Wigan. It is not the most inspiring place is it? Images of cloth caps, cobbles, clogs and cotton mills spring to mind. The other major thing about Wigan is that although it is miles away from the coast it has its pier featured in the title of the George Orwell classic "The Road To Wigan Pier" ... Read review
NH Hotels, the hotel chain leader in Europe, with more than 300 hotels in 20 countries in Europe, Latin America and Africa. Enter into our web site and find the best available tariff at all times
Advantages: Good for older people and school groups. Theatre group excellent Disadvantages: Hard to find. expensive if you only have a quick look round
...The other major thing about Wigan is that although it is miles away from the coast it has its pier featured in the title of the George Orwell classic "The Road To Wigan Pier" and also in a number of old music hall jokes. It also inspired the building of the first heritage centre in Britain, in the early 1980s, the Wigan Pier Experience.
What is the Wigan Pier Experience?
The Wigan Pier Experience, as mentioned, ... ...revolves around the town of Wigan at the end of the Victorian era in 1900.
If you want more details to the background of this attraction and an interesting perspective on it read Robert Hewison's The Heritage Industry. I have visited twice. Once as a field trip with my Heritage Studies course and the second time with my in laws as I though it might appeal to them.
Wigan. It is not the most inspiring place is it? Images of cloth caps, cobbles, clogs and cotton mills spring to mind. The other major thing about Wigan is that although it is miles away from the coast it has its pier featured in the title of the George Orwell classic "The Road To Wigan Pier" and also in a number of old music hall jokes. It also inspired the building of the first heritage centre in Britain, in the early 1980s, the Wigan Pier Experience.
What is the Wigan Pier Experience?
The Wigan Pier Experience, as mentioned, was the first heritage centre in the country. It was built as a community initiative to bring tourism to an economically depressed community using the reputation of the pier as a starting point. The pier, which was a coal-loading device by the canal side, had long since disappeared but was resurrected for the heritage centre. The heritage centre itself revolves around the town of Wigan at the end of the Victorian era in 1900.
If you want more details to the background of this attraction and an interesting perspective on it read Robert Hewison's The Heritage Industry. I have visited twice. Once as a field trip with my Heritage Studies course and the second time with my in laws as I though it might appeal to them.
How to get there?
I travelled by train but the website says it is easy to get to from all major roads. I found once in Wigan the signs were confusing and it was hard to find the attraction. Once there it was even harder to find the main entrance and found myself waiting in the wrong place.
The Attraction The first and main part of the attraction we visited was the Way We Were exhibition. It starts off in Blackpool on a bank holiday weekend with all the thrills of an old fashioned day at the beach. It includes pictures of donkeys, saucy postcards and What The Butler Saw machines. This is evidently social history territory and those with mangle fatigue should not even enter! Back in Wigan there is the typical mocked up house with the outside toilet and the rag rugs and all the trappings of the "Good old days" you see in every open-air museum, heritage centre and museum. There is an interesting exhibition explaining the situation Wigan was in, in the late Victorian era. I thought that was useful as it put the whole attraction into context. It also has a street of different shops and market stalls all recreated and a schoolroom. Wigan Pier was also the first attraction to have a troupe of in-house professional actors and actresses to provide Living History characters. There are number of different sketches developed and rotated each day. We saw the courting couple performance in the market square. It was actually really good and brought the attraction to life. They also included the audience. To this day our tutor is known as Mrs Waggstaff after her cameo in the performance!
The School Room
The schoolroom is also another piece of living history. It is brilliantly done and well researched The setting is superb with slates and loads of maps with lots of pink on them The schoolroom has one of their actors taking the part of he strict teacher. It reminded me a lot of the reality TV program that used to be on That Will Teach Them. In our Visitor studies course we had a guest speaker from Wigan Pier who was an ex student on the course who did her dissertation on people's attitudes to Victorian schoolroom. Apparently children ran out because the teacher was so scary and they advise that young children do not go in there. The lesson is great with lining up sprightly, no talking and a lesson on the three c's of Lancashire (Cotton, coal and canals). Anyone wearing rings was called a Jezebel even the lads. Unfortunately the atmosphere was ruined for us and the school party that was in on the same session as us by another group of adults with leaning disabilities. I felt they did not quite understand the situation and ruined the atmosphere slightly as the actress did not do the full routine with them I fully understood this but in a way I wish I had been in another session to get the full effect of the school room. Luckily the second time was a lot better and my mother in laws picked out as a troublemaker!
The Pier.
The pier itself is actually not that impressive. It is just a small metal structure and it is not even the original one. I suppose this could be an anti climax if you were expecting something more spectacular.
Wigan Pier also boasts a power hall with working cotton-spinning machines. However I did not visit this as I had been to Quarry Bank Mill recently and have been to New Lanark quite a few times and one cotton-spinning machine is the same as any other. There wwas also canal boat rides but since the weather was horrible and rainy we did not bother with these either
Café
There was a café that we ate at. It had a range of food at a not bad price. The place mats were cool and featured toys from the past if I remember rightly.
How long should I allow.
To see this attraction fully I would allow an afternoon. You could go round it quicker but you would not get your moneys worth and you might miss the theatre performances, which are highly recommended.
Opening times
Wigan Pier is open Monday- Thursday then open again on Sunday from 10am to 5 pm. I feel that closing Saturdays is a disadvantage as that is one of he main days for visitors. However I feel Wigan Pier is targeting itself mainly at school parties.
The prices are fairly reasonable for this type of attraction. It is £5.25 for an adult and £4.25 for a concession. There are special prices for locals and families. For full information about prices visit http://www.wlct.org/Tourism/Wiganpier/wiganpier.htm
Advantages: No groups of young singles. Within walking distance of all Bars and shops, but far enough away not to be disturbed by any noise. Disadvantages: If you don't like Germans then this is not the Hotel for you. Evening entertainment lacking.
and then not returning for several hours. You have to pay for the hire of a mattress, and you are then given pool towels. The evening entertainment leaves a lot to be desired if you're not German. The Holiday brouchers say that there is plenty of activities for children, this was not the case. The best entertainment was a bar right opposite the Hotel Entrance called the WiganPier. The rooms were clean when you fist arrive, but you're bedding is not changed daily as would be expected from a 4* Hotel. We found cockroaches every morning on the balcony, due mainly to the foolage out there. Luckly we only found 1 in the room. ...
Advantages: Free, the staff, the family fun days Disadvantages: the up stairs gallery, no facilities such as a cafe
.
The upstairs gallery has many weaknesses. The real problem is the context of the gallery, or rather the lack of context of the gallery. There does not seem to be any theme running through the gallery. This is such a contrast to the very strong Tudor theme of the downstairs of Ordsall Hall. The feel of it could be compared to a junk shop, a storage space, and is very similar to the curiosity cabinets of the eighteenth century that museums developed out of.
The interpretation of the social history cases is particularly poor and very old-fashioned. The glass cases are a barrier to the contents inside。 There is no need for the objects to be in glass cases as most of them are very common items。 From visits to other social history museums including Old Bridge House Museum in Dumfries Beamish Open Air Museum and WiganPier these types ...
