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Ashton-in-Makerfield Community Forum

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Re: Coffin Lane

Uploading this old map for you to look at ,the road I was calling Coffin Lane in blue is called Bryn Lane on the map, my way of thinking the tracks in red were just tracks across the felds to get to Bryn Lane at one time and they all got called Coffin Lane by the locals,

Town: Ashton

Re: Coffin Lane

Just uploading this photo looking up Bryn Road(Long Lane on the map) of Bryn Lane Farm it is still there, the lane on the right where the children are standing I think would have be Bryn Lane that would run to Bryn Hall that could also have been called Coffin Lane,


Would like to add two replies to a question I asked on WW about Coffin wood
(1) Coffin Lane was a path (still is actually) that led from Bryn Gates Lane to a mass smallpox burial ground.
(2) The burial ground wasn't in Wigan, Dougie, it was right there at the end of the lane, where they've put Viridor Woods.


Town: Ashton

Re: Coffin Lane

Thanks for the extra info about Bryn Lane, Dougie, I've added some of it to the description of my photo on Flickr. If you have the Archive Photographs series book "Around Ashton-In-Makerfield and Golborne" you'll see there's a photo purporting to be of Bryn Lane on page 71. Not the one you've posted here though, and I wonder if it's actually showing Bryn Road a.k.a. Long Lane from the opposite direction. The photo in the book has what looks like a railway signal box off to one side - am I right in thinking that a railway was at one time laid along the Bryn Lane route for bringing coal from Bryn Hall Colliery, eventually linking with the Wigan-Liverpool railway line at Bryn?

You may also recall the "Bryn Hall Cottages" discussion thread on WW, which includes 2 or 3 descriptions of the route from the cottages to Bryn Road as it was in the 1930s/40s/50s. There's mention of a tunnel at about the half-way point, possibly a relic of the old colliery railway?

Town: Ashton

Re: Coffin Lane

Why do you think Coffin Lane is called Coffin Lane?

Town: ashton

Re: Coffin Lane

Clarkey, any chance of a link to your Flikr photos? I try not to look at WW... too many extremists. Also, I presume Coffin Lane Brook got its name from running nearby Coffin Lane. But why carry a coffin? from where and to where? I believe there was a chapel at Gerrards old Bryn Hall that wouldnt be much off the track. Its stretching my imagination a little to think that were heading for Downall Green. Tis a good mind boggler. Some recall Coffin Wood. Some tell tales of gold buried in a coffin, the gold raised by catholics to prevent Edmund Arrowsmith from his fate. Apparently they lopped him up anyway but the gold raised was buried instead of his bits. I think thats rubbish to be honest. My mother claimed that Coffin Wood was called so because the wood from an aerial view was shaped like a coffin, being born in 1898 I presume she was a friend of the Montgolfier brothers and was well aware of the Nazca Lines.

Town: ashton

Re: Coffin Lane

My Flickr account is at http://www.flickr.com/photos/96685060@N03/ (I'm not sure how you put hyperlinks on here, but if you just cut and paste that into your browser you will get to it.)

I've seen 4 or 5 different accounts of how Coffin Lane came to be so-called. You'll find most of them covered in the message boards on WiganWorld - but I agree they can sometimes be a bad-tempered lot on WW, not genteel like we are :-).

The generally accepted version does seem to be that the Lane was the route taken from Bamfurlong, Stubshaw etc across to Holy Trinity at Downall Green for burials. Another account has it that, during a smallpox epidemic,the number of dead was so great and/or the risk of further infection so severe that the bodies were interred at the half-way point under what is now Viridor Wood. The versions involving Edmund Arrowsmith don't seem very credible to me, but I'm no expert on any of this. (I'm a Midlander by birth, only moving here in 2000 after spells in London and then Southport.)

Town: Ashton

Re: Coffin Lane

Hi Clarkey I really enjoyed looking throuh your pics on your Flickr site-saw some scenes I haven't come across before as well as some I am very familiar with. Thank you.

Town: AIM

Re: Coffin Lane

Thanks for the link Clarkey , some good pics in there :)

Town: ashton

Re: Coffin Lane

Nice photos here Clarkey.

Sure I'll bump in to you sometime. I'm always around
those parts walking or on the bike.

Town: Stubshaw

Re: Coffin Lane

Thanks all. If you spot any mistakes in the captions that go with some of the photos don't hesitate to put me right...

Town: Ashton