Wigan Pier is an area around the Leeds and Liverpool Canal in Wigan, Greater Manchester, England, south-west of the town centre. The name has humorous or ironic connotations since it conjures an image of a seaside pleasure pier, whereas Wigan is inland and a traditionally industrial town. History The original "pier" at Wigan was a coal loading staithe, probably a wooden jetty, where wagons from a nearby colliery were unloaded into waiting barges on the canal. The original wooden pier is believed to have been demolished in 1929, with the iron from the tippler (a mechanism for tipping coal into the barges) being sold as scrap. A telling of the origin of what really was 'Wigan Pier' goes that in 1891, an excursion train to Southport got delayed on the outskirts of Wigan not long after leaving Wallgate Station. At that time a long wooden gantry or trestle carried a mineral line from Lamb and Moore's Newtown Colliery on Scot Lane, to their Meadows Colliery in Frog Lane (where the Council refuse centre is now). This gantry was quite a structure, as it had to span the Douglas valley, crossing the river, the canal and the main rail line to Southport. As the delayed train waited for the signals to change, one of the travellers remarked "where the b... hell are we?" and the reply became the basis for the immortal joke about Wigan's Pier. George Formby, Sr. perpetuated the joke around the turn of the century in the music halls in Wigan, adding that when he passed the Pier he noticed the tide was in (referring to the constant flooding in the low-lying area). Formby died in February 1921, and with the demise of the collieries in the area, the gantry had long passed out of existence. Therefore when people looked for the Pier, the tippler for coal wagons at the canal terminus became the chosen object of the joke. The tippler became the favoured location when people subsequently wanted to see it. There are references to it in songs such as George Formby Junior's On the Wigan Boat Express. The Ballad of Wigan Pier, written by local journalist Jack Winstanley, is a comic song written in the 1980s in the style of George Formby Junior. It was recorded by The Houghton Weavers and was regularly performed by them. Its lyrics perpetuate the idea of Wigan having a pier