Photo-a-Day  (Wednesday, 14th May, 2025)

Walk past here regularly,.After looking at old photos of the 50's, it looks much more green now.

Dennis, remember when we were kids "Wuchy" was naked, hardly a blade of grass never mind a tree in sight. Steam still escaped from below you could feel the heat. I can still remember the very first time I climbed to the top holding my big sister's hand, it was about the same time Sir Edmund climbed Everest, I thought I'd done much the same. The view from the top were breathtaking. Great photo Dennis, thanks for the memories Marra.

Maybe I've just got a good imagination because I don't find it hard to imagine this hill was once a dumping ground for Wigans' pit waste.
I was up on top of it last year, and there is no view because of the overgrown trees, and it's also challenging to climb because whoever made the steps made them 15 to 18 inches high.
Is there no New Springs groups of volunteers who could tidy the place up.

It sounds quite posh with its Sunday name of Woodshaw Rook but it will always be "The Wutchie" to most of us. That's a lovely view of it, Dennis.

I have never been up there but I can see it looks wonderful. It’s much the same where I live there were slag heaps years ago that have now been transformed. You can hardly believe they were there at one time. It’s just ‘ beauty spots’ now all over. Good photo Dennis.

Walt - my memory is very similar, about a year after you. I went up with my Grandad and from the top described the other pits that could still be seen, decrepit, in the area. As old as I am, it feels like yesterday.
The Forestry Commission did the planting 1963/64 and the result is what can be seen today.
Thanks for the photo, Dennis.

Just in case you ever come this way in
Howfen Dennis just look for Hart Common and you will see with your very own eyes the transformation. It even has a Nursery playground in the shadow of the velvet green grass covering yon slag heaps. Another one to add to your portfolio. Hart Common is now a very sought after area.

Although I don’t remember the time when they were pit spoil heaps, this is without doubt a much more pleasant view Dennis.
Clothed in trees to disguise its industrial past, it looks to be a welcoming habitat for wildlife, if not for people trying to climb up it!

Mick, why did you climb to the top when it’s pretty obvious from the bottom that there would be no view from the top?
Also, I have a pit man’s shovel you can borrow if you fancy leading from the front.

In the early 60’s I remember a bloke digging out plots on the pit waste opposite Stoney Lane bridge in Hindley.He had a horse drawn gypsy caravan and he was a botonist and was sent to find out what would grow on pit waste.We used to help him put in seeds and plants and he would return to check how much they had grown.Brian Truman and a TV crew came from Scene at 6:30 to interview him and it was on TV.I think he did it different mining areas.

As already been said. It will always be The Wutchie to locals. Looks beautiful now though.

Perhaps they made those steps high to stop grumpy old pensioners going up there and then complaining that they couldn’t see anything from the top.

PW I had ancestry by the name of Crompton’s who lived in Stoney Lane. I have often wondered where it is / was.

Veronica, I don't know in which area your Crompton relatives lived but Liverpool Road which runs between Hindley and Platt Bridge used to be called Stoney Lane. However, I imagine many districts would have had a "Stoney Lane".

Walt, that underground fire burned for years didn’t it. They eventually dug it all out and put an end to the terrible smell.
It wasn’t all Pit waste, the area between what is now the Civic Centre and the Wutchie was used by the old Aspull Council to dump thousands of tons of household waste.
When they first started to reclaim the land around the Wutchie in the 1960s everybody thought they were mad. Even ordinary grass had a hard time growing there, but they were right and we were wrong.
Now there are deer and rabbits over there and all kinds of wild life. On the New Springs side of the Wutchie they have now got Kirkless Wood which is glorious to walk in at this time of the year.

I remember Hart Common well having relatives there, and living on Dobb Brow , most of the slag heaps were used to fill in the railway cutting from Dobbs Brow Junction going towards Aspull.

I can see it now Dtease!
Owd Mick with his shovel and a pick..with his gammy knee
and his aching hip
Hi Ho Hi Ho Hi Ho it’s up the Wuchi I’ll go …….
then the ominous silence in the distance!

Stoney Lane or as we used to say Stoney Lone was the old name for Liverpool Rd from the Bird i’th Hand pub down towards the now gone Strangeways pub.The bridge is still there and is an outflow for a hockey brook which runs underground from near St Peter’s cricket club on Wigan Rd.I knew lots of families from this area but cannot recall any Cromptons.

Dennis, please excuse this interruption!
Derek Platt, if you are looking in today my brother does remember yourself and your brother Roy very well as you all went on from St John’s to Thornleigh Salesian Collage, Bolton in the 1950’s.
He says he thought he had been in touch we you in recent times.
Regards, Colin.

It was a wonderful experiment to see what could grow on the many slag heaps that were still around in the early 1960s, and it worked wonderfully too as seen in the superb photo by Dennis.
Though for some reason by the late 1960s they didn't plant trees anymore, but had begun to dig out and remove the other slag heaps around the borough. The slag waste also had other uses too besides used for red shale garden paths, it was being mixed in with clay for bricks at the local Walthew House Lane Brick Works and others too, *see link below, and had also been used in the production of decorative glass, along with iron smelting slag, ** see link.

The slag heaps of Blundell's pit were said to be the highest in the area, I remember the new housing then being built on Lady Lane, Marus Bridge in the mid 1960s, and they looked dwarfed by these mountainous slag heaps, and at a time too that the very sad event at Aberfan was still on folks' minds. These massive heaps and others too around the borough began to be removed soon after.
Here's a photo from the Album of the smaller heaps with the highest being on the right and out of view as commented on by Peter:
https://www.wiganworld.co.uk/album/photo.php?opt=5&id=22076&gallery=Pemberton&offset=60

* Pit slag and bricks https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0272884221022641

** Pit slag and foundry slag and glass https://www.20thcenturyglass.com/glass_encyclopedia/victorian_glass/malachite_slag_glass/

Veronica, With apologies to Alfred, Lord Tennyson.

“Forward the Shevy brigade”
Was there a man dismayed
Not though the men knew
That Mick had blundered
Theirs not to make reply
Theirs not to reason why
Theirs but to do or die
Up the Wutchie or death
The Shevy men cried.

That sounds about right Irene as some did live in Platt Bridge. I remember going seeing a Grt Aunt who lived in a lovely house in the 50’s.
My Crompton’s came to Hindley in the 1860’s from Bolton. There’s photos of them under Crompton on ‘ People’. In fact they may go back to Samuel Crompton the inventor.

Cyril, I recall when driving up the M6 there were old flag heaps on the right or maybe left had side. I think it was Salford University experiment with large patches of different kinds of grass to see which type was best suited.
I also remember when the large slag heaps at Goose Green that looked steep and about collapse and the ones at Standish somewhere at the back of Rectory Lane that had fir trees planted until it too combusted underground like a sleeping volcano about to erupt sending toxic smoke and fumes over Standish. It took an age excavate out and extinguish.

Thankyou Colin, Now I do remember Brian reaching out to me on this webpage and me replying some time ago. Hope you are both keeping well. Cheers Derek.

Thanks Derek, if you still have his contact details I’m sure he would be pleased to hear from you.

It was the Chisnal Hall pit slag heap that they had square patches of different types of grass growing, it was a novelty to see them when heading north on the M6
I've been on tour today around Cheshire, Knutsford, Alderley and Wilmslow, the very good butcher in Alderley Edge had a sign up saying you could buy bacon and sausage butties. I though that unusual. For the them to be using the word butty in a posh place like Alderley

Yes Colin the slag heaps at Coppull was as Mick's already said, Chisnall Hall collieries, and they too looked massive. I remember when working at the Co-op in the late 1960s delivering to a house opposite those slag heaps down there, and they were burning then, the lady at the house said the heaps were always catching fire.
Also later when at Potter's there was a fellow who once worked at Chisnall Hall pit and would recall of his days there, he once told a tale of how he would always be taking swigs of water from one of his workmates can, anyhow one day he was caught taking a swig and thought that he was in for it, but he was just told to look in the can of water - and in it was the workmate's false teeth! He had always put them into there for safe keeping during the shift, the fellow at Potter's said he never did take any swigs of water from anyone's can ever again.

They're all footballers at Alderley Edge Mick, and all brought up on council estates, so they will know what a butty is, but that butcher will have his work cut out trying to sell bacon or sausage to folks, as they'll all be vegetarians or vegans or what's now said - we only eat plant based.