Featured Collections
Welcome to Wigan & Leigh Archives Online
our new photographic and collections website
You will find thousands of new resources, improved viewing and searching, and over time we'll be adding new collections from the Archives and Museums.
A small minority of images on our site contain offensive content. Archives: Wigan & Leigh have provided captions to contextualise these images. If you discover any content you deem offensive, please get in touch.
We hope you enjoy our new website and would be pleased to hear from you with any ideas and suggestions or donations of new archives or photographs for us to add to the site.
News
Layers of Leigh - The Historic Development of 98 Bradshawgate
Posted on 19th Nov 2025 by AWL Team
98 Bradshawgate is the first project to start on site as part of the Leigh Town Centre Building Grant Scheme. The building has had a variety of uses and continues to be a central part of Leigh’s retail offer. Early history...
Migration Stories: Marian Harriet Harrison - from Petrograd to Standish
Posted on 23rd Oct 2025 by AWL Team
Marian Harriet Harrison was born 8 March 1852 in Petrograd, Russia (Modern-day St Petersburg). Her Father, Robert was part way through writing a travel book, "Notes of a Nine Years' Residence in Russia, from 1844 to 1853, with Notices of the...
Migration Stories: German families in Scholes
Posted on 23rd Oct 2025 by AWL Team
The census of 1881 reveals Scholes to be a site of concentrated immigration. In the enumeration district which covers Scholes there are 805 men, women and children recorded, 229 of those are shown as being born outside the UK. Many...