Wigan Album

Amazing! I have stood on the remains of this engine house and can now see where things were situated.

It is sad that authorities cannot look after wonderful pieces of heritage.

The flywheel had a flange on each side.Half the wheel was below ground.One morning just after starting time the engine house cat fell down the gap and landed in the flange.Those days you could not stop the engine for that because of the expense.All morning you could see two eyes going round and round.When the engine stopped for lunch the cat fell from the top down un der the wheel.My father went to pick it up and found it had fallen into a barrel of black engine oil.He fished it out and washed it in paraffin and a few days later you would not have thought anything had happened to it.They worked out that it would have travelled as far as London.

May I also add that this flywheel was the biggest in Europe too. The council use Trencherfield for heritage when Eckersley's was far superior!

I worked for a firm called Mee & Cocker from leigh who had the contract for the machinery demolition of eckersleys, we took all the looms, weaving machines and line shafting as well as the lancashire boilers, when I think back to that time, what we were doing to our industrial heritage, but it was surprising what you could do with a 14lb hammer and to us it was only scrap, catteralls scrap yard round the corner from there did well from it.

I think you must be the only person with such photographs Ron. I have turned the History Shop upside down for such pictures so it's a delight to see them on. Thanks.

I was in that Engine House in '52, & standing alongside the connecting rods, felt like the whole house was moving, the scale was that big. It's a feeling I'll never forget. That was engineering made to last, you could feel the power..

Hi Art.nice to hear from someone else from the old firm,I got married in 1950 and left then.I dont beleive they ever replaced the cladding on the high pressure cylinder after the explosion.It was a picture before with all the brasswork polished and gleaming.By the way Andrew I will send an e/mail we must keep in touch.

i saw all 5 engines at eckersleys when i was twelve the engineer took my mate and me around the mills to see the engines, one or two were already stopped but the others were still running we took some photos of the engines and some after the mills closed with the engines being broken up a sad day