Photo-a-Day  (Thursday, 27th April, 2023)

Good photo as always, not certain where it is. Are we looking towards Library Street.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh....lovely old Wigan.

Very nice, Dennis.

Which side of the street do you like ? I know which one I like best.

Little change there Dennis, great.
Just look at those lovely buildings full of character and pleasing to the eye. At least a small part of Wigan we've still got.

Little change here even the road is still cobbled. To the right the disused Wallpaper supplies buildings was once Timberlakes showrooms and garages. They had another showroom across the road up Library st.

Full of Wigan character.

Dennis, I meant to add that I felt you chose a good street for comparison in building styles.

I have got off the bus halfway up King Street many times and nipped up that alley as a short-cut to the library. They've now changed the bus-stops so you get off at either Brocol House or at the very top of King Street just before Wallgate, so not as handy for the alley. However, I rarely go to Wigan these days and haven't been in the library for a very long time. A lovely photo of the Wigan we knew and loved, Dennis. Long may it last, but if not, at least we have a photo.

Ahh good old Wigan and how we
remember it and almost untouched by the Council.

Can you still walk through to King Street from the little arcade behind Dennis?
Really lovely photo of untouched Wigan with some fantastic buildings.

Total contrast to yesterday's photo, and I much prefer this one.
IT really has character, lets hope Wigan Council don't destroy it with change.

Childhood memories are made of this.

The problem is nobody goes down here anymore. I wonder what is going to happen with the building on the right. I used to love going up the cobbled alley years ago opposite Wallpaper Supplies it’s where Crawford’s Wool Shop and Valmar Fabrics used to be. It’s a very quaint area. Good photo Dennis.

I like the broken drain pipe and the Bretherton Row sign, just imagine being up there on a foggy day in the 1960s

I’m afraid that Grimes’ Arcade is still blocked off Alan.
I seem to recall that Rev David Long had a Bookshop in one of those shops on the left?

Irene the arcade you could nip through as been closed for over ten years. There have been all sorts of plans but none have come to fruition!

Dave Johnson, my apologies. It's Arcade Street in the above photo where I used to nip through to the library. I called it "an alley" in my comment but I actually meant the street shown above....my fault. However, I do remember Grimes's Arcade as well. It was very "echoey".

Don’t remember if Bretherton Row was narrower. If not note how only the frontage has had money spent on it. A common practice if only the public part of a building was on view.

I like the sunny side of the street Helen, the one on the left needless to say!

Irene Arcade st is accessed from Grimes arcade so you can't nip through, sorry if we both seem to be mixed up?

Sylvia fog or mist Wigan was a great Town, and miss the good times we had. We had Swimming bath just down the road from here that many Towns would be proud of, even Bognor Regis.

You're right Dennis and a very good book shop it was too, you could easily spend an hour or two in there having a browse, and you always came out with a book or three - and when you got home - not more books, still all profits went to a good cause.

If you look on the internet there's some very interesting information about Grimes Arcade and showing the original plans drawn by the architect too, and also about this area before it became to be Rowbottom Square, Arcade Street and Bretherton Row, could you believe that there was once a grand house surrounded by what was described as being beautiful gardens, right here in the centre of town.

Lovely picture of old wigan full of character,
Hope the stupid planners keep their hands of it.

I don't know what it is - but I still remember my Mum pushing me along those cobbles in my pram over 50 years ago.......It's the only memory of me in my pram.

As Dennis had entitled today's p-a-d "Arcade Street", I thought that was the street we were looking at in the photo. Well, whatever it's called, that's the street/alley/whatever it is where I used to cut through to Library Street and then across the road to the library itself, and it's still accessible. I took a short-cut along there not too long ago from King Street to Library Street, to visit the printer's shop, (used to be "Prontaprint" but a different name now). If we are at cross-purposes then it doesn't matter.....I'm sure we're not going to fall out about it! (Wish I could put a "smiley-face" icon on here but there is no way to do that!). Sending you a smile anyway!

Nice to know the bookshop was appreciated - it moved about a bit - starting in King Street, then upstairs on Market Place, before ending up here on Arcade Street. Sadly, it wasn't profitable in the end, so we had to close.

I think the charity shops killed off the little book shops

eBay was a killer too Harold, not just for the used books shops, but the books donated to charity shops began dwindling too; when folks began to sell them on eBay rather than donate. The paperback romance novels still get donated though, with the charity shops book shelves groaning with the weight of them. Though having said that I've been told that the Book Cycle book shops are thriving, and getting plenty of books of all descriptions being donated, last year I gave them a great number of books I'd collected over the years, I was planning to have a re-read or a look through of them, but I thought I would never have got round to it.

A hundred years the book I held ,
the smell inside delicious ,
where time bypassed and stopped the world ,
as I pulled one from its shelf .
Who had touched before now me ,
I felt now I was meeting ,
and as I opened up its jacket to see
I felt not the now , but the then...
A school girls award , a merit for work ,
a smile I felt I could see , like all of these books ,
the dust it protects ,
the soul from within you set free..