Walter Hurst: Closing shop

"Eventually... there will be no clog makers left, as there is nobody coming into the trade."

Walter's wife Pam Hurst told BBC News Online: "Our son is a pharmacist.

"He did show a slight interest in clogs but Walter didn't encourage him because it was a dying trade.

"There will be tears when the shop closes on 17 September."

Inside his shop, Mr Hurst still uses the same slim-shafted hammer his grandfather used more than 100 years ago.

Huge demand

Clog making was the firm's mainstay until the end of the second world war.

The demand for clogs from people working in Hindley's six cotton mills and 16 mines was huge.

It is a sad time... but... one of these days I am going to pop my clogs

Walter Hurst, clog maker

In the 1920s and 1930s, the company employed seven men, who all prepared, made and repaired clogs.

Decades later in the early 1990s, another supplier, Sandra Turton, began to sell clogs to morris dancers from a shop in Skelmersdale.

But she told BBC News Online: "There used to be a guild of clog makers but that went... and it has all died down over the years.

'Down the pan'

"He [Walter] has a lot of history there, it is a lovely, old-fashioned shop, it is sad really.

"Over the last 15 years there has been a change... people can buy cheaper shoes, and industrial firms can now buy steel toe-capped boots for �15."

Although Mr Hurst diversified by repairing shoes, business did not take off.

But he does not plan to retire completely, and is hoping to do some work at Wigan Pier.

He said: "The shoe repairing trade has gone down the pan.

"The overheads are too big and although I always have a month of orders for clogs, the clog business alone doesn't cover them.

"It is a sad time after 103 years, but I am not going to live forever, and one of these days I am going to pop my clogs."