Wigan Pier is an area around the Leeds and Liverpool Canal in Wigan, Greater Manchester, England, south-west of the town centre. [1] The name has humorous or ironic connotations since it conjures an image of a seaside pleasure pier, whereas Wigan is inland and a traditionally industrial town.
 | This section possibly contains original research .(February 2021) |
The original "pier" at Wigan was a coal loading staithe, probably a wooden jetty, where wagons from a nearby colliery were unloaded into waiting barges on the canal. The original wooden pier is believed to have been demolished in 1929, with the iron from the tippler (a mechanism for tipping coal into the barges) being sold as scrap. [1]
A telling of the origin of what really was 'Wigan Pier' goes that in 1891, an excursion train to Southport got delayed on the outskirts of Wigan not long after leaving Wallgate Station. At that time a long wooden gantry or trestle carried a mineral line from Lamb and Moore's Newtown Colliery on Scot Lane, to their Meadows Colliery in Frog Lane (where the Council refuse centre is now). This gantry was quite a structure, as it had to span the Douglas valley, crossing the river, the canal and the main rail line to Southport. As the delayed train waited for the signals to change, one of the travellers remarked "where the b... hell are we?" and the reply became the basis for the immortal joke about Wigan's Pier. George Formby, Sr. perpetuated the joke around the turn of the century in the music halls in Wigan, adding that when he passed the Pier he noticed the tide was in (referring to the constant flooding in the low-lying area). Formby died in February 1921, and with the demise of the collieries in the area, the gantry had long passed out of existence. Therefore when people looked for the Pier, the tippler for coal wagons at the canal terminus became the chosen object of the joke. [2] The tippler became the favoured location when people subsequently wanted to see it. There are references to it in songs such as George Formby Junior's On the Wigan Boat Express . [3] "The Ballad of Wigan Pier", written by local journalist Jack Winstanley, is a comic song written in the 1980s in the style of George Formby Junior. It was recorded by The Houghton Weavers and was regularly performed by them. Its lyrics perpetuate the idea of Wigan having a pier in the style of seaside resorts like Blackpool, and encourage you to look for it. References also include a mythical visit by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, fishing for tripe using locally produced sweets Uncle Joe's Mint Balls and refer also to George Formby Senior as the origin of its mythical existence. [4]
In 1937, Wigan was featured in the title of George Orwell's The Road to Wigan Pier , which dealt in large part with the living conditions of England's working poor. In response to a critic, Orwell insisted "He [Orwell] liked Wigan very much—the people, not the scenery. Indeed, he has only one fault to find with it, and that is in respect of the celebrated Wigan Pier, which he had set his heart on seeing. Alas! Wigan Pier had been demolished, and even the spot where it used to stand is no longer certain." [5] Some have embraced the Orwellian link, as it has provided the area with a modest tourist base over the years. "It seems funny to celebrate Orwell for highlighting all our bad points, but Wigan wouldn't be anywhere near as famous without him," said the Wigan Pier Experience's manager, Carole Tyldesley. "In the end George Orwell has proved to be a strong marketing tool." [6] Others regard this connection as disappointing, considering it an insinuation that Wigan is no better now than it was at the time of Orwell's writing. [7]
The canal scene from The Road to Wigan Pier describes the area as such: "I remember a winter afternoon in the dreadful environs of Wigan. All round was the lunar landscape of slag-heaps, and to the north, through the passes, as it were, between the mountains of slag, you could see the factory chimneys sending out their plumes of smoke. The canal path was a mixture of cinders and frozen mud, criss-crossed by the imprints of innumerable clogs, and all round, as far as the slag-heaps in the distance, stretched the 'flashes'—pools of stagnant water that had seeped into the hollows caused by the subsidence of ancient pits. It was horribly cold. The 'flashes' were covered with ice the colour of raw umber, the bargemen were muffled to the eyes in sacks, the lock gates wore beards of ice. It seemed a world from which vegetation had been banished; nothing existed except smoke, shale, ice, mud, ashes, and foul water." [8]
Today, the slag heaps have been removed or landscaped with trees, the factories are closed or converted to housing, and the canal is only used for recreational boating and fishing.
The pier was at the end of a narrow gauge tramway from a colliery. The wagons would be brought right to the edge of the canal to be tippled so that their contents went straight into the waiting barges. The original wooden pier is believed to have been demolished in 1929, with the iron from the tippler being sold as scrap. Because of the more recent pride in the area's heritage, a replica tippler, consisting of two curved rails, has been erected although several hundred metres from the original location. [1]
The former Wigan Terminus Warehouses were built in the eighteenth century and refurbished in the 1980s. Boats could moor inside the building and off-load directly into the warehouse. [9]
A warehouse with covered loading bays, converted into a museum of Victorian life (often mistakenly thought to be Wigan Pier), and the home to The Way We Were museum, [10] was part of the Wigan Pier Experience museum and exhibition centre. The exhibition featured a Victorian school room, a colliery disaster, the Second Boer War and (on the top floor) a complete pub transported from Hope Street and reconstructed by shopping centre developers. The Wigan Pier Theatre Company used these displays to remind present generations of "The Way We Were"—not always a happy life. [11] The attraction closed on 20 December 2007. [12]
Gibson's Warehouse is a Victorian cotton warehouse, originally built in 1777, re-built in 1984 as The Orwell at Wigan Pier, is situated on the canalside. [13]
Number 1 Wigan Pier, won a Civic Trust Award—the architect being Michael Stroud Churchward when it refurbished in the early part of the 1980s.
Trencherfield Mill is a former cotton mill, located across the road from Wigan Pier converted into luxury apartments in 2009. [14] It still contains the massive working steam engine which was kept in the new development.
There are several bridges across the canal. Bridge #51 Pottery Changeline is a roving bridge, one which swaps the tow path from one side of the canal to the other, usually in such a way as to allow the horse pulling the barge to pass easily and without disconnecting its tow-rope. [15] Bridge #50 Seven Stars Bridge is adjacent to the Seven Stars public house (now demolished), taking its name from The Plough constellation. [16]
Elizabeth House, whose address is The Pier, Wigan, houses Keep Britain Tidy, an environmental charity.
Wigan Pier Nightspot was a very popular night club on the southern bank of the Canal, from the late 80's until it closed in December 2011. [17] The club played music predominantly of the Scouse House/Bounce genre at weekends. Also through the 1990's, an Alternative music night (Often referred to as 'Indie' night) was held on Wednesdays, and during summer months the club attracted hundreds of customers at all music nights.
A planning application proposing the overhaul of the famous Wigan Pier to provide new homes, an artisan food hall and events spaces have been approved. [18]
The Road to Wigan Pier is a book by the English writer George Orwell, first published in 1937. The first half of this work documents his sociological investigations of the bleak living conditions among the working class in Lancashire and Yorkshire in the industrial north of England before World War II. The second half is a long essay on his middle-class upbringing, and the development of his political conscience, questioning British attitudes towards socialism. Orwell states plainly that he himself is in favour of socialism, but feels it necessary to point out reasons why many people who would benefit from socialism, and should logically support it, are in practice likely to be strong opponents.
The Leeds and Liverpool Canal is a canal in Northern England, linking the cities of Leeds and Liverpool.
The Manchester Bolton & Bury Canal is a disused canal in Greater Manchester, England, built to link Bolton and Bury with Manchester. The canal, when fully opened, was 15 miles 1 furlong (24 km) long. It was accessed via a junction with the River Irwell in Salford. Seventeen locks were required to climb to the summit as it passed through Pendleton, heading northwest to Prestolee before it split northwest to Bolton and northeast to Bury. Between Bolton and Bury the canal was level and required no locks. Six aqueducts were built to allow the canal to cross the rivers Irwell and Tonge and several minor roads.
The Bridgewater Canal connects Runcorn, Manchester and Leigh, in North West England. It was commissioned by Francis Egerton, 3rd Duke of Bridgewater, to transport coal from his mines in Worsley to Manchester. It was opened in 1761 from Worsley to Manchester, and later extended from Manchester to Runcorn, and then from Worsley to Leigh.
Castlefield is an inner-city conservation area in Manchester, North West England. The conservation area which bears its name is bounded by the River Irwell, Quay Street, Deansgate and Chester Road. It was the site of the Roman era fort of Mamucium or Mancunium which gave its name to Manchester. It was the terminus of the Bridgewater Canal, the world's first industrial canal, built in 1764; the oldest canal warehouse opened in 1779. The world's first passenger railway terminated here in 1830, at Liverpool Road railway station and the first railway warehouse opened here in 1831.
A horse-drawn boat or tow-boat is a historic boat operating on a canal, pulled by a horse walking beside the canal on a towpath.
The Sankey Canal in North West England, initially known as the Sankey Brook Navigation and later the St Helens Canal, is a former industrial canal, which when opened in 1757 was England's first of the Industrial revolution, and the first modern canal.
The North Union Railway was an early British railway company, operating two main routes, from Parkside to Preston and from Bolton Trinity Street to Preston, all in Lancashire. The northerly part of the routes sharing the line from Euxton to Preston.
Ince-in-Makerfield or Ince is a town in the Metropolitan Borough of Wigan, in Greater Manchester, England. The population of the Ince ward at the 2011 census was 13,486, but a southern part of Ince was also listed under the Abram ward. Adding on this area brings the total in 2011 to 15,664.
Duxbury Woods is an area of woodland and parkland situated in Chorley, Lancashire, at the foot of the West Pennine Moors. The area originally existed as a township with the council meeting at the Yarrow Bridge pub; this was absorbed into Chorley Rural District in the early 20th century.
The Douglas Navigation was a canalised section of the River Douglas or Asland, in Lancashire, England, running from its confluence with the River Ribble to Wigan. It was authorised in 1720, and some work was carried out, but the undertakers lost most of the share money speculating on the South Sea Bubble. Alexander Leigh attempted to revive it eleven years later, and opened it progressively between 1738 and 1742. Leigh began work on a parallel canal called Leigh's Cut to improve the passage from Newburgh to Gathurst, but progress was slow and it was unfinished in 1771.
The Lancaster Canal Tramroad, also known as the Walton Summit Tramway or the Old Tram Road, was a British plateway, completed in 1803, to link the north and south ends of the Lancaster Canal across the Ribble valley, pending completion of the canal. The canal link was never constructed.
Wigan is a town in Greater Manchester, England, on the River Douglas. The town is midway between the two cities of Manchester, 16 miles (25.7 km) to the south-east, and Liverpool, 17 miles (27 km) to the south-west. It is the largest settlement in the Metropolitan Borough of Wigan and is its administrative centre. The town has a population of 107,732 and the wider borough of 330,714. Wigan is part of the historic county of Lancashire.
Trencherfield Mill is a cotton spinning mill standing next to the Leeds and Liverpool Canal in Wigan, Greater Manchester, England. It was built in 1907. It was taken over by the Lancashire Cotton Corporation in the 1930s and passed to Courtaulds in 1964. The mill was driven by a 2,500 hp triple-expansion four-cylinder engine built by J & E Wood of Bolton in 1907. The two halves of the engine were called Rina and Helen. They drove a 26-foot flywheel with 54 ropes at 68 rpm. The engine was stopped in 1968. The mill is now part of the Wigan Pier redevelopment area and is used for other purposes.
The Outer Pennine Ring is an English canal ring which crosses the Pennines between Manchester, Leeds and Castleford. Its route follows parts of eight canals, and includes the longest canal tunnel in England. The ring was completed in 2001, with the opening of the Huddersfield Narrow Canal. Much of the route is shared with the North Pennine Ring, which crosses the Pennines by a different route on the southern leg.
The Lancashire Union Railway ran between Blackburn and St Helens in Lancashire, England. It was built primarily to carry goods between Blackburn and Garston Dock on the River Mersey, and also to serve collieries in the Wigan area. Most of the line has now been closed, except for the St Helens-to-Wigan section that forms part of the main line between Liverpool and the North.
Manchester Oldham Road station opened in 1839 as the terminus station of the Manchester and Leeds Railway (M&LR) in Collyhurst, Manchester. When the M&LR opened Manchester Victoria in 1844 as its new Manchester passenger station Oldham Road was converted to a goods station which it remained until its closure in 1968.
"On the Wigan Boat Express" is a comic song written by George Formby, Harry Gifford and Frederick E. Cliffe. Formby recorded it on 4 August 1940 for Regal Zonophone Records. It tells the story of, and goings-on aboard, a boat train express heading for Formby's hometown of Wigan in Lancashire. Like several other of Formby's songs, and indeed comic routines by his father George Formby Snr, it maintains and develops the running joke that Wigan is a seaside town rather than an inland, industrial centre, and like Blackpool, has a “pier” albeit on a canal. It is filled with the sort of sexual innuendo that was a hallmark of Formby's songs.
The Wigan Branch Railway was a short-lived early British railway company, formed in 1830 and operating from 1832 to 1834 in Lancashire. It was constructed to link Wigan and the surrounding coalfield to the Liverpool and Manchester Railway (L&MR). It was involved in the first parliamentary approved amalgamation of railways to become part of the North Union Railway. Most of the line eventually became part of the West Coast Main Line (WCML).
River Douglas railway station was a former railway station of the West Lancashire Railway (WLR) on the Southport-Preston Line in North West England, which opened in 1878. The station was near the village of Hesketh Bank, located approximately 550 yards (500 m) to the east of Hesketh Bank station, adjacent to an iron swing bridge on the western bank of the River Douglas.
What he wrote still colours people's views of Wigan... But if Wigan is going to grow it's got to leave Orwell behind and sell all that.