Places   (Help with places, streets and buildings in Wigan.)

It's the same everywhere lads. People who go to the "Parsonage" Retail Park shopping at Sainsbury,DW Sports, Currys etc. aint got a clue what was there before unless of course they did work there. The same at Plank Lane. If you've been past there recently you'll know what I mean. All those "nice" new houses going up on the former pit yard clustered round the former site of 5 deep mine shafts now only marked by a yellow pipe sticking out of the ground and a green fence round it. I remember a chat I had with a site manager of a job I was on a few years ago which developed into almost a full blown row. He didn't believe me when I told him that the "nice little hill" which his kids liked to play on wasn't natural, but was the landscaped and planted former pit heap for Mosley Common. What really upset him was when I tried to tell him that the nice private estate he lived on was the site of the former pit and had two 1000yd deep shafts on it somewhere. I had to take into work next day some photos and maps to convince him. After we consulted Google Earth and compared it with the maps, he found out one of the shafts was about 20 yds off his house!!! Ha ha ha.