Wednesday 4th September. No meeting in August – our next meeting, in September, will be a talk by Derek Winstanley on the The Daglish/Clarke Railway. In the 18th century wagonways were built to take coal from the many coalfields around Wigan down to the River Douglas. This particular one was used to transport coal from the Winstanley estate, through Orrell, down to the river at Crooke. But to do this Clarke had to build a stone viaduct at the Pingot to carry the railway over the valley, the first of its type in the world. This year also celebrates 200 years since Daglish built his famous “Yorkshire Horse” to run on the railway – this early steam locomotive predated Stephen’s Rocket by more than a decade. Derek is a local historian who now lives in America but is still passionate about the history of Wigan and therefore it promises to be a great talk.