Wigan Album

I love the Arran cardigan the girl on the left is wearing… they never go out of fashion, you can bet it was hand knitted.

Is the bluebell wood still at the back as you walk through to the railway line?

There must be houses there now, I have a friend who lives in Ashfield Park Drive.

Edna, no houses where the girls are, Ashfield Park Drive is outside of the Ashfield House and gardens boundary.

There are no houses on that particular part of Ashfield although there are recent rumblings of possible building on the playing fields near the main road. The lawn to the right of this photo was the bottom of 2 front lawns in front of the house. They were always immaculate and we loved playing football on them. We always had one eye out for ' Parkie ' in his little blue van, who would roll up and chase us off. If you followed the path through the hedgerow and turned left you'd see the park, swings, roundabout, longtom and the big slide. There were 2 football pitches that ran in the opposite direction than they do today and had quite a slope on them. Beyond them the coalhills and the old Victoria Pit. To the left of the swings was the Tennis Court, a mesh fence enclosed clay surfaced court. We had lots of good times down there. I hope the building proposals don't get the nod. There's enough building going on in Standish as it is.

I recall there being a few ornamental ponds on the lawn near the Tennis Court . If you rummaged about in the bushes you sometimes came across secretive little pools of water like the stone bowls of fountains . Wishing Wells perhaps?
The lawns described by WN1 were split level with steps leading down to the lowest and a grass slope rising to the other . I remember there was a round wooden Summer house at the bottom of the low lawn .

I vaguely remember the summerhouse on the bottom lawn Poet but I think it had gone by the time we were playing football on it. Also, if you followed the path that ran past the summerhouse, it took you down some steps through the top of the woods and onto the road that led to Wigan Road. Just on your left here, was the old Air raid Shelter and 2 more football pitches. We spent hours and hours playing over there.

We used to go to your house to buy a ticket, I think it was 3d Barrie, to use the tennis court.