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"The Road to Wigan Pier"

Wigan Pier is the name given to an area around the Leeds and Liverpool Canal at the bottom of the Wigan flight of locks.

The original Wigan "pier" was a coal loading wharf or staithe, where narrow gauge coal wagons from a nearby colliery were tipped for loaded into canal barges. The name was brought into popular English folklore by George Formby (the elder) in the English Music Halls in the early part of the twentieth century and was given more serous acclaim with the publication in 1937 of the book "The Road to Wigan Pier" by Eric Arthur Blair (25 June 1903 – 21 January 1950), better known by the pen name George Orwell. "The Road to Wigan Pier" is an account of poverty among the working class in the depressed areas of northern England.

The original wooden Wigan "pier" was, local historians believe, was probably demolished in 1929, with the iron from the coal wagon’s tippler, consisting of two curved rails at the end of a narrow tramway being sold for scrap value! With the rise of more recent pride in Wigan's industrial heritage, a replica coal wagon tippler (and “pier”) was erected on (or about) the original location.

The canal warehouses in the vicinity were restored and put into use as a museum in the 1980s, with an exhibition hall. A nearby Mill, Trencherfield Mill still houses the world's largest original working steam engine and was incorporated into "The Way We Were" the "Wigan Pier Experience". The former Gibson's warehouse close by, originally built in 1777 was re-built in 1984 as the pub appropriately named "The Orwell".

We took time out to take our own Wigan pier pictures.

If you're not on a boat, Wigan has a number of hotels and B&B's if you plan to stay over night.

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