I walked back from Wigan Pier to have a look at the town centre – it’s some years since I’ve been. In today’s post I want to show you some of the buildings and shops that I saw. This first photo, for example, is the gatehouse of Wigan Hall – the subject of my Featured Photo.
The shops are an eclectic mixture of old and new. Because, today’s post is about the architecture of the town centre, I’m using black and white images to point-up that aspect in particular.
You’ll notice for example, that many of the buildings feature Victorian half-timbering – which gives an impression of a much earlier period – Tudor, say. Beneath the half-timbering, however, you’ll see that many of them have modern low-price shops such as the card factory shop in the image above. Not the expensive designer outlets that you might expect.
Here’s another example – a Caffe Nero coffee shop.
Or a newsagents and stationery outlet like that of W H Smith above.
Even the pub’s architecture nods to the Victorian theme.
Now here’s a building with a municipal look about it – Wigan Library I believe -definitely its own style, but more authentically Victorian.
And this building can’t make up its mind about its image.
I seem to remember that the wheel above was on the exterior of the Technical College – much more modern, completely eschewing the mock-Tudor.
Tomorrow, we’ll have a look at Wigan’s arcades.
Featured Photo
Today, I’ve chosen Wigan Hall as the subject of my featured photo. The Hall was built in 1875 to replace a much older Rectory building.
EXIF Data were: I used my Fujifilm X-T4, 26 MP, cropped-sensor, mirrorless camera paired with a Fujinon XF 10-24 mm f/4 lens. Shutter speed was 1/640 secs @ f/4 and 24 mm. ISO was 160.
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