Wigan Album

It is actually looking North East towards Aspul. The bridge in the far distance stood by The Bush Inn. It was part of the Whelly Loop Line. If you were to stand there today looking in the same direction, The Oak Tree pub would be just behind you as you look towards The Bush.

This has been posted before by Ron Hunt, but this is a slightly larger version... either way it is belting photograph!

mi dad lived at 188 a couple of doors of ernie prescots shop at the end of the row in photo

I lived in Francis Street. It was just under the low bridge at the top of Belle Green Lane that can be seen in the background of the photo.

i love this photo its the nearest one ive seen to where i was born and lived till i was twelve,under the bridge and on the left was bell green school in bryam st then frances st i lived in york st off frances st,hope someone has a pic of our st .

Josie... My dads mum lived in York Street; Molly. Dads step-sister was called Jennifer (Jenny)and her married name was Beckett. Could we be related in some way?

I used to live in the actual row on the left(behind the signal box). I lived at number 123 (renumbered 159)next door to Joe Moss's shop and can still remember many of the neighbours. Next door we had an elderly couple Laura and Teddy Yates,then next door Norman & Kathleen Ashurst and Vivien and Marjorie, Grandma Smith,Arthur & Betty Bailey and old Mr Bailey, Joe and Annie Glover, Tinsley,Cilla & Arthur Sheppard and Susan who was one of my best friends, then Billy Miller and family and after that at the end (near the signal box) lived the Hoctors, Jinny, Joe, Susan, Robert, Colin and Katherine. I also remember Cynthia Haddon who lived next door to Prescotts shop.You can just see Elizabeth Street on the left hand side where Jenny and Albert Hunter lived with Carol my friend and Geoffrey, then there was Mrs Storey, Mrs Flemming and Mr & Mrs Moss at the end. We had a communal bonfire on Bonfire night and everyone put their fireworks in a tin and "Auntie" Kathleen Ashurst used to look after them, we had treacle toffee and baked potatoes in the fire and my Mum used to make potato pie. Our toilets were in a line across the field in the communal back garden and they used to freeze up in the winter time and we had to keep a little paraffin light on top near the box and carry water across in a bucket. All of us children from the row used to play in the fields at the back, we would slide down the grass mounds on cardboard and fly our kites and take Mums washing "maiden" and throw an old sheet over to make a tent and have a picnic with "sugar butties" and a bottle of water. We didn't have much but they were happy times and all the neighbours used to help each other out like one big family. Anybody on here remember any of the people mentioned I would love to hear from you.

I remember Joe Moss very well he sold frozen jubblies, Mr Hoctor was a BIG man who frightentend the living daylight out of when I knocked on the door to see if his son was coming out playing. we swung on these gate when a train passed I remember a low loader lorry being stuck just beyond these houses on the left it was carrying a roll of cable and the cable drum had fallen though the lorry base. The new houses just beyond Elizabeth St were built about around 1960, and old chap was the night wachman and he used to let us sit in his cabin near to his Brazier.. a man named Matt lived in the top house just across from Cartwrights Cloggers shop and a girl named Carol Hill lived a couple of houses up from Ernie Prescotts.

I remember this very well, right up until about the late 1950's.I can still remember the old steam engines with their coal wagons the trains chugging up this line and the level crossing gates closing. This line connected Springs Branch to the loop to the north. My Grandmother lived at 114 Belle Green Lane and Great Uncle Joe Moores family at 118 (?).
At about that time they started to remove the slag heaps and old mine working to the East of Belle Green Lane. My father had been for a pint one night to the Bush and recalled seeing a "sea" of rats running across this level crossing running north escaping from the mine workings.

I can remember this as if it was yesterday having walked over it hundreds of times on my way to school in Hindley or to Wigan, before the buses ran up Belle Green Lane. I knew most of the people which you mentioned Maureen, my father was Jack Cartwright and I was brought up in the shop during school and in my teens. I seem to remember that the shop on the corner of Elizbeth Street was run by a Mrs Rose before the Moses's had it. We once had the cane of old Barnes at Belle Green School for breaking windows in her Greenhouse which was in her Pen on the field opposite Elizabeth Street. We also had a Pen there for a while outside of our shop(remember the old Air Raid Shelter?). The house was in Mary Street (No. 1) and the shop in Belle Green Lane( No. 143).
We spent most of our time playing on the fields on the right of the picture, ie. between the remains of Longworth's pit and Harry Mitchell's Pen- oh happy days!!

I lived a "world away" from here in the early 1950's in Birkett Bank, but those stories just posted are a delight to read, exactly what Wigan world is and should be about. Brilliant.

To Bill Eatock.. Are you the Wigan rugby player who used to sup ale in the engineers?

Hi Gerry...Not me. I've done some supping in virtually every pub in Ince and Wigan...but I've never played rugby!

Hello Bill sorry with confusing you the the other Bill Eatock.. A gang of us were in the Engineeers on night watching a recorded BBC2 floodlit cup. Bill Eatock knocked on and some wag in the pub shouted "Go On Bill you daft B*gg*r". a voice from the back of the vault said "you were saying" It were Bill Eatock having a pint. the chap nearly fell of his stool !!

My brother thomas halsall lived in second house on left in belle green lane.