14th April, 2007

Cloth Hall

The Cloth Hall opened in 1784. It was an important centre for Wigan's textile industry.

On 25th March 1882 the Wigan Observer published an account of Wigan as it was in 1788, almost 100 years earlier.

It describes the Cloth hall as a:

"very large and convenient brick building... in which are exposed to sale (by the makers) during the Ascension and St. Simon and St. Jude Fairs, very large quantities of Yorkshire and Lancashire woollen cloths, bedding, flannels of all sorts, calamancos, muslins, Irish linens and a variety of well made fustians; also hardware of all kinds, with jewellery and many other sorts of goods. The number of people who come here from many miles around the country, to supply themselves, is astonishing, and gives the Cloth Hall and entrance into it the resemblance of a beehive, during the height of the market..."

"On each side and at the bottom are a number of shops of different sizes upon the ground floor; in the middle is a double row of shops facing these on each side, and round which are two streets or alleys on the right and left hand; as soon as you are through the gates there are two flights of stone steps which lead into rooms over the shops on the outside of the building."

By 1816 the Cloth Hall had been superseded by the Commercial Hall which was situated in nearby Market Place.

A report of 1849 says that 45 cottages stood on the former site. There was little sanitation and the 257 inhabitants appear to have lived in appalling conditions.