The ‘Wonders of Wigan’ project, delivered by South East Lancashire Community Rail Partnership (SELCRP) with funding from Avanti West Coast and Community Rail Network, has culminated in a large-scale photography mural featuring historic and contemporary local buildings, now installed at Wigan North Western Station. It seeks to showcase the rich heritage of the local area and celebrate the ethos of Railway 200, with 2025 marking 200 years of passenger rail.
SELCRP invited the local public to nominate their favourite Wigan buildings and landmarks –with people responding to an online survey as well as using special ‘post-boxes’ installed around the town. This aspect of public engagement resulted in a range of nominations of buildings past and present, with 25 of these being chosen for the final mural. It also features Wigan North Western, Wigan Wallgate, Hindley and the old Wigan Central stations, providing a further link to this year’s Railway 200 celebrations.
Local photographers and University graduates were then commissioned to capture modern images of each building, that are displayed alongside a variety of archive images of the same buildings as well as others that have since been demolished, allowing the contrast between past and present to be powerfully displayed. A series of lenticular images also add to this, meaning the viewer can watch the transformation of a building over time as they pass by.
Viewers can also find out more about the featured buildings with accompanying QR codes on the mural, with the information also available on the SELCRP website.
The photographers involved were Gareth Morton, Viv and Chris Fletcher, and university graduates Bethany Castle, Ben Midlane and Nikola Bobowik. Archive images were largely taken by former long-serving Wigan Observer photographer Frank Orrell, who now has numerous books of his photography published.
The mural photographs were printed onto attractive vinyl panels by local business Sign Print Solutions and installed by Pro Vinyl Manchester. The result was formally unveiled with a press reception on Friday 20 June, attended by the photographers involved.
‘Wonders of Wigan’ is set to see further panels installed in the future, featuring text inspired by the local community. It follows on from the success of the ‘Wiganese’ community-art mural already on display in the underpass at Wigan North Western, an SELCRP project exploring an alphabet of local dialect terms through colourful artwork. More information can be found here.
