Wigan Album

It's wonderful, Aitch! It reminds me of a scene from Scrooge with Alastair Simm.

This is taken from down Churchgates looking up. If you emerged where the men are standing today you would be opposite Library Street.

Churchgate is still there Aitch, it's the passage from the side of Barclays Bank to the Parish Church.

If that is Churchgate the building on the right is where the Bradford&Bingley is now.

Opposite that building on the left, at the top of Churchgate was "The Black Horse" pub

Brilliant,the imagination could run wild looking at that photo.

This could be a side view of the Queens Head.

lovely pic, it remindes me of old films christmas and that ,dickens cant beleive its wigan and i love it.

It looks like jettied timber-framed building.

Hi Gem, the Queen's Head was on the opposite side of the street, it was demolished in the 1890's to make way for Library Street.

First of all a really interesting photo - would be fantastic to know the real date, here are some of my thoughts for what it's worth.
If I’m not mistaken that looks like a young boy going to work as a newspaper seller and next to him a tantalising glimpse of what might be a policeman - to me I “see” a cape (a familiar part of the uniform from the Victorian period,1837 – 1901 to the 1960’s –in fact the cape was so popular that some officers continued to wear it unofficially on nights until the early 1980’s) and a peaked or rounded cap rather than a helmet - if this is correct, and I’m far from certain that it is, it may help determine the approximate date of the photograph which if the writing is correct is one of the oldest known to have been taken in Wigan, since helmets came into use in the 1860’s.
“Metropolitan” style, full time police forces were created once towns became “Incorporated” and had established elected town councils. The first to do so was Wigan in 1836 - but it’s very unlikely the photo is as early as that, (photography was only invented in the mid 1820’s and really developed in the 1840’s onwards) my best guess is that it could date from the 1850’s but it’s only an estimate based on the flimsy evidence I can “see”. IF it is from that decade then it’s a very early photo, since the earliest I’ve “identified” taken in Wigan dates sometime before 1866 - when the “fish stones” were removed from the Market Place, near the entrance to Millgate.
This photo I assume is taken with the parish Church behind the photographer and his (or her) camera pointed towards the Market Place.
It’s just possible that the faint tall structure (a chimney?) at the top of the photo, may belong to the Old Moot Hall (demolished 1869) which was behind and next to these buildings and projected into the main street, but there again I could be quite wrong.