History

The current St Thomas church on Chapel st. Leigh is the second incarnation of the church built on the site. It was built in 1902 by Messrs. J. Gerrard and Sons, of Swinton. constructed from Accrington red brick, and Runcorn red sandstone (used for doorways, windows, arches, piers and general stonework. It replaced the original church which was consecrated as early as 1840.

Why we were  photographing at st. Thomas church

We had heard through the grapevine that the churches future was under serious threat and may even be demolished if funds could not be found (in excess of £1 million) to carry out urgent maintenance. So we got the kind permission of the priest to access the church to take photos of the inside while it was still in reasonable disrepair and safe enough to do so.

St. Thomas church is something of a forgotten giant, sort of hidden away on chapel street , you can be past it before you notice it’s there. Hidden behind trees but as large as life when you get into the church yard. We had a great few hours snapping lots of photos, with a small sample displayed above. Had to use a wide angled lens for some of the shots as the church is so large you just can’t get it all in with a standard lens without having to go across Chapel street, and then you have the trees blocking your view of the building.

The church is not currently actively used for services as it needs a full rewire and is generally not safe to be used by the general public, such a shame. But we enjoyed our day out there, the sun even came out for us.

 History of Haigh Viaduct

These disused viaducts are located in Douglas Valley and are hidden gems within the Wigan Borough.  Locally known as twenty bridges and thirteen bridges the viaducts used to hold the Wigan to  Widnes and Wigan East Lancashire lines.

Thirteen bridges (or sometimes referred to as seven bridges) is on a branch off the west coast main line. The line branched off at the old Boars Head station and then went on to Adlington.

There are some old black and white photos here that show the viaducts in all their glory.

The viaducts are accessible from Pendlebury Lane, Which is a continuation of Leyland Mill lane from the A49 Wigan Lane.

Time spent at Haigh Viaduct

It was a lovely day when we visited the location and the sun provided some great back lighting for the tree and viaduct in some of the shots. It is a very serine location and should be made more accessible for the general public to enjoy. Currently it is not the easiest place to get to but we had a great few hours walking around and photographing once we got there.

st josephs seminary in upholland wigan

History

St joseph’s Seminary is located Walthew Park in Upholland, Wigan and is a former Roman Catholic Seminary which started to be built in 1880 and opened in 1883. The building has recently been unconsecrated.

The Seminary flourished until the early 1960s, but a sharp drop in enrollment meant that the northern bishops were forced to consolidate the activities of St Joseph’s in Upholland and Ushaw, with all junior seminarians in the north attending  St Josephs and all senior seminarians attending Ushaw.

As enrollment continued to decline it became a boarding school for boys considering a vacation.

In 1986 the total number of students was down to 82, of whom only 54 were Church students, and it was no longer viable to educate them on the premises. From 1987 the remaining students attended St. John Rigby College in nearby Orrell for their schooling, an arrangement that continued until the very last of these students left Upholland in 1992.

taken from Wikipedia

Our Day out at St. Joseph’s

We’d heard about St Joseph’s Seminary through an urban photography website and wanted to check it out while it was still there, so we went down with a Google map in hand.

We realised that getting in through the front entrance was a no go with security and CCTV at the gate. We drove on along the road until we found a public footpath, at which point we parked up and followed the path, which luckily brought us to the back of the Seminary. There were no walls to climb, we just walked into the grounds.

We don’t go to these kind of places intending to cause any damage, but merely take photographs.

Having walked around for a couple of hours we were approached by a security guard who was very helpful in providing some information about the building before leaving us to continue walk around the grounds.

The shear size of the place is very impressive, but just a shame it is being allowed to deteriorate so much. We were told that the building was intended to be used for luxury apartments but that the owners had run out of funding. Lets hope it gets done sooner rather than later before it becomes to late to save it.