Wigan Album

great pic, where abouts in gathurst was the viaduct?

This is Lion presumably on its way to the re-enactment of the Rainhill Trials in 1980. It is certainly not Gathurst, more likely sankey Viaduct Newton-Le-Willows.

thanx david i thought it wasn,t gathurst.

Remember the 150th anniversary celebrations at Liverpool Road in Manchester, great day out, saw the Lion then and many times at Liverpool Museum. Does anybody know where the Lion is kept now?

oops! Ta for correction.you are right rainhill.weren't they known as 9 arches?just think that train was what the viaduct was built to carry and now thousand ton freights are nothing to it.some engineers!

Duncan. Lion is now kept at the Liverpool Museum. See www.Liverpoolmuseums.org.uk According to this website "Staff from the National Conservation Centre are currently preparing Lion to go on display in the new Museum of Liverpool. She will go on show there as one of the key exhibits when the museum opens in 2011."

The arch in front of which the motorbike is stood once straddled the Sankey Brook Navigation, which was the reason why such a large structure was built - as the Mersey Flats for which the canal was built required 70' of airspace for their masts.
For more information about the viaduct, and early engravings of it, see:
http://www.scars.org.uk/gallery/viaduct.html
Drawing usually depicted the northern side of the viaduct - it was easier to reach from the road at Penkford. Photographs tend to be taken of the south side, with sun behind the photographer.
The railway being the first purpose-built passenger railway in the world, and the Sankey being England's first true canal (it was opened in 1757, two years before the Bridgewater was begun), this ought to be a World Heritage site... but, sadly, the canal here was filled with rubbish in the 1970s. Efforts to have this section put back into water are still being made, but it's been a long haul, with little progress.

Ah the Sankey canal-side café-culture: that could have been.

and in walking distance of burtonwood airbase of berlin history and vulcan,workshop to the world.gone as drifting smoke....

Interestingly the footings for the piers on the viaduct are made of timber..

Great picture and some good clarifying comments and of historical importance. But unfortunately not Wigan.