Photo-a-Day  (Wednesday, 24th November, 2021)

What does SOUGH mean ? It doesn't show in my dictionary.

I bet that bit of ironwork was originally a fire guard and made at the Haigh foundry

'Soughs' or 'suffs' are what we called the drains in the road. Told to keep away from them 'dirty' if you played near them. Sometimes if you lost something near them a key or money you would be poking about in them. You could never retrieve anything lost in a 'suff' ! They were a black heavy grating in those days.

This brings fond memories of visiting Haigh Sough and various other Haigh landmarks, (sites of the many pits that were once dotted about) with a friend in a rattly old van one day long ago. Talk about Elvis's "All Shook Up"....I felt like I'd been on a fairground ride!

Alan....I think that Sough, pronounced Suff, is a local word for sewer. Ray.

Alan, Sough means a whisling sound, in the sea etc, or the wind inthe trees.So in this case its the whooshing of the water.Good photo David, I think every nick and cranny part of Wigan has appeared on here.

In this respect a Sough was a drainage tunnel that kept the water level below the depth of mines in the area.
It took seventeen years for his lordship to dig the Great Haigh Sough but it ensured the fortune of his family for three hundred years because it meant that he could connect the mines on his land to the sough and that made them workable. It also gave him an advantage over other landowners who had no other choice but to licence his lordship to extract the coal from under their land.

Does anyone know what Soughers means - as in Soughers Lane in Bryn.

Mick, the Ironwork is clearly an old fence, ie a school or park grounds.

The term 'ground sough' was also used locally to describe the underground channel used to fill locks on the canals. You don't hear it much nowadays - I suppose as the working boatmen have died out, their terms have died with them.
Garry - I think it's more likely to be a purpose made barrier - but most unlikely to date back to the days of Haigh foundry, Mick - I doubt that they bothered putting safety barriers up in those days.

A welding fabrication company made that specifically for the sough Garry, so nothing at all to do with an old school fence or park grounds.

Those weirdos who like to video strange places vandalised the original forged iron grating to get into the sough to film, this was put in place to deter others and also children from entering.

Veronica you need the contacts!!! Pal of mine had an uncle who drove the Wigan council "Gully Sucker" he would go down the sough with a spoon like ladel prior to putting the cleaning pipe down, kept us going in lost "pops"

There used to be railings like that one around the duck pond in Wigan Park.

I bet there was loads of treasure found down those 'suffs' Brian B. Besides 'pops' ...

I agree, old railings cut down fabricated and welded to fit.

Ancient monument dates back to 1670

This monument is scheduled under the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Areas Act 1979 as amended as it appears to the Secretary of State to be of national importance.

The last time I saw any of those road gully cleaners was of them emptying their loads onto the landfill tip at Kirkless in the mid 1990s, they were still a common sight then and another service which at one time was seen as being essential that the council stopped doing.

I hope you gave them marbles a good disinfecting Brian B. especially when you think of what gets washed down off the roads and gutters into those gullies.

Sorry - bit of a memory lapse - the canal tern is not 'sough' - but 'clough'. The original wooded paddles which opened the clough were known as 'jack cloughs'. Almost all of them have been replaced with windlass-operated mechanisms - which are less susceptible to bad usage or vandalism.
Some discussion about how it's pronounced - clow, cluff, or clew...

I remember the grid cleaning lorry in Hindley,driven my Mr Stretch from down Lord street.The waste was just dumped on waste land down Liverpool Rd. and we also used to find loads of "murps".We used to play a game called follow on with marbles down the side of the road in the gutter and many marbles were lost down grids.

Cyril - gulley cleaners are still out on the roads - you'll see more of them than usual over the next few weeks as they clear the leaves from blocking the drains.

I've never seen one for years David, and I've only seen a truck road sweeper only now and again, you saw them regularly too. They must all be operating around Standish placating those restless natives.