Photo-a-Day  (Sunday, 9th February, 2020)

It's a good picture as most of us don't see it when it's going dark, and it's a nice building inside, but sadly not many stalls. I remember the old Market Hall which had a number of butchers and its own separate fruit and fish markets. Now we have one butchers selling beef and lamb, (although Yates and Greer's Pork Butchers is still there), and one fruit stall. Different shopping habits, I suppose, are to blame, as well as high rents. At least Redman's, Clunan's , Bickershaw Hall Fruit and Veg, and The Cheese Cabin have survived the years. I have a dvd of the old Market Hall during its final Christmas, when it was heaving with stalls, inside and out, and the names we all knew so well were still thriving....Adams Stores, Gibson and Young's China and Glass and Harold Bradshaw's Menswear. I believe you can watch it on youtube. If so, It's well worth a look.

The lights are on but no one's ....shopping.
I've started going in the market for fresh fruit and veg on Tuesday's and been quite happy with what I've got. There's nothing nicer than brocolli without plastic wrapped around it. I have noticed there aren't as many fruit and veg stalls though. Very obliging chap who serves, I remember his dad, who was there for years and bought a lot of plants as well from there. As Irene says it's not the same, even The Coffee Bean cafe doesn't seem to have as many regulars camped around the tables..

to many empty stalls great pity end of an era

Shopping in the market Hall as we all remember. Turkeys hanging up at the butchers with a brown label showing the customers name. No Bernard Matthew's then.

A nice photo, with a difference, David. It also reminds me of some that I took in Hamburg last year - or had it been the year before(?).
But this, now, is Wigan. Thanks.

The shoppers have gone now, I see,
And with them, 'the ways of theirs' who'd once fed'.
And soon, beneath this darkened Grey Lags' wake,
Will flow plumes of sheer daring - pour la nuit -
With tease to raucous fronts.
Yet from these silly 'turns' will come joy:
The joy of knowing-pages, filled.