In the image above, it looks as though the River Douglas is flowing though a quiet, picturesque, rural area whose beauty is slightly marred by a small bridge.

The truth is, the bridge carries Scot Lane, a busy urban road which is often clogged with noisy, polluting, heavy goods vehicles on their way to Martland Mill industrial estate, which is hidden by the trees on the left of the picture. The Wigan-Southport railway, which crosses the area behind the camera's viewpoint, adds to the masked urbanity of the scene.

Really, Ell Meadow is a tiny jewel in the middle of a noisy urban area.

The name appears to be an old field name meaning a meadow in the shape of a letter "L". But is the name really "Ell Meadow"? The Bartholomew street map names it so, but other sources, including the 1st edition Ordnance Survey map, call the area "Hell Meadow". If this is the true name, then its meaning is best conjectured with the creative use of an fertile imagination.

Sources of Information

"Wigan Street Finder" pub. Bartholomew (1995)
old-maps.co.uk