A NEW pub in Earlestown will be opening its doors next week and our photographer has been given the first glimpse inside.

Pub operator JD Wetherspoon has spent £2.28 million developing the outlet, on the site of a former pet shop, previously a chapel, in Legh Street.

The Wetherspoon pub, which will be called The Nine Arches, will be managed by Philippa Hampson and has created 60 new jobs.

Historical photos and details of local history as well as artwork and images of local scenes are displayed in the pub.

There is also a historical poem about Newton-le-Willows, hand painted on the wall, as well as an historical timeline of the building, burnt into the floor planks.

A Wetherspoons spokesman added: "In the mid-19th century the Earlestown area of Newton-le-Willows, then Newton-in-Makerfield, barely existed.

"It grew as a result of industrialisation, in particular the arrival of the railways and the wagon works popularly known as the Viaduct Foundry, to become ‘the first railway town’.

"The wagon works was named after the nearby Sankey Viaduct, built by George Stephenson to carry the Liverpool and Manchester railway over the Sankey Valley.

"The viaduct, itself, is a Grade I listed structure with nine arches, each 70-feet high arch has a 50-feet span.

"Known locally as 'the nine arches', it is the world’s oldest railway viaduct still in operation."

Earlestown Councillor David Banks, the Mayor of St Helens, will officially open the pub at 2pm on Tuesday, June 28.

It will be open from 8am until 12pm Sunday to Thursday and 8am until 1am on Friday and Saturday.

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