Comments
Jim
Thanks Roy for that info - and I have amended the said caption to reflect that.
Roy
Well done, i enjoyed the walk very much thank you Jim, sat on my chair. I was employed by Heinz for 20 years. One little correction Jim, it is a cannery and they fill cans not tins.
Chris n Norman
Thanks Jim. Another cracking show. Memories, eh?
Jim
One man and his dog - I meet a friend walking his.
Jim
The bridge.
Jim
A picture taken on another day that shows up the supporting cables.
Eth nCyrilxxxx
brought back memories Thank you Jim
Geoff Craven
A wealth of memories but sadly things do change. I remember theOld Engine inn and Gee's chip shop that used to be alongside. The Marsh's ran the little grocery shop in the last house next to the pub on Gathurst Rd. Thank you so much and keep well. Geoff
gerald and mavis
Your knowledge has no bounds Jim.
Excellent
Brenda
Excellent as usual.
Jim
We reach the Vale Royal pub resturaunt - what do you fancy? if it's a.m. maybe an English breakfast, or if pm a roast carvery dinner. No! then we will turn to walk back from here.
Jim
The warehouse has 36 automatic loading bays and can turn around up to 250 trucks a day, and covers an area of 350.000 square feet. It was built by Wincanton haulage company and is operated by them.
Jim
Trucks waiting outside the warehouse - including one from Poland.
Jim
This photo from another walk shows how the warehouse's massive size dominates the local countryside - running past it is the Manchester - Southport rail line which passes through Wigan.
Jim
This is not our walk route today - so back to the main road.
Jim
Main entrance. The factory opened on the 27th May 1959. On its 50th anniversary the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh paid a vist to open a new section - in the past The Queen Mother also paid a visit.
Jim
At the rear of the factory, its recently built new warehouse is one of, if not the largest storage building in Europe - it dominates the surrounding rural landscape for miles around.
Jim
A factory road connects factory and warehouse, the products are then distrbuted throughout the UK and Europe. A view taken from a bridge carrying a diverted public footpath.
Jim
The blizzard was so bad and the plane came down on deep snow, that the staff in the station never heard it - 35 people died and seven were injured - it was on a flight from the Isle Of Man
Jim
Wigan no longer has any pits or mills - Heinz is the largest employer in the area. The Kitt Green factory is Heinz's largest producer.
Jim
Spring Road.
Jim
When built they would not have had porches, these are modern additions, not always in keeping with the original stonework of the cottages.
Jim
The object of their interest was a huge seam of the purest coal, running from Winstanley to Orrell, and which was easily accessable below these fields.
Jim
From the road we can see the M6 motorway cutting across the landscape.
Jim
Here at the factory a million and a half tins ( or cans as they are referred to in the factory) of Britain's favourite beans are produced every day. So that's why beanz meanz Wiganz.
Jim
Kitt Green, Wigan. Lancashire. Home of H. J Heinz & Co.
Jim
Who would believe that in this green and pleasant rural area is Europe's largest food producing factory - actually it is five factories in one.
Jim
They are comprised of (1) Can making (2) Beanz (3) Soup (4) Pasta and (5) Varieties, like baby foods and Snack Pots etc.
Jim
..and here is the entrance. It employs 1350 local people.
Jim
Next to it the local pub, the Old Springs, named after a health giving spring that was situated nearby.
Jim
Across the road sheep, ( nothing to do with the factory) just brought in for winter grazing from more exposed areas.
Jim
An old field barn - looks like one good puff would blow it over - I love its tenacity in survivng the many winter gales its endured.
Jim
.. and nearby another more sturdy barn, built from brick. When I see them I think of the Three Little Pigs nursery story.
Jim
We pass a public footpath by the goods inward gate which leads to Porters wood, a section of it follows the factory's perimeter fence.
Jim
The Heinz factory goods inward entrance - through here pass the haricot beans from the Liverpool docks, and vegetables and produce from the agriculture area of the fertile Lancashire plain nearby.
Jim
Even the factory sign is in the familiar keystone shape used on Heinz labels.
Jim
The M6 motorway bridge - easy access to motorways and nearby Liverpool docks for the supply of beans, and high quality water from the Lake District, won the factory's location for Wigan council.
Jim
Now cut off, the original Spring Road before road restructuring.
Jim
Just off the road is Orrell Hall, once the home of a colliery owner - now a care home.
Jim
A disused driveway from Orrell Hall - now there is only one enntrance, but in the days of horse drawn carriages two were needed - in and out - because carriages couldn't be turned around like a car.
Jim
A nice detached Victorian house.
Jim
A backward glance.
Jim
The M6 motorway bridge gets nearer - if you look on a road map it is by junction 26.
Jim
..by the bridge is a foot path up a flight of steps that follows an enclosed path under the very embankment of the motorway. as you walk, you hear the traffic above roaring past, oblivious to you.
Jim
But we pass it by for now and will exit our walk here later.
Jim
We press on under the bridge heading for the T junction of Spring Road and Gathurst Road.
Jim
...passing a row of old miners cottages on the way.
Jim
At the road junction a pub called The Old Engine stood, this was demolished in 2010 - sadly a recurring story as pubs close due to changes in our drinking habits - people tend to drink at home now.
Jim
The pub was named after a steam pumping engine that stood in this field, it drained water from pit workings.
Jim
Amazingly this green rural area had lots of pits - the coal was such pure quality there was little waste to form slag heaps - any waste left could be left below ground when the mining finished.
Jim
When worked out, each pit had to be filled in, and any taken down boundries, replanted with fast growing quickthorn hedges, like these - so the land soon returned to a rural state.
Jim
This coal boom was funded by Liverpool buisness men who had made their fortunes from the slave trade before abolition meant they needed new ventures of investment.
Jim
Zoomed in, the Heinz factory chimmey peeps above the trees a mile away.
Jim
The camera's zoom compress this view of the Winter Hill TV transmitting station on the moors near Horwich ten miles away.
Jim
The tower is 1015 feet tall - it has 15 stays supporting it, to nine anchor points. It serves 6.5 million people over 45 miles of North West England reaching as far as South Cumbria.
Jim
It is seven feet in dameter and can be serviced from inside - its aircraft warning lights can be turned inwards for maintenance - in a winter blizzard in 1958 a plane crashed a few hundred yards away.
Jim
The factory and road are squeezed closer together by the zoom lense, making them appear closer than they really are.
Jim
This is what the normal perspective is from the same spot.
Jim
Later we will pass below that blue motorway sign as we start the return leg of our walk.
Jim
A good view of an old field hedge - some are older than the oldest local buildings - some hedges can be as old as a 1000 years.
Jim
A motorway bridge also crosses Gathurst Road.and goes on a few hundred yards to cross the high viaduct of the Douglas Valley.
Jim
We right turn and follow an enclosed path past the pay n' play golf course and walk along the side of the motorway down that enclosed path that leads to the steps seen earlier on the walk.
Jim
And here is that sign we saw across the fields from Gathurst Road.
Jim
It says junction 26 - Skelmerdale, Liverpool, Southport, it is also an exit for West side of Wigan, Or keep keep driving North and in two hours you will cross the border into Scotland.
Jim
Back to those steps we saw earlier - I walk back the way we came, past the factory entrance and home - hope you enjoyed the walk too, and found out things about Wigan you never knew. Bye!
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