Photo-a-Day  (Thursday, 3rd April, 2025)

A real shame for such a iconic building with beautiful architecture design, now used as a Vape shop. Just look at shops we now have in Wigan Town.
Every other shop in Wallgate is what I call junk food outlets, male barbers hairdressers, poor quality food stores that look like from a 3rd world country.
Infact the whole Town looks scruffy.
I don't shop in Wigan anymore, just drive through it, nothing appeals to me and there's no attraction to go there in the future. We don't look like we live in Britain anymore, not just Wigan but all over the Country. That's my opinion being a Wiganer for 70 years.

I remember that building so well, it's good to see its still intact....but how the mighty have fallen....a vape shop !

PS....Colin, yes we are having beautiful sunny days on the east coast but a cold North East wind doesnt encourage blossom & the night time temps are
still low.

Those buildings look pristine against that bright blue sky. Lovely photo.

Jarvis, I cannot disagree with your comment.
I only really go into town once a week to have a coffee with my brother, or take photos of the many lovely buildings that still are left. If you want a cheep day out, go into town as there is nothing to spend your money on or if you’ve got a few quid, take the next bus out to Chorley or Warrington. Great shops and restaurants and a higher class of beggar on the streets!!!!

The shop next door to the vape shop with the brown surround used to be Ashton's Tobacconists at one time and still has the number 20, ( its address being 20, Wallgate), in art deco numbers in the glass panel over the window. It was a classy shop and I used to buy Holland House Tobacco for my Dad's pipe at Christmas Time when I was only a young girl, or a cigar in a tin tube, (my age was never questioned!). Where Subway and the shop next door to it stand there was once Wilding's Stationers and Joan Barrie;s high-class ladies' outfitters. It isn't just the vape shop that shouts "How are the Mighty Fallen?".....it's the whole of Wallgate. I went to Wigan the other day out of necessity and I was glad to get back on the bus and leave it behind.....it was soul-less.

I've not been to Wigan Town to shop for years, it looks so intimidating and I don't feel safe. I drive and noticed these last for months where ever you go the traffic is so bad. We are getting over populated and getting worse.

A Vape shop......Ahh.

Some buildings do look great, it's what's inside them, and most sell rubbish.

The next row of building up were built in 1880 and designed by Wigan Architect George Heaton. One of the shops (I think the first one) had the front redesigned by E Pollard of London I an Art Deco style in 1930, you may remember it as Ashtons Tobacconists.
Further up is Moot Hall Chambers built in 1884 and designed by Isitt and Verity.

That building was a Barclay s Bank. I opened my first account there in 1968 when I received my student grant

We seem to have more Taxis than people lately. I was stuck in a traffic jam going up Wallgate, the Taxis hold everyone up with their bad and inconsiderate stopping and blocking other vehicles to move forward. Whilst stopped in traffic, I noticed poor quality shops just after NW station going up wallgate on both sides of the road. They were not appealing to me at all.
I should have gone Chaple Lane direction, Wallgate is bedlam.

Colin is quite right about the art deco shop front being Ashton’s tobacconist, the art deco shop front carried on where Subway is and was Starr’s not Wildings. Wildings was on the other side a little lower down Wallgate. Joan Barrie’s was where Bet Fred is now. This was 1950s/60s.

I clearly remember my mum fainting in there when I was probably about 4 or so. Everyone was so helpful and a man even drove us back home to Ashton.

I went last Thursday to Wigan as I had to go into the Halifax branch. Afterwards I went in the Queens Hall for a coffee and a laugh and a joke with the lady on the till. Coming out of there I could smell a distinct aroma of British chips and fish. I succumbed and had a ‘special’ at the famous
‘Chippery’. I wasn’t disappointed either…I couldn’t finish it there was just too much on the plate…I apologised to the girl who served me and complimented her on the food. There was enough for two people I swear! It was worth every penny and spotlessly clean without frills. Nowhere near the £11 odd I paid last August at Lytham to sit on a grassy bank by the sea. But I suppose that’s what I paid for to see the sea!.

Anne, I believe Starr's and Wilding's WERE where you said at one time, but in the 1960s, (or certainly part thereof), Wilding's was definitely on the same side of Wallgate as Ashton's tobacconists and Starr's was on the opposite side leading down to Wigan North Western Station. I have a feeling one of our regular contributors, Elizabeth, agreed with me on this when the subject appeared on here once before, as she remembered Starr's being near the North Western Station too. I remember buying a "gonk" from Wilding's when they were all the rage at school around 1967, and Starr's once ordered a book for me and I recall collecting it from the shop near the station.....Gordon Isherwood's shoe shop was nearby. I haunted those shops....I love stationery shops. I wasn't sure about the exact location of Joan Barrie's....just that it was along that stretch on today's p-a-d.... but I certainly remember it, and went in a few times, but the prices were beyond my purse!

Irene…. Maybe you are right about the location of Wildings and Starr’s. I worked at Starr’s and often ran errands between their different locations in the town. Maybe when I was living abroad they swapped their shop locations.

Veronica, Peter and I always go in The Chippery for a £6 "special deal" whenever we go to Wigan. The delicious food is more than enough and the staff are absolutely lovely. Colin. today's photo may be of the present-day Wigan, but it has certainly brought back some memories of Wallgate as it used to be.

I remember buying a French Dictionary from the shop opposite the railway station in 1960. It was 9s/11d in old money I still have it very much worse for wear these days with yellowing pages and probably well out of date. . I’ve written my name and address in
“ French” . Aged 13. Mademoiselle Veronique
40 Rue de John
Scholes
Wigan
If I could just have a chat with that girl from that time…and tell her what I know now!

Just came back home from Wigan, what lovely cold but sunny day it is.
Walking from King Street to the bottom of Standishgate for a coffee and then back to the Bus Station I lost count of the number of beggars asking if I had a cigarette or any spare cash. These are not the 1930’s out of work people or immigrants, just dead legs, losers and druggies encouraged to continue with their miserable existence and not to get a life by so called charitable do gooders.
What the hell is going on in this retched country, we’re doomed I tell you, doomed.

The shops here and in Wigan are what young people want. Someone told me about Wilding's and Starr's and that they had their own printers too, she also showed me a discussion about them and shops around Wigan https://www.wiganworld.co.uk/stuff/mem11.php?page=7

Anne, I envy you, working at Starr's Stationery shop! Yes, they could have swapped premises for some reason; certainly the fittings in either would have been suitable for books, pens etc . and made for an easy "swap". Ooh la la, Veronique....very French! I still have my Chambers' Etymological Dictionary from Hindley Grammar. There is a label in the front where each person who "owned" it throughout school wrote their name and form, and someone had put "Yogi Bear" in mine! I have just got it out of the cupboard to check and the first person in it wrote their name in 1950, so the dictionary was 14 years old when I was given it in 1964. It certainly won't have any of the "modern" words in it! ( I should have given it back when I left in 1969, so don't tell on me!)

Je Taime Veronique, magnifique mon cheri.

That’s why I went inside Irene. I remembered your recommendation.
I would definitely go again when the occasion arises. There’s nothing left anymore in Wigan it’s so sad.

Irene, on this photo of Ron's in the link and of Platt's: https://www.wiganworld.co.uk/album/photo.php?opt=5&id=30964&page=1
John writes that it was across from the post office and that it did become Wilding's. I do remember a stationary shop still being there in the early 1990s, because I needed large poster lettering stencils and was told at Smith's to go to there, but as for the name - sorry I can't recall.

In my smoking days I enjoyed going into Ashton's not just for cigarettes, but the wonderful aroma, a mixture of pipe and cigar tobacco and snuff too. Though I and others would take gas lighters there to be filled, they had a machine that would fill them far more than those canisters you could buy could ever do, and last far longer too.

This isn’t the first time is it Veronica ?… I seem to recall you mentioning in a recent post that you chucked some chips away on a previous occasion .

Now It surely can’t have escaped your notice that people are starving in Gaza , and here’s you chucking chips away .

I’d like you to promise me that you’ll buck up …
or at the very least , wrap the chips up in some greaseproof paper and post them off to Beirut .
“ eyes bigger than yer belly “ springs to my mind .

I feel sure you weren’t allowed to chuck chips away when you lived on Rue de John were you ?