Photo-a-Day  (Monday, 3rd February, 2020)

I think this building should be preserved for years and years. Even if it’s only to annoy the Council who, I’m sure would dearly love to tear it down.
Leave it there so that every time the powers that be pass by it they will be reminded that they can’t always do just what they want.

It's listed , so there will be all sorts restrictions on its usage and development. I'm not sure which grade . Avril Fishwick , was reasonable for its listing .

What a shame to see it like this..going with my Mam to pick her latest piece of bedroom furniture,another of my childhood memories gone..surely a use could be found for it instead of demolishing it like other buildings have been.

It was wrongly put on the listed list, its just costing money now because there is no use for a old shop in modern Wigan.

I only remember the furniture in the buildings attached that were demolished. Although it was a mish-mash there was some good pieces of furniture. I got a bedroom suite from there - it lasted 30 years.

With the number of empty modern shop units and market stalls that are boarded up in modern Wigan it goes to prove there's no use for them either, I doubt they'll ever get on the statutory listings of Historic England too as after only thirty years or so they are deemed unsuitable and proposed for demolition.

wigan coucil in it

Might do a bit of trade if it was turned into a fishing tackle shop.
There was once one there in Millgate if I remember. Wigan Town centre used to have lots of small shops as well which made it very interesting to potter around. Once had a great atmosphere. I thought maybe an old book shop or old record shop might work as well. Looks like the plan is to turn Wigan into a very modern town, so probably end up be some business office or something. All change I suppose. Wasn't there an army store once in Millgate as well?
What do others think it should be?

Specialist shops and the secondhand trade might save the High St XPat.
In Sedbergh every other shop is an old book shop each one devoted to a particular interest ie Railways , Art etc. And you wouldn't buy your next cello from Tesco would you?

I know this is pie in the sky Xpat. I think it should be restored to the house it would have been in the 1700's with furniture and decor...a museum of sorts to show how the well off lived...

I love old book shops Poet .
Don’t know about you , but I love the very rare experience when you pick out a book to look at and you find other items have been left or added by previous readers within the pages , maybe a newspaper article , notes , or pictures . It feels like the previous reader has left a clue for the next reader to follow . I have found all kinds of things within old book pages over the years , but unfortunately , as yet , have not been directed to the location of the Ark of the Covenant .
I once found a book holding a number of religious pictures and notes , along with geometric calculations. Inside was also tracing paper workings as if somebody was trying to transpose one paper onto the other in order to see something else . I couldn’t make head nor tail of it but must admit it kept me occupied for at least a month as I tried to break the code .
You won’t find these things or books within orderly book shops but book shops that hold that particular smell as you enter and where the electrics are long out of date and floorboards creek with every footstep . Better still is that hunt to find one particular book only to come across an absolute dust ridden treasure , either out of section , or at the bottom of a stack of new arrivals . One profession I wanted to be , that never existed , was a Cleaner of old Attics and Cellars . I leave by saying that if the map to the Ark of the Covenant does exist , look first in old book shops , the older the better . I highly recommend old book shops to all on WW .
Knowledge is a wonderful gift , but finding it in an old book shop is even better . But saying that , finding an old , special fishing rod or reel in a boot sale , must hold similar feeling .

I imagine an eatery that pulls yet doesn't 'shout', Xpat, … a bit like those two Chippys on Market Street, but of a different décor. I also imagine a stout fellow being given the task of scuttling those two 1 metre-high posts beyond which must surely be parking space, a palatable one-line place-name - The Gate - on the gable end, food service courtesy of lace-decked and daring damsels, … .
And even doubters, from afar, searching for 'Your sucessful eatery set on so grand a gradient!?', and for them to find their bellies amply filled soon afterwards.
Cod, fish and chips, please, Joanne.

A joy to read your most eloquent post XPat and I agree wholeheartedly with all you say...
I hope my friend that in all your searching , you come across an old musty copy of Arthur Miller's ' The Price ' , dog eared and underlined, smelling of New York, and the best evocation of the profession of Cleaner of old Attics and cellars ever written . Regards .

I would only be too happy to read the deeds to that building.... What a sad household it must have been when the little girl who lived there long ago drowned in the River Douglas.
I always used to look st the little stone head of a child above the lintel, still there after all these years.