64 facts about Wigan: some you'll know and some you may not

We’ve put together a little “Did You Know?” file featuring facts and figures about the town and its surrounding area, some which virtually everyone will know, and some which might surprise even those with the profoundest knowledge of its news and heritage.

1 St Wilfrid’s Parish Church in Standish is Wigan borough’s only Grade I listed building. Much of the current building dates from 1582-4.

2 The town has many literary links, not least with George Orwell, whose unflattering portrait of the town at the height of the depression in the 1930s, The Road to Wigan Pier, angered many. The famous writer carried out much of his research at the old Wigan reference library, now part of the Museum of Wigan Life.

3 Wigan Pier, confusing many motorists unfamiliar with the town on the motorway with its sign, was restored in the 1980s to become one of the UK’s top heritage attractions, winning many national tourism awards for its portrait of local life in times past. At its peak in the 1990s it was the second most visited attraction in the North West after Blackpool Pleasure Beach.

4 Wigan as a sporting town visited Wembley an unprecedented four times in less than six months this year thanks to the exploits of Latics and Warriors (Latics with an FA Cup semi-final, Final and Community Shield, and Warriors with the Challenge Cup Final).

5 Wiganers are sometimes referred to as “pie-eaters”. The name is said to date from the 1926 General Strike, when Wigan miners were starved back to work before their counterparts in surrounding towns and so were forced to metaphorically eat “humble pie”.

6 German propagandist Lord Haw-Haw (British Nazi-supporting traitor William Joyce) once mentioned Wigan in one of his broadcasts from Berlin as part of the effort to undermine British morale.

7 Thomas Beecham - the pharmacist of pills and cold powders fame - lodged in a cottage in The Wiend as a young man and is said to have carried out key early experiments there. He opened his first shop in Wigan in 1847 and sold Beecham’s Powders which, in those days, were laxatives!

8 Wigan’s strata of Cannel coal was famous throughout the country and was also exported across the world including vast quantities to America. In Wigan it was also carved into striking busts and indeed an entire summerhouse was made of the stuff for the Earl of Balcarres on the Haigh Hall estate.

9 The first steel crossbows in the country were made right here in Wigan by gunsmith William Barker.

10 Engineers Walkers of Pagefield Works patented the revolving cylindrical steel drum for screening coal according to size in 1844, when Wigan itself had no fewer than 60 operational pits. The system - coal falls through a series of gradually decreasing holes - is still in use across the globe today.

12 The earliest coal-washing plant in the country was built in Marsh House for the Wish Coal and Iron Company.

13 In 1609 Wigan became the centre of an uprising known to history as the Lancashire Plot to restore the exiled King James II to the English throne.

14 In 1696 two pewter stamping machines used for mine tallies were judged to be so much in advance of any others in the country they were purchased by the Royal Mint and transported to London to become the basis of improved coinage stamping machines.

15 The first steam railway locomotive in Lancashire ran in Wigan in 1812. Robert Daglish’s invention ran on wealthy line owner John Clarke’s Orrell Mount pits to the Leeds and Liverpool Canal. It was only a full 16 years later that a steam locomotive hauled passengers on the pioneering Liverpool to Manchester Railway with Stephenson’s Rocket.

16 Many a Catholic priest underwent training at the former St Joseph’s College in Roby Mill, but three of its most famous students all lapsed to become famous entertainers. The unlikely trio were stand-up comedians Tom O’Connor and Johnny Vegas and wacky DJ Kenny Everett (left).

17 The epic feature film Testimony, starring Ben Kingsley as tormented composer Shostakovich, was largely shot in Wigan with the likes of Haigh Hall, Eckersley Mill and Mesnes Park masquerading as Russian locations. Director Tony Palmer put on a special screening in St Petersburg and he said the audience, including Shostakovich’s widow, were dumbstruck when he revealed at the end that it had not been shot in their native city!

18 Wigan is twinned with the French city of Angers, in the Loire Valley. The two councils exchange ambassadors every year.

19 It was the exposing of flawed evidence from Platt Bridge forensic scientist Dr Frank Skuse which led to the freeing of the Birmingham Six - the people accused of a 1970s IRA bomb atrocity.

20 Former Wigan Grammar School pupil Prof Sir Roy Meadow was struck off in the wake of several court cases in which mothers had been convicted for killing their babies. The eminent paediatrician’s evidence had suggested highly remote statistical possibilities that the children had died of natural causes when in fact the odds were far lower and the women later cleared.

21 Some outsiders’ images of Wigan may still be of tightly-packed back-to-back houses and not a patch of green to be seen. But in fact more than 70 per cent of the borough is open land, and includes several areas of special scientific interest and nature reserves which together form the Greenheart Regional Park.

22 The current population of Wigan is estimated to be about 329,000, making it one of the most heavily populated areas of Greater Manchester. It also means that it only has about 70,000 fewer citizens than the whole of Iceland.

23 The giant Laxey Wheel which pumps water out of the Isle of Man’s deserted lead mines is reputed to have been made in the 1850s at the Haigh Foundry in the Douglas Valley. However some historians have challenged this, saying it was in fact manufactured in Liverpool and Ellesmere Port.

24 A broken leg did for Dave Whelan’s top flight footballing career, but his participation in other sports continued for decades afterwards. He was playing squash until well into his 70s, delights in telling the tale when he was once partnered at tennis doubles by former Wimbledon champ Jimmy Connors and has taken golf lessons from Tony Jacklin.

25 Dave Whelan negotiated the sale of his pre-JJB supermarket chain to Morrison’s while standing side by side in a urinal with William Morrison himself.

26 Three decades ago Wigan Flashes cut a desolate landscape: a muddy remnant of the borough’s former mining glory, having been created by collapsed tunnels. Today they are an environmental and aesthetic triumph, the home to many rare flora and fauna.

27 It may not boast as large a workforce as it once had, but the Kitt Green Heinz plant is still he biggest food canning factory in Europe.

28 Wigan Athletic started life playing in cherry and white jerseys. After being booted out of the Cheshire League, they switched to blue in the hope of a change in fortune.

29 The origins of Wigan’s more uncommon road names are too numerous to list but here are a couple. Hardybutts in Scholes is named after the mounds created to stop stray arrows from hitting passers-by during archery practice in centuries past. And Kid Glove Road in Golborne is named after the wife of the colliery owner who dug the first sod for the former mine in the 19th century and was reported in the press as wearing kid gloves to protect her hands.

30 Several years ago maps of Wigan, with lettering written in Cyrillic, were uncovered showing that the KGB in the pre-Glasnost Soviet Union seemed to have a special interest in the town.

31 Wigan was not originally intended to be on the route of the new Leeds and Liverpool Canal. However, those planning the waterway came to their senses when it was pointed out how central Wigan was on its path and would benefit greatly because of the abundance of coal.

32 The word Wigan can be found in certain old dictionaries. From the 15th to the 17th century Wigan was a major centre for woollen bedding textiles, linen, calicoes and checks. Wigan gave its name to a canvas style fabric used for stiffening.

33 Haigh Windmill was built to pump water from two ponds in an adjoining field to Haigh Brewery reservoir in 1845. A windmill was chosen, rather than a steam engine, to avoid smoke pollution.

34 There has been a settlement at Wigan for more than 2,000 years. The first permanent settlement belonged to the Celtic Brigante Tribe. It was called Coccion or Chochion, a name derived from the red sandstone rocks. When the Romans arrived in AD79 they built a base and named in Coccium.

35 It is unknown what the origins of the word Wigan are. Some myths suggest it could come from an ancient Welsh personal name Tref Wigan, meaning Wigan’s Gaff. Other variations include Wigan Hen, which alludes to a fortress, Gwig, which means forest. And keeping with our Saxon past, the town’s name could be in reference to Wiccan, meaning with or the word for viking, Wicing.

36 In 1742 The Douglas Navigation (one of the earliest waterways in the North West) was completed to Wigan.

37 The Grand Arcade Shopping Centre was built on a very important Roman settlement and also upon the ground where the Wigan Casino Northern Soul Club stood.

38 The name Wigan Pier was possibly invented by and was certainly brought to popular attention by George Formby Snr in the music halls of the early 20th century and later by his son George Formby Jnr who incorporated it into his songs. Someone looking out of an excursion train to Southport in the fog and seeing a coal gantry asked “Where are we?” and was told “Wigan Pier”. There are references to it in songs such as On the Wigan Boat Express.

39 One of the last battles of the English Civil War was fought in Royalist-supporting Wigan. The Battle of Wigan Lane took place on August 25 1651. Oliver Cromwell’s troops passed through the town twice.

41 Wigan is the only town in the country to have simultaneously held both football’s FA Cup and rugby league’s Challenge Cup.

40 In 1628 a Catholic priest - Edmund Arrowsmith - was hanged, drawn and quartered at Lancaster Castle. A family member was able to bribe the executioner to allow them to keep his right hand. It was kept safe by the family and given to St Oswald’s Church, Ashton, when it was founded in 1822. Edmund was beatified in 1929 as one of the 40 Martyrs and the Holy Hand is said to have been the cause of many cures. It is still exhibited in a glass case in the church every Saturday.

42 Wigan Athletic are the only club in English football to have appeared in the FA Trophy final, the Football League Trophy final, the League Cup final and the FA Cup final. In fact in 2013, Wigan won more major sporting trophies than Manchester, Birmingham, Newcastle, Liverpool and London put together.

43 Once the centre of the Lancashire coalfield - in the late 1800s there were 1,000 pit shafts within five miles of the town centre - Wigan no longer has any collieries. The last pit, Bickershaw, closed in 1992.

44 Wigan was reformed under the Municipal Corporations Act 1835 and given a Justice of the Peace. The borough was divided into five wards with a town council consisting of 40 members. Following the creation of the metropolitan borough of Wigan in 1974, the area was divided into 24 wards (this was revised with boundary changes to 25 in the 1990s) with each represented by three councillors.

45 Wigan became the hotbed for two very different genres of music across three decades. In the 1970s and early ’80s, Wigan Casino was one of the most famous Northern Soul clubs in the world with its legendary all-nighters drawing in acts and custom from all across the world.

46 In 1698 travel writer Celia Fiennes described Wigan as a 'pretty market town built of stone and brick.' Almost three hundred years later the American travel writer Bill Bryson wrote: "Such is Wigan's perennially poor reputation that I was truly astounded to find it has a handsome and well-maintained town centre". With the Galleries replacement yet to be built, he may revise his view for now, but we live in hope.

47 Wigan has been home to the World Pie-Eating Contest since 1992. It is held every winter in Harry’s Bar on Wallgate.

48 Lillian Gish, the silent film starlet dubbed The First Lady of American Film, travelled from Hollywood to Wrightington Hospital in the 1960s to undergo the hip replacement operation that was being pioneered by surgeon Sir John Charnley.

49 Hollywood legend Arnold Schwarzenegger is a former Kitt Green resident. During the 1960s when he was a rising star of the body-building world, he lodged with Wigan beauty queen Kathleen Winstanley at her home in Prescott Lane.

50 Gladiator star Russell Crowe visited Wigan. He stayed at Kilhey Court Hotel in Standish in the summer of 2011 after enticing the then Warriors coach Michael Maguire to become his new coach at South Sydney Rabbitohs - the NRL team that he owns.

51 The saintly Mother Teresa foresook her missionary work in Calcutta to pay a visit to Wigan in 1970. She met local schoolchildren at the Notre Dame convent on Wigan Lane and was presented with knitted blankets and other provisions for the orphans she was caring for in India.

52 Gangsta rapper 50 Cent and his crew cut an impromptu disc at a Standish recording studio after a Manchester gig in 2005, then went shopping for pop at Wigan Asda.

53 Founder of the Methodist Church, John Wesley, was a frequent visitor to Wigan during the 18th century, first preaching to a congregation in Downall Green. A year before his death aged 88 he wrote: “We went to Wigan for many years, proverbially called wicked Wigan.’ But it was not what it was.”

54 Haigh woodlands were laid out in the 1860s, giving work to unemployed Wiganers during the cotton famine caused by the American civil war. In 1947 the hall and its grounds were bought by the then Wigan Corporation and is now undergoing a huge makeover.

55 The opening ceremony for Mesnes Park took place in 1878, conducted by former Mayor Nathaniel Eckersley who by then was High Sheriff of Lancashire. Eckersley was also a former mill owner from Standish. North of the bandstand in Mesnes Park was a drinking fountain donated in 1880 by a group of teetotallers in memory of a Mr Grant. Unfortunately it was removed in the 1930s.

56 The site of Mesnes Park was sold to Wigan Corporation under the Wigan Rectory Glebe Act of 1871, which included provisions for a Grammar School and public park. The 6.5ha (16 acres) were purchased for the council at a cost of £2,000.

57 Gathurst Bridge dates back to 1780. It is a Grade II listed structure, a stone elliptical arch with cambered band parapet.

58 Wigan is located in the 53rd parallel north of the Earth’s equatorial plane and two degrees west. Also in the 53rd latitude parallel are Quebec, Canada and provinces of Inner Mongolia, China.

59 The old Wigan County Borough Crest was only drawn up in 1922. And the one in use today was made in 1974 to symbolise the newly-formed Wigan Metropolitan Borough.

60 The local authority holds a five per cent share in Manchester Airport. Manchester City Council controls 55 per cent and the remaining Greater Manchester councils own the rest.

61 When the Monarchy was restored after Cromwell’s era, King Charles II thanked Wigan for its support by gifting the town a shiny sword and bestowing the title “Ancient And Loyal”.

62 Wigan remained a Royalist stronghold and in the 18th century Wiganers supported the Jacobite Risings. Bonnie Prince Charlie stayed in the town on his march down to London and again on his retreat a few days later.

63 King Alfred The Great was said to have buried treasure underneath Castle Hill, which is an old Celtic burial mound near Golborne.

64 The Wigan Dispensary was founded in 1876 - this gradually evolved into Wigan Infirmary which was opened by Prince Albert - the future King Edward VII.