Wigan Album

The three and five storey maisonette type council flats in Scholes were finally demolished in 1998, a few years after the nearby Church, Belvoir and Higham Court upsidedown houses.The maisonettes were Orchard, Withnall and Lowes House, Windmill Close, and Scholes main road with another block in Durham Street, Whelley. They followed the demise of those in Mesnes Avenue and Baucher Road, Worsley Mesnes and Dumbarton Green, Beech Hill. The high rise flats in contrast have survived after refurbishment with Boyswell House shown and Douglas House , and the five identical with balconies, Brook, Woodcock, Derby, Crompton and Mannion House further down the road, but the trio in Worsley Mesnes, Dryden, Thackeray and Masefield House were not liked and went in 1991.

I always recall my dad saying ' they're breeding slums' when they were being built, unfortunately they both went in Lowes House for a time, they were too old to buy property, they never liked the housing then in Scholes..... Like a lot more of their generation.

I can remember visiting some one in the flats opposite the flamingo and you went round the back to get in. Every time a lorry went past the building started shaking. If they had not been pulled down they would have fell down.