IMAGES TAKEN NEAR TO
Cockhedge Way, WARRINGTON, WA1 2QQ

The Cockhedge Centre is, predominantly, home to Asda but it is also home to a number of 'pound shops', vape stands, mobile phone accessory stalls and charity shops. It is impossible to pass through it without running the gauntlet of myriad 'chuggers' and Sky reps.

I rather love the space-age touches that decorate the fascia of this empty unit. It was once a Poundstretcher but it has been empty for a considerable time.

I do like a bit of brutalist architecture and they don't come much more ugly/beautiful than New Town House; a concrete monstrosity of the highest order.

Built in 1817, this building will have housed many businesses in the last two centuries. Now it's a Polish shop and, in these strange times with the media's preoccupation with the rise of nationalist hate crime, it is relief to see that, rather than hurl a brick through its windows, the people of Warrington are content to allow business as usual.

Opened in 1984, The Cockhedge Shopping Centre was constructed by Williams Tarr for Charterhall Properties. Some of the interesting features include cast iron framed colonnades to reflect the architectural style of the Cockhedge Spinning Mill that formerly stood on the site, and an arched timber pedestrian link bridge over Scotland Road. This is linked to the Centre by a green spiral footbridge (which this photographer notes nervously, moves alarmingly in a mild breeze).

The night-time lighting really helps to pick out the sweeping curves in the brickwork along the walls, and the cast iron pillars that support the roof. At the far end of the southern platform is the signal box. The station was opened in 1873 by the Cheshire Lines Committee.

One of the diesel multiple units associated with the CLC Liverpool line for over 20 years reverses out of Warrington Central into the carriage sidings. In 1979 there was still a fair amount of goods traffic at the adjacent depot too.