Photo-a-Day  (Friday, 1st February, 2013)

When your coming into Wigan by train it looks like there a new sky scraper been built.

Another good photo of St Cath's work in progress. I think the guys that are working on this are trying to find a shortcut to heaven.

When I drove to work this morning, (Thursday) I could see that a lot of the sheeting had appeared to have blown off in the strong wind exposing the spire.
Nice to see the renovation is coming along nicely.

Nice to see progress Rev. David......got to get things right to avoid any bother later on...slowly and surely.....cheers!!!

Rev David Long, With all due respect sincerely, who pays for all this work, and is it worth it these days when church numbers are getting less each year? Also, the rest of the church building looks to be subsiding. Good photo.

Can see this clearly coming off the M6 at J25. I, for one, am glad to see that one of our older buildings is being restored. Much more pleasing on the eye than what passes for architecture these days.

Garry this was paid for by the lottery, but I agree its a waste of good money when nobody is going to church.

It would have been better to just do away with the spire all together and maybe modernize the church by making it smaller and more welcoming.

Garry, thankfully most of the cost of this job will be borne by English Heritage and the like. The work is deemed 'worth it' because of the architectural value of the building - it's Grade 2 Listed. As far as I understand it, the rest of the building has stopped subsiding to any serious extent. It's worth taking a look inside, if you haven't been in already. The box pews are one reason for its listing - I think it's the only church with them in Wigan.
Whether the building was used as a church or not, I think the money would be spent on keeping it in good order anyway - and, given the sentiments expressed about the loss of old buildings in Wigan by people on this site, I think most people would think that right.
Many congregations, especially in small country parishes, find the day-to-day running costs, let alone the major repair, of such buildings a very heavy burden, and might well wish to move to a smaller, cheaper-to-run, building. There's much opposition, especially from non-churchgoers, when they try, however.

I could see this from the Pemberton Spring Bank area the other day, nice to see such good progress. Garry, I was under the impression a Lottery grant paid for a lot of this work.

Looking good wont be long now before the Wigan landmark will be back on track good one rev.

Is Rev Longs name short for long-winded.

Rev David, saw this from the train yesterday and there`s more scaffolding on the top.

For Jack Beck. I find your remark concerning Rev David Long's reply offensive. Were you born rude, or did you have to work at it???

Ernest - this pic was taken on January 13th. I took more on the 27th - from Scholes/ Platt Lane, with the sun behind, you could see through the shrouding that they weren't far off reaching the top.
Jack - sorry you don't appreciate my finely-crafted prose. Garry asked a serious question, but a simple 'yes' or 'no' wouldn't really have answered it.

Many thanks for your answer Rev Long.

looking at it from new spings today it still looks out of plum with the rack of mi eye ,anybody else agree?

My father was born and lived within a few hundred feet of this spire. After WWII it was discovered that the Luftwaffe used it as a navigation mark on the way to Liverpool. It amused me that unwittingly, he was living in one of the safest places in the country during the war.

I put hoist up on this church and you would not believe it but 3 parts up there was a pease of perspex across a big crack in stone work it had a fer lean on it