Wigan Album

Nostalgic but would I want to go back? No thanks!

This definitely looks like something from a Dickens novel !

Looks like the menfolk are deawnt pit, because womenfolk wouldn’t be on doorsteps chatting. They would be scurrying inth’ eawse doing a bit o’ weshin’.

Faggy Lane, built adjacent a large plot of land known as Faggy Lane Fields which was on the right hand side when walking down from Chapel Lane long before the the railway was built.
I used to walk down there in the 1960's turning left at the bottom to get to St Josephs Church on Queens Street. That left hand turning may have had another name but cannot make this out on old maps?

Colin Traynor - was it Hartley Terrace?

Jim Bamber once lived in Hartley Terrace.

I Googled Faggy Lane and came upon this fascinating piece of information thanks to Wigan Local History & Heritage Society, never realising that the lane ran across Faggy Lane Fields to King Street at the side of what is now or was The County Cinema, the Iron Bridge to the North West Station being the only remnant.
Humble beginnings - Faggy Lane
Before we start I have to mention Faggy Lane. Arguably the forerunner of King Street. When the Corporation commissioned the new street, the deeds included a requirement to “furnish between Wallgate, Chapel Lane and Millgate a better lane than Faggy Lane”. A fragment of it remains today between Queen Street and the railway, hidden behind a car sales showroom. At one time it connected Chapel Lane with the town centre and ran across Faggy Lane Fields which were later swallowed up by railway lines and sidings. It was the scene of a fierce battle in 1867 over the right of way between two major rail companies, but that is another story for another day. Where the old lane met the new King Street is still there today. It is where the walkway across the railway joins King Street next to the old County Playhouse.

The above though leaves me (Colin) questioning the origins of the name, I wonders if it is a corruption of Foggy as perhaps that damper and wetter lower lying land was prone to mist and fog??????

Tony L, I think it was Hartley Terrace or Street and there may still be a couple of houses left standing.

I remember a blacksmith's forge at the bottom of Faggy Lane, opposite Hartley Terrace. My Mum said that the street which ran across Queen St past St Thomas's Labour Club and into Princess St. was called Ironmongers Lane