Photo-a-Day  (Tuesday, 24th October, 2023)

Is the dirt mound on the top photo colliery waste or from the development of the motorway/middlebrook site?

So many "before-and-after" photos make you long nostalgically for the days of the "before" photo, but it's good to see that that scene has hardly changed in over 50 years.

The white house ' Barkers De Lane ' was there before Scot Lane Collieries opened next door, can you imagine the disturbance Dennis and twenty years after the mines closed you still have a slag heap.
The house in the foreground has retained the stone gateposts, but has replaced the fence with a wrought iron one. Nice photos.

That brings back memories Dennis. Just before the cottage there is a bench. In 1962 when my husband and I first met age 15 and 16, we used to sit on the bench every night. Nowadays it is all covered up by undergrowth. If you every walk past and move the undergrowth a little you will be able to see it. I’m sure it is still there. Thanks for the photo.

Forgot to say Dennis. I’m sure the bench is still there, as we have driven past hundreds of times and always look, and call it our bench, and watched it get more overgrown as the years have gone by, until now it is completely covered up.

Not much changed even with the waste in the top picture it doesn’t detract from the views all around. I love seeing the tops of Rivington in Winter..we are very lucky to live so near.

PeterP - colliery waste.
The M61/62 development only affected Scot Lane in 1968/69 with huge red Foden trucks moving the contents of the stone quarry above Ivy Brow along to the road base in the valley. These road monsters ran to and fro for quite some time.
Dennis, not much has changed - Kath H you need to get someone with a half decent strimmer to reveal the bench. Would be worth doing.

PeterP, that mound was pit waste from Blackrod Colliery and it was removed,
The other mound on the left of the white building is still there but covered with trees.
Blackrod Colliery was one of those effected by the closure of Aspull Pumping Pit.

Another good one Dennis , Barkers De Lane farm ,the white building to the left, used to get sacks of potatoes from there, no relation LOL.

Good idea Gary. Perhaps get Dennis to do it!!!!

Where is the border for Blackrod.

Arthur - the boundary is just beyond the cottage where the traffic is in the lower image. The white Bolton marker can be seen to the left of the trees down there - and the rear of the Wigan marker can be seen on the right, by the house in the foreground.

Two great pictures Dennis. In the second picture is one of these
new " BEE Network " buses on route from Blackrod or Horwich.

Been down that road hundreds of times going to work.A workmate skidded on this stretch of road one icy morning and finished up in the field on the left,no one was hurt.

Lovely pics Dennis,can remember walking it to Rivington with schoolfriend on Good Fridays in the past.We had always eaten our packed lunches by the time we got to Scot Lane.x

The Slag Heap actually belonged to Scot Lane Collieries, as did the present day site of Blackrod Industrial Estate, that was where the Colliery was located, and that is at the other side of the white house.

https://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/side-by-side/#zoom=15.9&lat=53.57598&lon=-2.57110&layers=168&right=ESRIWorld

Thanks Rev David Long, I know I could rely on you and be accurate.

I used to work at Blackrod Motors a Haulage company, they Carried coal to power stations. they had a yard on Reg Winstanley's land not too far from the big white house. Reg's father live in a bungalow on top of the entrance to the yard. T. Armstrong, from Little Scotland, in Blackrod, bought out Blackrod motors around 1974_5. Frank Barton drove for B.R.M after he retired from playing rugby league at Wigan.

Dirt mound? what a blaspheme !
was a mountain to a child ,
We called ours , the spy glass ,
was yours a place of kind ?
My God to be an adult ,
and settle in that know ,
when once you where a child ,
with nowt in mind but flow ?

Arthur the boundary between Blackrod and Aspull is Borsdane Brook