'Top Place' to emerge at the canal and the line crossed the Old Arm here where the bridge pillars can still be seen today. The line then continued into the field opposite, pointing at the Wutchie with Woodshaw Lodge on the right and commenced a left ninety degree bend heading now towards Haigh saw mills.
This was a two track line in 1907, only one now but the second is still an obvious cinder shadow, and there were numerous branches both before this point left towards the canal and Rose Bridge Colleries and the Iron Bridge lock - what is Falkirk Drive and Rathen Avenue today - and after the bridge into the Kirkless Works with Kirkless Junction itself basically at the bridge.
I have no personal memory of the actual rail tracks although this cutting and the bridge are so familiar that I could touch them. I have looked along here so many times. The area was a great playground for more than a few years as we progressed from cowboys and indians to airguns and the like. Just after the bridge, spoil was used to fill it in and create a road. This allowed the cutting to flood and it became a bit of a pond for a while and I think the bridge survived into the 1980s, maybe around the time the black tank disappeared.
Higher up, just visible through the arch, the cutting became densely overgrown and was our jungle territory with boggy, swamp sections alive with frogs and newts, water beetles and boatmen, and poisonous toads and blood sucking leeches.
It's no wonder we never went home.
sources: Alan Godfrey maps to correct details, my Grandad's tales and a failing gossamer memory.
this pic again evokes so many memories
i remember walking up this line many times to make our way to the places mentioned above.
i remember the black tank, you could climb a ladder up to the top the water was chrystal clear and many times we would swim in it.
this would have been round 1958/9
sadly like so many places up there all long gone.
i remember the railway line that ran from whelley down to the strangeways pub along what is now the back of morrisons supermarket.
every weekday night summer and winter i would run up to the Bush public house and watch the 25 to 6 namer that ran past.
this was a train which ran past at 5.35pm and always had a name on the side it was usually one from the jubilee class or Patriot class.
i could write a book of things that we did up in that area alone
oh! happy days
thanks for the pictures
What is it like at that location now?
Cutting filled and landscaped or built over.
Sadly, we're losing all the character that came with the old industries.
just as you look at the pic.
there are houses there now
the old terraced houses haven long gone.
but as you get to where the bridge is which was the old whelley loop line you have a path which takes you towards the canal and haigh hall
just to the left but out of shot is what the locals call the Rabbit rocks.
theres a lot of history up there, even more so because we can still recall with certainty what was happening and what it was like
dk.
where do you get em. this is another of our old playgrounds.
Walches pen used to be just to the right of the bridge. why we used to play in there i dont know, maybe just because we could.
winder. apart from a few new houses where walches was , its still all fields all the way up to the cut.
Thanks for the info.
If you go on Google Earth you can follow the line from Springs branch shed through to the Saw Mills
i couldnt beleive it when i saw this pic, i recognised it straight away i lived in york st back to back with lisbon st we used to go through an entry in frances st and at bottom of those backs was where we climed over to that exact spot.thanks dk have you any more pics of that area.
Sorry josie no more pics for the moment. I am currently trying to get good quality pics from 8mm cine film so there may be others. On //....work/railways/#5208 pic the backs of these rows of houses can be seen
JOHN STREET LATER BECAME FRANCES ST DONT KNOW WHY?
Has anyone got any more photos or memories of Kirkless etc we have recently formed a Kirkless friends group and are compiling a history of site.
on the darker side of wigan world history I remember a child being stabbed to death on this railway line round a bout 1952-3 as my brother and I where banned from going anywhere near there for months I think in the end it was the childs play mate that did the stabbing
I think the child who died in 1952 was Wilfred Schofield,he was buried alongside his playmate,Brian Galvin who had been killed in a road traffic accident earlier.