Photo-a-Day  (Thursday, 31st July, 2025)

For all it’s crumbling the roof looks in good condition and the brick walls are solid. It would be great if a good builder came along and rescued it. But who would pay that price for it?

Probably having planning permission for 36 apartments, has pushed up the asking to that level!

I do not think anyone will take it on to restore as a dwelling house. You would probably have to spend around £3 Million to do so. Better bargains to be had for such a sum.

Does anyone know when it was last lived in and why it was abandoned?
Great photo and research yet again Colin.

Mick Byrne did a very interesting video tour of the building which he took in 2011.
Mick if you are looking in today, could you please post the link?

One of many abandoned houses which are dotted around Wigan.It looks large not only off the photo but the amount of fire places it must have with counting the chimneys

If you Google Reagan & Hallworth Standish, you will find the details including a very interesting pdf brochure.

Perhaps the Adams family could move in

Veronica, not many years ago a firm of roofers partially stripped the roof of its slates until they realised they were at the wrong property so all the slates remove had to be replaced, that's why the roof looks in decent condition.

It must have a been a Bob the Builder firm Roy. How on earth could that have happened….good grief at least it was rectified..but what a tragedy a house like that going into such decline. Perhaps it will be made into Apartments. Better that than it further declining.

This was a maternity home in 1940s.I was born there.The address on my birth cert is 251 Wigan Lane.Mary.

Mary you are right I knew someone who was born there in 1946.

Worked on this house many times in the 70s when it was owned by Mr and Mrs Mark Williams Butchers.
I was working for Jack Almond Joiners and Joinery Manufacturers , at Caroline St Rose Bridge Ince ,where I served my apprenticeship.
It was a beautiful house inside, with a grand staircase , the front door in the vestibule had a stained glass window of a large Peacock.
Mrs Williams always said " take your boots off when you come in here". LOL.
Its a beautiful building , such a shame nothing been done with it for all these years . Good photo Colin.

I worked for the firm of accountants next door and I remember the lady who lived there (she was a doctor) coming into reception. Our offices were originally on Bridgeman Terrace and it was around the mid 1980s when we moved up to Douglas Bank House, and this lady was living there at that time.

In the absence of Mick so far today I think I have found his video.
Hope he doesn't mind and Hope it works!

Video of Brentwood by Mick Byrne
The video was taken in 2011

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-SXlDLdRbDM&t=43s

It's a crime that it has been left to get into such a state of disrepair, and it's been on fire a few times too, but there mustn't be much left in there to burn.
I heard some time ago that most if not all of the architectural decor and features along with an Aga had been taken.
In the early 2000s, it was purchased with plans for it to become a sort of halfway house, and for people who had been having psychiatric care for breakdowns and such, and was to give them some respite away from hospital environments before getting them back into the community.
However, someone living in the road opposite got up a petition against it, along with horrid scaremongering about the folks who would be residing there, this planning was later declined by the council. The people who would have resided there would have posed no danger at all to any child, or any adult come to that, they just needed a place in the community and a chance to get back into the swing of things.
Other similar plans for the property were met with much of the same. With the person who got up those petitions having long since gone, the building is still there being left to further deteriorate, and with thieves and vandals having done their worst.
If the roof hadn't been put back in a good order after the house mix up, then it would have become to be in a far worse condition than it is. Hopefully it can be renovated back to a liveable condition, but it's how many houses can be put on the land is what the developers will be looking at, but I do know that some of the trees do have a protected order on them.

Here's an interesting aerial photo of the house and its woodland, and the surrounding area: https://media.rightmove.co.uk/3k/2987/148605185/2987_12400035_IMG_03_0000.jpeg

Bit late in the day to comment, sorry, but we have been to Whitby for two days, and I took my phone but left the charger at home, and it ran out of charge! Lovely house, that.....just look at those beautiful chimneys.....what a shame that it is in such a state, and yet it's still beautiful.

You all think it's a lovely building that should be refurbished. On the face of it, it might look nice, but have you seen any engineers reports on the condition of it's foundations and structural integrity? No? I thought not.

Thanks for all the additional information, all very interesting and much appreciated.
Irene, did you go to a Goth Convention?

It was the home or the Williams Family of Mark Williams Pork Butchers . I am afraid I haven't got dates .

Not this time, Colin....just a little two-day break, visiting Whitby and Scarborough.

It seems there's a few videos of Brentwood Colin, and all more or less the same.
Though I didn't know that it was so bad on the inside that's shown by drone on the first video, so I really can't see anyone who would want to renovate the building in that state, not with all the work and costs involved, even the doors and the architrave all look to be stolen too, or burned, and why knock down the internal wall.

Brentwood videos x 2
https://youtu.be/8lwKzjmOIG0?feature=shared

https://youtu.be/xyPsg8PaDPs?feature=shared

This is of another abandoned mansion that is near to Brentwood, The Hollies,
https://youtu.be/OF6Z0o4aZQQ?feature=shared

Wigan Today photos of abandoned buildings, some say they're of St John's RC Church Wigan, is it the same one that's off Standishgate and Powell Street?

https://www.wigantoday.net/heritage-and-retro/retro/inside-the-abandoned-wigan-buildings-frozen-in-time-3485287?page=2

From memory, I think it was last used as a Rest Home but closed down and was put on the market around 2001 / 02 for £550K.

Thanks for the links Cyril , really interesting but very sad also . Did you see that fireplace? It must have been a wonderful home at one time . One can only imagine .
Sadly we have a species of human who take great pleasure in burning and destroying just for the hell of it , leaving behind their vomit of presence wherever they walk. Living Zombies!

There was talk of St John’s closing not long ago I don’t think it has as yet. I didn’t recognise it from the photos Cyril.

They’ll steal anything these days as I have found to my cost. Anything ornamental from a hundred years ago. The ornamental terracotta objects on top of gate posts all stolen during the night from the road I lived at. Things that can’t be replaced.
Scheming rats…..I imagine the fireplace that was stolen is now in some fancy house somewhere being
ooh- ed and ah- ed at!

Too right Dave, I wonder if they actually go armed with an aerosol or can of paint and brush, just to daub their monikas and graffiti all over the stone fireplace and the walls, it must have been a grand entrance and room too with those marble like columns. Every floorboard has been lifted too and quite posssibly taken to a reclamation yard, and where as Veronica says those terracotta gate post tops which get stolen are taken and bought with no questions asked, and then resold at exorbitant prices.

David Barker at 14:26 does say that he did jobs there, and it was beautiful inside, though it would be pointless in taking off boots at the door now, those former owners would be heartbroken at the sight of it.

Veronica, after a look on the web I was directed to look on St. John's Facebook page, and the church is still very much in use and just as busy as ever, so which church the photo is of in Wigan Today, I've no idea.

I thought as much Cyril the last time I went there was during Covid but I did ask a friend who lives not far from St John’s. There was talk of either St Mary’s or St John’s having to go into dis-use . I hope not but it’s happening a lot in these days.