Why is wigan pier famous

Will you leave a gift in your Will to keep the canals and rivers you care about alive? We are caring and open and aim to put our supporters at the heart of everything we do. It combines a beautiful natural setting with urban canal history, making it the perfect place to discover your local waterway.

Stop by our office at Trencherfield Mill just on the junction woth the Leigh Branch for copies of our visitor activity sheet and other local canalside information. Then stroll down the towpath to the Wigan Flashes, the canal is a great place to relax and enjoy the wildlife, with a mass of unusual birds and insects to look out for.

When a boat reaches the top of the Wigan flight of 21 locks, the crew quite often want to come into Kirkless Hall Inn for a long drink! The neighbouring Wigan Flashes are home to around species of bird and 15 species of dragonfly. Odds on that you'll see warblers, common terns and even the illusive Bittern. By boat - with a number of boating facilities along this stretch, you may be surprised to learn you can book our dry dock at Wigan? By train - both Wigan North Western and Wallgate stations are within a a 10 minute stroll to the canal.

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In the s, the canal warehouses were restored and put into use as a museum, exhibition hall and pub. The nearby Trencherfield Mill was incorporated into the "Wigan Pier Experience", with a waterbus linking it to the main site. The area is set to undergo a further transformation with the development of a cultural "Wigan Pier Quarter" which will include a performance centre and retail outlets.

Pennine Waterways. Leeds and Liverpool Canal. Looking in the other direction from the Terminal Warehouse, with Pottery Bridge on the left and the canal to Liverpool straight ahead. However, coal production in the Wigan area in the early s was only a few thousand tons per year and the population of the town only a few thousand. Demand for coal was not great, technology only allowed for shallow mining, and transport was primitive.

Sinclair , Vol. They were obliged to make way for each other by plunging into the side road which was soft and sometimes almost impassable , out of which they found it difficult to get back upon the causeway". Whittle cited in Hardwick, "History of the Borough of Preston and its environs: in the county of Lancaster" p.

Perhaps the greatest obstacle to progress was the manorial system of governance that had dominated Wigan politics, business and religion since imposition of Norman rule in In that capacity, he granted pieces of land and privileges to a small number of selected people - burgesses -, while the majority of Wiganers had few rights. Sinclair describes in detail the power structure and its restrictive impacts on innovation in the early 18th century:. They were clothed in that little authority which gave them power to accept or reject whomsoever they pleased; as burgesses they were strong political sectarians, who valued their burghal rights perhaps as much as any foreigner or barbarian of the middle ages ever did his freeborn citizenship of Rome, and, consequently, were loth to bestow them promiscuously on aliens; above all, from a purely protective spirit, they believed the granting, or rather selling, of freedom the best means of bringing wealth to the borough.

Perhaps due to recognition that Wigan was slipping into the backwater of a new system of growth, capitalism and free trade that was emerging in England, some burgesses slowly became more receptive to change.

Change was realized by a few Wiganers and an increasing number of 'foreigners' who began to break down age-old traditions and barriers. The pace of change became so overwhelming that, with no strong alternative path to development, laissez-faire capitalism and free trade began to shape Wigan's economic, social and environmental development. Wigan is in the middle of the Lancashire Coalfield.

It was landlocked with no easy means of transporting large quantities of coal to growing markets. Construction and utilization of new transport arteries - waterways and later railways - were desperately needed for Wigan and surrounding townships to develop and market their rich resources.

Photo 5. Women working underground The history of Wigan piers and dock reflects sequential improvements in transportation that began nearly three centuries ago. In this paper we focus on the foresight, leadership and investment of local entrepreneurs and foreigners who dramatically transformed Wigan into a coal, iron and cotton town. Peasants and yeomen in the old manorial system, without much choice, were pushed and pulled into becoming workers - some say slaves - in the mines, mills and factories Photo 5.

If you were born in the Wigan area in the 19th and 20th centuries, there was no question about the dominance of coal mining - pits, spoil heaps and steam locomotives were everywhere. A defiled landscape with flashes Photo 6 , caused by extraction of millions of tons of coal underground, and spoil heaps Photo 7 , caused by dumping vast quantities of mining waste on the surface, became visible signs of laissez-faire development.

A huge iron works mushroomed across the landscape Photo 8 and cotton mills sprang up everywhere Photo 9. Photo 8. May Mill. The last working cotton mill in Wigan which closed in But our lives are short and it is revealing to take a longer time perspective to coal production and population growth in the Wigan area Fig 1.

Starting in the late 18th century, rapid population growth paralleled the enormous increase in coal production. Wigan dock, piers and early railways facilitated these revolutionary changes. When coal production peaked in the early 20th century, and ceased before the end of the century, the population became disconnected from coal production; today, population in the Wigan area continues to grow, albeit at a much slower pace. Fig 1. The construction of Wigan dock, piers and early railways in relation to coal production and population growth in the Wigan area.

Fig 2 shows the chronology of major developments that forged the creation and folklore of Wigan piers and dock. Fig 3 shows the locations of the transport arteries, the piers and the dock. The rest of the paper provides more detailed information on these developments, based on early maps and historical documents. Fig 2. The evolution of transport systems relevant to Wigan piers and dock. Douglas Navigation Dock on Pottery Road. Germans' Pier c.

Blundell's Pier c. Wooden viaduct for the Wigan to Liverpool Railway built and filled c. Overhead tubway on wooden gantry from Newtown Colliery to Meadows Colliery c. Fig 3. As per tradition, conservatism and quiescence prevailed for many years and little work was done. Around , Alexander Leigh and his father-in-law, Robert Holt, took the bull by the horns and pushed construction along rapidly. Both Leigh and Holt served as mayor of Wigan on multiple occasions.

To make the River Douglas navigable from Wigan to the Ribble Estuary, sections had to be canalized and locks and weirs constructed. The Douglas Navigation opened in and was finished in , allowing boats to carry some 20 tons of coal and other goods some 10 miles to the Ribble Estuary and beyond.

Boats from Wigan to Gathurst and Parbold were 'bow hauled' by gangs of men. Returning boats carried limestone, flags, paving stones and slate for building materials and lime for farmers' fields. There were also two pleasure boats on the navigation. The Douglas Navigation certainly provided stimulus to open Wigan to broader markets, but the Ribble Estuary area was not well developed and Liverpool was receiving coal from the much closer collieries in Prescot.

When the Leeds and Liverpool Canal was finished to Wigan in see below , the navigation was effectively abandoned. Alexander Leigh was a Wigan barrister and sometime mayor of Wigan. He bough Hindley Hall Hindley in but never lived there. It was left to his grandson Robert Holt Leigh who moved there when he became MP for Wigan in the early 19th century, rebuilding the Hall in see Note 1.

We do not have a map of the Douglas Navigation in Wigan in the s. However, information can be gleaned about the navigation from historical sources. Whitaker , 37, states that c. Whitaker states that the battle was probably fought in the marshy Parson's Meadow on the south side of the River Douglas.

Irrespective of the battle, questions arise as to the location of the dock and Pool Bridge. Burgage plots - strips of land belonging to the burgesses - are shown clearly on this map and on the Ordnance Survey map.

The map also shows two canalized channels, or cuts, branching northwards off the River Douglas between two potteries, one owned by Mr. The description of a channel for some roods from the dock is consistent with the length of both channels shown on the map.

These two canalized channels are not shown on the Boundary Commission Map, so they must have been filled before surveying was conducted. The map shows some five buildings at the terminal point of these two canalized sections, so it is reasonable to interpret that these buildings and canalized channels formed the end section of the Douglas Navigation and the site of Wigan Dock.

Fig 4. Canal Survey Map, Parson's Meadow Bridge is at the southern end of what is Pottery Terrace today. A short distance upstream of the bridge, Poolstock Brook flows from Poolstock into Smithy Brook, which in turn flows into the River Douglas.

A key unresolved issue is whether the Leeds and Liverpool Canal Basin was built specifically for the canal in the s and s, or whether it represents a slightly modified older terminal basin built for the navigation.

Also onsite is the Trencherfield Mill, a steam-powered textile factory whose original engine is still in working order. The heart of the complex, however, is a large canal-side warehouse, restored in , that houses The Way We Were, one of the most intriguing heritage centers anywhere. The final exhibit is the highlight: the famous Victorian School, where the strict teacher makes the children toe the line.

Museum-goers principally children on a school day line up, segregated by gender, to be marched quietly to their seats in this carefully re-created classroom. Discipline, memorization and moral lectures have never been so entertaining, and the children leave—again in strict lines—laughing and giggling. Here the museum operates the largest original industrial steam engine in the world, an awesome sight. Its two cylinders named Helen and Rina , one on each side of the huge, hot room, put out 2, hp of energy.

Six ropes still run off the flywheel, sending power to a mill exhibit, with original equipment from every stage of the process. Sadly, the mill exhibit at press time is silent, its fate unknown. The steam engine, at least, is safe from the developers and will remain part of the museum.