Photo-a-Day  (Friday, 3rd January, 2020)

Looking rather sad these days.
Spent my first working years in that building along with many others. Very happy years too.

Thought for a moment that you'd been to the Royal Opera House, Brian.

Looking rather sad these days.
Spent my first working years in that building along with many others. Very happy years too.

Rubyshoes - you're not seeing it in its best light - it glows when the sun shines on it. A magnificent building thankfully saved to serve a useful purpose for another generation.

I must agree with Rev. David , Rubyshoes . Here is classical architecture. Grand even in decline. No one would say the Colosseum was looking rather sad these days.

Anyone know what the Britannia bridge school site has been earmarked for. I know it has been suggested housing, anything more positive than guesses.

My Mum worked there as a teenager, it was her first job when she was 14 years old, in the early 1940's

Thats where my wife worked making waist coats for Dunnes.

Beautiful architecture - we could learn so much from these buildings. Not many modern buildings replicate this grandeur, even with all the computerised graphics etc at our disposal.

It's a building the like of which is replicated hundreds if not thousands of times over the UK. Nothing special at all IMO.

Darkness doesn't do justice to the building - rather like a 'dark satanic mill'... Looks completely different in daylight.... At least it's not being left to crumble....imagine the cost of re- building in today's money, it couldn't be done, that's for sure.

Check out Gardens By the Bay in Singapore. The Coop building was OK for the time.

I stand corrected broady. I didn't realise that 'hundreds if not thousands' of buildings were built in the UK in this style - in modern times.
These buildings are striking and a living reminder of our industrial past.

I think my comment got lost so I'll repeat it..if this building was cleaned ..sand blasted..it would look majestic.

Eeeeee......they don't make 'em like that anymore.

But when you consider a modern equivalent would cost a tenth to build and a twentieth to run its hardly surprising.

I respect your opinion but sand blasting does nothing for a 1920's style inside. What is it used for a present? A doss house if I remember correctly.

Throw a 'modern equivalent' up, because its only Wigan, a backwater, a town left behind! Why should the town still have such beautiful buildings, what good are they? One reason, they show what standards the people in authority had for their town and were built to last, they represent the affluence and respect Wigan had. Demolishing beautiful buildings, represents the throwaway society that exists today in everything. Buildings like this should be cherished, they lend style and character to the town, even if they are turned into apartments! They should not be laid to waste...imagine if this building was in London or any major town, it would be sought after and put to good use. But not in Wigan an ex- industrial town it seems.