Wigan Album

Mesons sweet shop was in my day run by the Westheads,and later ran a shop in Beech Hill, the one is Beech Hill is closed and she lives there now but has kept the shop as it always was full of sweets and chocolate..she hasn't altered anything..her niece was in my class at School.

What a stately street King St used to be , its so sad to see it now as it is. Such lovely Georgian buildings and a mix of other period buildings. It was a town to be proud of.

I can't even guess at what those two ladies in their Georgian finest hats and dresswear would make of having a Saturday evening stroll up King Street these days, many of the buildings would still be recognisable but it would be a total change from the grand and affluent street they are strolling along in the early 1900s.
The following is copied and pasted from The Wigan Town Centre Trail page 11. The construction of King Street in the early 1790’s marked a
major break with the infilling process. This planned street was aimed at high class commerce and houses but was not fully developed until the 1870’s

Anyone who has seen the film "It's A Wonderful Life" will understand what those two ladies would think of King Street - and Wigan in general - if they saw it today. Bedford Falls has sadly turned into Pottersville.

Am I right in thinking the alleyway beside he Court Cinema was known as Grimes' Arcade?
If so I still have the 3 Art Deco vases bought there by my mother in 1940 The prices are still on the bottom 2 @ 6/9 and the bigger centRepiece @ 13/6
I remember an Air Raid while watching Huckleberry Finn at the Court Also saw the Great Dictator & films starring will Hay

No Donald, Next to the alleyway was a Chapel, Grimes arcade was further up.

My late sister was born at home in November 1943. I can remember as if it were yesterday a neighbour's daughter given the job taking me to the Court Cinema on that rainy Saturday to get me out of the house , and can remember the film was the Laurel and Hardy one which started with Stan Laurel as a soldier maintaining his post because he didn't know the war had been over for years.

Does anyone remember a temperance bar in King St in the 50s? It was on the other side from the Court cinema and further down fro where the Turnkey used to be,

Sorry to be pedantic, I think that all of the buildings in King Street were Victorian and the clothes around that time would be Edwardian.
You don't see any hats like that anymore. Must have been a nightmare to sit behind those two in the Royal Court Theatre!!!!