History of Skelmersdale

I have lived in Skelmersdale for over thirty years and have a keen interest in the history of the town and its development. I am slowly compiling a history of the new town and am currently researching the period immediately after the designation in 1962 up to the collapse of industry when the big 5 employers left the town. Do you have a story to tell, documents or photos from around this period? If so, I should love to hear from you. writeme@carolfenlon.com

What’s New in Town?

June 2022

Good news

1.Our new Lidl store opened yesterday 9th June and the B&M store will open shortly also. Although it’s a far cry from the new town centre we’ve been promised for years, it’s a start and hopefully will attract further developments, especially the night life and leisure attractions we so badly need. It’s strange to remember that the original new town plans for the centre included an hotel, restaurants and even a zoo!

2. Skelmersdale Heritage Society has gone from strength to strength since reforming in 2018. Currently meeting first Monday of the month in Upholland Labour club the society hosts regular speakers. Members also receive a monthly email newsletter and podcast. This month’s meeting hosted a talk by local historian Marianne Howell on George Lyon the Upholland Highwayman. Next month’s meeting features Eve Pennington, a PhD student researching women’s experiences of life in new towns in the 1970s and George Orr, another local historian well known for his superb collection of Skelmersdale postcards, talking about Skelmersdale women’s experiences in WW2. All details and latest news of the society and meetings are on the Facebook page.

Not so good news.

Town residents have been devastated at the news of the demolition of Skelmersdale Hall recently. The Hall, originally an eighteenth century farmhouse was preserved by the new town developments and converted into the Old Toby Inn which was a popular venue in the early new town days and was featured in promotional advertising for the town. Later left empty it became the Toby fun pub but has not re-opened after Covid. After a recent application for conversion to a care home was approved with a stipulation that the original building should be preserved, the hall burned down and seriously deteriorated as the remains were not adequately secured. It was a shock all round when the building was suddenly demolished, it appears without permission as it was a listed building. Apparently a demolition order was submitted to the council but the building was demolished just a. few days later before the council had time to respond. Although this was done illegally it will be interesting to see what action is taken as a result. However, nothing can bring the hall back and we are all saddened to see the disappearance of yet another historic building from our town.
The first stage developments in the town centre are almost complete yet we note this involved the dismantling of the iconic stone fountain which formerly stood on the site close to the library. Promises were made about the relocation of the fountain further into Tawd Valley park yet it appears that so far the stones have simply been thrown in a heap. Watch this space as I will be investigating what has happened to it.

May 2020

Apologies for the lack of input on this page for some time. I think Coronavirus has thrown us all into a state of confusion and that’s my excuse but now I need to knuckle down to some serious work.

At our last succesful meeting of the new Skelmersdale Heritage Society at the Wardens club we welcomed David Ball from Glassball .

David led an interesting discussion about the new town and its prospects for the future. Obviously since then we have not been able to hold meetings but we have kept going our lively Facebook page with no lack of contributions of local photos and memories.

Exciting news this week is that the society has been awarded the cost of a digital projector and screeen from the Eric Wright Trust administered by West Lancs CVS

This will enable us to enhance our meetings with displays of archive film footage and also with presentations of various aspects of town history. We will be organising a collection of digital material over the next 12 months which will be available to other groups and schools etc in the community and hopefully by then we will have our website up and running for storage of a digital archive.

Watch this space or follow Skelmersdale Heritage Society on Facebook for ongoing progress reports and news of when meetings start up again.

Skelmersdale- the Making of a new town

I’m afraid this has been on the back burner for a while but I’m feeling energised now so hoping to crack on with this. Sales of the first book have been good during the lockdown and people have been asking where the second book is so I must get on with it. Again, watch this space and many thanks to the several people who have contacted me and sent memories and photos.

November 2019

13th,

Just heard Aldi are leaving the Concourse and planning to build a new store on the site of the old Co-op Bank building at the top of Westgate cornering on the High Street. This should be good news for Old Skem and the Sandy Lane centre and should attract more customers to the area. The Co-op building was deteriorating badly so really does need knocking down and there will be plenty of room for a decent car park. The exisitng Aldi store in the Concourse is really difficult to access as there is no car park and parking space in the main Concourse car parks is getting more and more crowded.

Heritage society meeting this month was themed on schooldays. Lots of class photos on display and a brief talk on the history of education in Skelmersdale.

November 27th there will be a display of Skelmersdale photos to celebrate Lancashire Day in Skelmersdale library

October 2019

The Heritage Society meeting this month was themed around favourite treats from childhood. We had an interesting talk from David Pye about Charlie Mason’s lemonade factory and a display of different bottles David had collected. Treats mentioned were Wilma’s chips and chips from Duncan’s restaurant in the Concourse. It seems we have a bit of a savoury taste. My personal favourites

September 2019

Delighted to announce that the Skelmersdale Heritage Society has been reformed and has been running now since mid-August. We are hoping to set up a new website in the near future as funds allow and in the mean time we have planned a series of meetings featuring different aspects of the town’s history. Meetings are at the Wardens club in Blaguegate Lane, Skelmersdale, 1st Thursday’s of each month. Next meeting is Thursday 3rd October and will be on the theme of ‘Our favourite treats’ when we will be sharing our memories of lovely things to eat and drink from Skem’s past.

Also we’ve been out and about showing our collection of memorabilia, postcards, photos and video clips from the past. Here we are Saturday September 28th at Tanhouse Community fun day, all ready to collect people’s thoughts on what would be in an ideal town on the roll of wallpaper to the right.

We were just one of many stalls here on the day and great entertainment was provided by the local children’s morris dancing troupes and Ison-Boy an up and coming local band. Here’s an extract.

I you’d like to know more about the Heritage Society please contact me on the above email and/or follow us on our facebook page

August 2019

Lots more tidying up going on in Skem. A local resident has been clearing the delph behind the Co-op bank and restoring the waterfall there to its former glory. Glassball has been busy again round Skem with their Illume project. This month saw another reclamation on the brutalist sculptures on the entrance to subways off Railway Road. Renowned artist Andre Stitt came down to help with this and local residents were encouraged to join in. The result was not only the restoration of these iconic structures but also a clean up of the surrounding footpaths which were in a terrible state of neglect. West Lancs Borough Council put to shame.

June 2019.

Lots going on in Skem at the moment, people are tidying up the Tawd in several places. Quite a lot of new building going on too, mostly private housing developments but how good these are actually going to be for the town we wait to see. Will they boost the economy or just put pressure on already overloaded services?

Not quite in Skem but certainly of Skem – I will be having a stall at Ormskirk’s Gingerbread festival on Sunday July 14th to display all the local memorabilia I have collected. This is mostly Skelmersdale history from the 19th century up to the 1980s so a mixture of old and new Skem items. I will also have some items to do with Edge Hill college/university, Lathom House and Ormskirk. Please do come along if you’re in the area, it was a great festival last year.

Lastly, if you’re interested in Skelmersdale and its history, have a look at the lively facebook page, ‘Memories of Skem.’ There is always some interesting news and debate on the page as well as lots of fantastic photos of Skem past and present.