The Mystery of Mill Ponds

[Scott]

Just for you southerners here is what us Northern Monkeys grew up with

Here is May Mill, Wigan (as mentioned earlier in the thread) before it was demolished

you can see the 2 mill pools in the picture

& this was the pools after the mill was demolished in the 1980's (picture from about 1982) (looking down from where the mill once stood)


& another

This was how I knew it when I was growing up albeit with a lot more vegetation & trees around it
in the late 80's & early 90's

Wow Lee! Thanks for sharing these, brought back many fond memories. Where did you find them?

[Northern Eel]

Wigan world website, lots of people have uploaded pictures of different parts of Wigan.

[CraigM]

A very interesting & enjoyable thread.

Thanks gents.

[TheDodger]

Great thread guys - and so well-written too. Coming from the North West I know just the type of water. Many places I fish are not especially scenically edifying. When I was a child Carr Mill Dam seemed to me as exotic and romantic as Redmire is still to many people!

I recall my father taking me to two small mill pools of the type mentioned in the main tale. We talked to some local woman who said that the pools had contained fish "silver ones and gold ones" (yes, a tantalising remark to an angler if there ever was!) but they didn't now - and indeed the pools didn't look very inviting. They weren't very large and were overhung by trees. This can have been no later than 1960. The pools were in Partington, Greater Manchester. I have tried several times to locate where these pools were and what became of them with no success, which is odd, because I have a very strong sense of direction and location indeed and could normally guarantee that I could find my way back anywhere. But these pools are simply not where they should be and don't seem to have been replaced by anything else. Another mystery!