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Top Attractions in Wigan

Abram

Abram is a village and electoral ward within the Metropolitan Borough of Wigan, in Greater Manchester, England. It lies on flat land on the northeast bank of the Leeds and Liverpool Canal, 2 miles west of Leigh, 3 miles southeast of Wigan, and 14.5 miles west of Manchester. Abram is a dormitory village, effectively a suburb, comprising a resident population of 9,855 people. Historically a part of Lancashire, Abram anciently formed a township and chapelry in the parish of Wigan and hundred of West Derby. Abram appears in an entry of an ancient survey of Lancashire in 1212 under the name "Edburgham", and throughout the Middle Ages was governed by ruling families. The urbanisation and development of Abram largely coincided with the Industrial Revolution. Abram is situated in the centre of a coal district, and industrial scale coal mining was introduced to Abram around the middle of the 19th century with the opening of several collieries. In 1911, Abram was described as "distinctly unpicturesque ... trees are in the minority, and stunted and blackened with smoke", with "collieries, pit-banks, and railway lines" as well as "much pasture land". The Maypole Colliery Disaster in 1908 resulted in 75 deaths and profoundly changed the character of the village. Abram's coal mining industry demised during the mid-20th century, however the village has continued to grow, supported by its position between Leigh, Manchester, Warrington and Wigan. To the south of the village lies Abram Flashes, a 39.6 hectares area of shallow wetlands and a Site of Special Scientific Interest. Abram has historic associations with traditional morris dancing and is home to the Abram Morris Dancers.

Bispham Hall

Bispham Hall is a Grade II* listed Elizabethan country house in Billinge, now part of Wigan, Greater Manchester. The hall was built in 1573 but has been extended since. It is constructed to an E-shaped plan in dressed stone with ashlar dressings in three storeys, with a frontage of five gabled bays. The 2nd and 4th bays project but the 1st and 5th bays project even further and are wider. Despite interior damage caused by fire, the hall remains one of the most complete examples of 16th century architecture in the historic county of Lancashire. The surrounding park, at one time much larger than the 60 acre estate which exists today, had extensive woodlands which contain an 1815 monument to the Duke of Wellington and a smaller monument to either a horse or dog called Dash. Bispham Hall was named after the Bispham family who acquired the estate by marriage in 1346 and held it until 1730. It then passed to the Leigh family of Whitley Hall, Wigan. In 1825 the property had descended to John Holt, who had inherited it in 1816 from his unmarried brother Robert. In 1841 John Holt left the property to William Mills, a distant relative of Cheshire, on condition that the latter adopted the surname of Holt. On Williams death the estate passed to his son William Thomas, who died in 1857, leaving it to be divided between his six sisters, whereby it was sold in 1871 to coal-producer Meyrick Holmes Bankes of Winstanley Hall. The Bispham estate was acquired by the Boy Scout Association in 1948 as an activity centre. The hall itself was gutted by a fire in 1977 or 1978, but has been since restored by the Vivat Trust and is now privately owned. The Scout activity centre provides, in addition to indoor accommodation facilities, field camping areas for large groups and smaller woodland clearings for smaller groups. Varied outdoor facilities are organised, including climbing, orienteering, canoeing and team sports. Local legend tells how the ghost of Nellie Bispham haunts the woods around Bispham Hall.

Red Rose Forest

Red Rose Forest is a community forest in western and central Greater Manchester, England. It was founded in 1991 and is expected to take 40 years to develop and mature, with the aim of involving communities in safeguarding and creating a woodland flora for the future, and helping preserve the fast disappearing flora of British woodlands. The population within the Forest boundary amounts to 1.5 million, making it the largest urban community forest in the United Kingdom. The main aim is to get greenery where people can appreciate it every day. This includes street trees, green roofs and green spaces. Red Rose Forests Green Streets team works with local communities on unique and innovative greening projects to improve the quality of life for urban communities. The value of greening as a means of tackling a range of social, health and economic issues is huge. Red Rose Forest offers many ways for the people to get involved in their environment including the general public through their Friends of the Forest scheme, businesses through sponsorship and communities through the Green Streets project.

Worthington Lakes

Worthington Lakes is a series of three reservoirs in Lancashire situated near to Standish off the A5106 Wigan to Chorley road in the north-west of England. They were constructed in the early 1860s to provide the water demands of the rapidly growing town of Wigan. The water supply comes from a diversion of the River Douglas. The lakes, which are now in the ownership of United Utilities are today part of a 50-acre country park, with a nature reserve and accessible footpaths and used for informal recreation and for angling. A transcript of the public information notice board provided by United Utilities reads: "By the mid 1800s the population of the Wigan area had increased to 30,000 and a crisis arose with increasing demand for clean accessible water. As a result, a civil engineer, Mr. Rawlinson was commissioned by the local Board of Health to inspect and survey the country around Wigan and report on options for a new water supply scheme. The water course chosen starting at Seven Stars Brook, flowing under Harrock Hall to the east of Parboid Range continued east into the River Douglas valley. This was chosen as a suitable site for the Worthington Reservoirs. By 1858 the River Douglas was diverted through a tunnel to the east of the valley to enable work on two earth embankments and water treatment works to be started. The estimated cost for the works including diverted tunnel, treatment plant, 2 dams, mains and pumping station etc. was between £25,000 and £30,000. Modifications to the site were needed due to a concern about flooding of mines along a geographical fault crossing the site and so another embankment was constructed along the fault line. The Douglas Tunnel had to be extended to give a greater capacity and Worthington Dam was created. An additional Act was required due to the extensive modifications at the site. In 1860 the Wigan Waterworks Act received Royal Assent and the works were then constructed. By 1867 the whole works were completed including connection to the distribution system of the Wigan areas. The Arley and Worthington reservoirs had bypasses to enable them to be operated individually. When the reservoirs are low the earthenware pipeline along the side of the Arley reservoir and the cast iron pipeline along the Worthington reservoir are visible today. The original treatment process was by slow sand filtration, flowing by gravity from the draw-off tower to the filter beds. The water was piped to a water tank at the foot of the dam and then to a second tank before flowing along a gravity trunk main down the Douglas Valley. The second tank can be seen today, a very long, low building with a pitched roof at the foot of the dam. Worthington Reservoir when full is about 9 metres deep and has a capacity of 546 million litres. If required the water treatment works today could filter and chlorinate up to 8 million litres of water a day".

DW Stadium

The DW Stadium is a sports stadium in Wigan, Greater Manchester, England. The ground is owned and managed by Wigan Athletic Holdings Ltd, and it is used by Wigan Athletic football club and Wigan Warriors rugby league club. Built and opened in 1999, it is named after its main sponsor, DW Sports Fitness. In UEFA matches, it is called Wigan Athletic Stadium due to UEFA regulations on sponsorship. The stadium was designed by Alfred McAlpine. Wigan Athletic and Wigan Warriors moved into it from their long-term homes of Springfield Park and Central Park respectively. International rugby league matches have also taken place at the venue. Its current capacity is 25,138—seated in four single-tier stands—and its record attendance was on 11 May 2008 when 25,133 people watched Wigan Athletic play Manchester United in the title-deciding match of the 2007-08 Premier League season.

St John the Evangelist's Church

St John the Evangelist's Church is in Warrington Road, Abram, Wigan, Greater Manchester, England. It is an active Anglican parish church in the deanery of Wigan, the archdeaconry of Warrington, and the diocese of Liverpool. The church was built in 1935-37 to replace an older church built in 1838 that had been damaged by mining subsidence. It was designed by the Lancaster architect Henry Paley of Austin and Paley, and built at a cost of £11,113 , providing seating for 478 people. The foundation stone of the original building was laid on 9 March 1836 by Sir Henry Gunning, and it was consecrated on 9 June 1838 by the Bishop of Chester. The present church is constructed in stone from Darley Dale, and has a short squat west tower with a saddleback roof. The stained glass in the west window, and two of the wall monuments in the church were moved from the old church. The two-manual pipe organ was made by Richardson and Sons, and was also moved from the old church. The churchyard contains the war graves of seven soldiers of World War I, and three soldiers and two airmen of World War II.

Borsdane Wood

Borsdane Wood is an Ancient Semi Natural Woodland in the Metropolitan Borough of Wigan and Metropolitan Borough of Bolton, Greater Manchester, England. It is believed to have been continuous woodland cover since before 1600 AD and is composed of native tree species that have not obviously been planted. Borsdane Wood was designated a Local Nature Reserve in 1986. The wood consists of approximately 2.55 hectares of mixed broadleaf trees including species such as oak, ash, birch, cherry, hazel, hawthorn, blackthorn and dog rose, as well as 1.54 hectares of open ground. With trees many hundreds of years old the wood has remained relatively unchanged for centuries and is home to a wide variety of wildlife. The wood follows the course of the Borsdane Brook which is the boundary between Hindley and Westhoughton and the Metropolitan Boroughs of Wigan and Bolton. The brook flows through Wigan, Pennington Flash and into the Glaze Brook. From Hindley, Greater Manchester there are several entrances to the wood, one of which can be accessed from Hindley centre through Raynor Park or through the cemetery. A tunnel under the railway leads into woodland little changed in centuries. A path leads to Aspull, Greater Manchester where the access is located near the Gerrard Arms Public House. The town of Westhoughton is adjacent to the wood.

Wigan Town Hall

Wigan Town Hall was the second of three seats of local government occupied by the Metropolitan Borough of Wigan and its predecessors, built on a plot at the corner of King Street and Rodney Street in Wigan, England, between 1866 and 1867. Next to the Robinsons Brewery, it replaced an earlier town hall constructed in 1720 by the Earl of Barrymore and Sir Robert Bradshaigh, the town's representatives in parliament. The older building remained in use until its demolition in 1882. Designed by local architects Nuttall & Cook, the two-storey Italianate style structure was built largely of brick in Flemish bond, except for its sandstone ashlar ground floor and some sandstone dressings; the roof is of slate. It cost £12,000 to build, the equivalent of about £17.5 million as of 2016. The town hall continued in use until 1990, when the council moved its staff to the new Civic Centre and the current "New Town Hall", formerly the home of the Wigan Mining and Technical College, completed in 1903. The building has since remained vacant, and has fallen into a state of disrepair. Part of the rear has been demolished, leaving the remainder insecure. A planning application was made in 2007 to redevelop the site as office accommodation and 133 residential units, which Wigan Council is still considering as of 2012. Wigan Town Hall was designated a Grade II listed building in 1990.
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