Wigan Album
Brock Mill
6 CommentsPhoto: Allan Hughes
Item #: 22733
I remember visiting these cottages when I was about 10, around 1960. My friend Michael Robinsond Grandparents lived in one of them. The photo is taken from the bottom o the access road that leads from Wingsates Road up to Wigan RUFC, looking back across the vaslley towards 70 steps (or 64 dependant on where you start counting). The steps can be seen to the right of the cottages.The cottages were demolished in the mid 1960's
What a great pity those beautiful stone cottages were demolished. They look lovely and in a lovely setting as well.
i) Why were they demolished?
ii) Was there a ‘Brock Mill’?
iii) Wasn’t there a single track rail line feeding the adjacent foundry in that location?
Malc; There probably was a water powered mill there at one time seeing that the river runs past there.
And yes there used to be a single line railway that came from further up the valley. It was called Brock Mill junc and came off the Lancs Union line near Haigh junc.
The railway line went to Haigh Foundry but it also went through Brock Mill foundry which was where the old Post and Chronicle buildings later stood.
I think the bridge that crosses the river in the middle of the photograph is the one that carried the railway down to Haigh Foundry. In fact the girders that supported the bridge are still in situ across the river to this day (although you may have to fight your way through the trees to find them).
in 1908 and 1909 my grandmother sent two postcards with similar views to the man who became my grandfather. She calls the steps 'Jacob's Ladder.'