Macfarlane's/ Mcfarlanes Foundry

Does anyone know anything about this foundry in Wigan? Only reference I can find is to a Scottish firm of that name who were a very famous firm and made the Pavilion in Mesnes Park. Someone told me there is a manhole cover off Frog Lane that says Macfarlane Wigan.
Started: 21st Jun 2013 at 10:36
Last edited by flaggy delf: 21st Jun 2013 at 14:15:21

Flaggy
The Greenock iron founders also produced the park gates and railings and bandstand iron work in Mesnes Park.
The most likely explanation re the manhole is that they were cast with the name Wigan to identify them.
Replied: 23rd Jun 2013 at 10:41
Last edited by gaffer: 23rd Jun 2013 at 14:03:16

Replied: 23rd Jun 2013 at 12:06
Last edited by tonker: 23rd Jun 2013 at 12:15:12

some of them manhole covers with that name on are in beechhill estate
Replied: 23rd Jun 2013 at 19:44

Thanks for responses. Sorry I haven't posted thanks earlier.
Replied: 28th Jun 2013 at 09:15
McFarlane's Foundry was off Chapel Lane on either Woods or Bradford Street, they did cast a lot of manhole covers as they can be seen at many locations around town, a onetime friend of mine worked there in the late sixties until the early seventies when I presume it closed, the council was doing a lot of demolition around there at that time to make way for those industrial units that are still there.
Replied: 9th Jul 2013 at 17:06

ayrefield, many thanks. The definitive answer.
Replied: 11th Jul 2013 at 15:05


As a 14 year old I visited Macfarlanes for a day in the school holidays. My mate, a year older, had just started his first job there piling scrap into the top of the furnace from a platform over the yard.
It was 1969 and still primitive- health and safety not yet a bother for the bosses. Two (council) workers came into the yard to empty the Macfarlane workers' chemical toilet. On the way out as they passed , looked up at us working on the platform, one said ';'I wouldn't lahk a job lahk that would tha, pal?'
Replied: 6th Aug 2013 at 23:46
the new road chapel lane runs through were foundry used to be side deromas ice cream
Replied: 26th Aug 2013 at 17:41

Thanks again to everyone who put me right with this
Replied: 30th Aug 2013 at 10:04
If you do a search for Henhurst Bridge
(at the top of this page) you will find the Agreement made in 1897 for the start of the Foundry off Chapel Lane that later became James MacFarlane & Son Ironfounders Wigan
Replied: 20th Nov 2013 at 22:56


MikeC’s Link: WW Album
‘An agreement to lease a Shed adjoining Henhurst Bridge Mill 1897’
Queen Street, Wigan
Queen Street, Wigan
Replied: 27th Mar 2021 at 22:24
There is at least 1 identical to the photo above on Whitley Crescent
Replied: 2nd Jun 2021 at 13:45


The Macfarlanes of Henhurst Bridge Foundry
By Paul James McCormick
www.wiganlocalhistory.org
Replied: 29th Oct 2023 at 19:15

https://www.wiganlocalhistory.org/articles/the-macfarlane-s-of-henhurst-bridge-foundry
Replied: 24th Nov 2023 at 06:48
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