Wigan Album

That's amazing Ron, thanks for posting, as you say many names have changed. Andertonford suggests a ford over the Douglas maybe? Interesting to see 'chap' after Harwich (Horwich), Houghton and others. Is that something to do with a market? Lovely to see this.

"Chap" will be short for "chapel". The ancient parishes such as Wigan, Standish, Bolton covered such large areas that it was impracticable for many of the population to attend the parish church on a Sunday, so they began to build chapels-of-ease in the distant parts of the parish.

Forgive my ignorance but are the black lines rivers or dirt track roads?

Thanks Ron, I just love old maps, it is very interesting how the spelling of various names has changed over the years and that although the letter s is used frequently the letter f in italic's is also used but pronounced as S.
Goodness knows what the roads were like in those day and how long it would take to get from ones side of the map to the other in a horse and cart but would have loved to have done so with camara in hand!
Veronica, the black lines are rivers and you can see were the river Yarrow merges with the Douglas near Croston, the F pronounced as an S in italic's, I wonder when the F for S was dropped from the English language.
Further down stream the River Douglas changes name to the River Aslan before flowing into the Ribble Estuary. I also wonder when and why the River Douglas got its name.

Thanks Ron that makes sense.

Colin Traynor - re the name of the River Douglas . . .
Derived from the Scottish Gaelic, "dubh glas," it means "black river" or "dark stream."

That does make sense Tony L who’d have thought that! How language has evolved through the ages.
Thanks for the info Colin re: the black lines I thought as much but….it must have been terrible travelling about in those days by horse and carriage. I know much later Preacher Wesley travelled about on horse back.. He came through Westhoughton and into Wigan. The stone he stood on to preach is still enshrined at the Chapel on Wigan Rd.

The old form of S wasn't actually an F. It looked like f but without the cross bar. It was always pronounced S. Even back then they used the modern s if it came at the end of the word. I think it died out in the 18th century but I've seen Standish church registers from the mid 1800s where the surname Moss looks at first glance like Mofs - presumably written by an older person at the time.