Photo-a-Day  (Monday, 4th October, 2021)

Who, in their right mind, would have designed an idiot building like that ???? My carpets have 90 degree corners.

Seems nothing changes. Planning people who don't have a clue & builders making the most of every bit of land !

Recognised that one immediately.
In the mid sixties the corner shop was owned by an older lady, grocery, but her name escapes me. She got provisions from Hughes Brothers (cheese factors + general tinned meats etc) and some of the younger local families rather exploited her "tick" system, often for months rather than weeks.
She struggled, but was essentially a nice, non aggressive shopkeeper - put one of the old arcade characters in the shop, some of the "tick" customers would have emerged on fire!

I think in the olden days when Wiganers were living in mud huts, the main track out of Wigan would have been down what is now Frog Lane and another track turning off on the right what is now Gidlow lane.
The natives who were walking up Frog lane toward Wigan and wanted to turn left up the Gidlow lane track, would have started to take a short cut track which is now Lower St Stephens st.
And when they came to build houses they ended up with that corner house

I'm surprised there isn't a big advertising hoarding on there. A prime spot I'd say!

Please don't ask for advertising on there, across from that is the street flower garden that was shown last week thats lovely.

I doubt they had lino, let alone carpets, when this was built - before planning controls. If you look around Wigan's remaining terraced streets, such odd-shaped buildings are not rare. There also used to be a pub, The Foundry, on the junction of Warrington Lane and Darlington Street, which was nick-named 'the smoothing iron' because its shape followed the alignment of the junction.

My comment hasn't appeared so I'll try again. I actually like that building...I think it's quirky. I like the terraced row with the front door s leading straight onto the pavement, like mine does.

When that was built there probably wasn't even a planning Dept.

That perfectly rounded end is an excellent bricklaying job. Had a look on Google street view and the houses from numbers 46 to 56 are built of terracotta bricks, they also they have two rows of floral and leaf patterned terracotta tiles that follows the lines of the window cills. Numbers 46 and 48 have still got the original wonderfully carved stone lintels above the front doorways, which all in all make the houses look quite attractive, the row of shops would sadly have had these stone lintels removed.

Jembo, on close up there are some large holes drilled into the brickwork so it seems at one time there may have been an advertising hoarding on the end.

'Flat iron' buildings in New York and Madrid come to mind.

That was a lovely area when I moved there in 80s, Lower saint Stephen street was a very busy place when regentruck was operating, there was a shop on Gidlow lane named pat's place later becoming jimmys, and the home brew shop spitting feathers which is now an off-license, I can just see my cctv camera at other end, nice pic mick.

Alan, back in 1969 we bought an end terraced house that was smoothing iron shape. It was expensive fitting carpets, loads of waste due to its shape, I'll bet about one third was cut off and of no further use. I can see houses where we live now that were built late 1800s - early 1900s this shape, and for the life of me can't work out why.

There's a similar shaped building on Warrington Lane just after Scholes Crossing like the one above. It has always intrigued me. It used to be lived in years ago but now I think it's attached to a business for storage. There used to be a wall around it but not sure if that's still there. I agree with Irene I like 'quirky ' buildings from the past.

That has never been a house. When I lived over the road from it 80 years age it was a CO_OP. There was a house like that on the other street further up Upper St Stephen Street and a man named Mc Nally lived in it. They pulled that house a few years ago.

Veronica this is my third try to put a comment on.. here’s hoping.
We used to live on Warrington Lane,next door but one to Lily Smiths dress shop.

The house you mentioned was owned by the Jones ..a lovely family,and I’ve read that George Orwell once lodged there…it did later become a shop.

It's true you do learn something new every day Maureen. I know it was lived in at one time because there was curtains at the windows but I don't know who lived there. It just seems it has always been there. My mam used to shop across the road in a shop called Hollis's. ( early fifties).