Leigh, Greater Manchester
Encyclopedia
Leigh is a town within the Metropolitan Borough of Wigan
, in Greater Manchester
, England. It is 4 miles (6 km) southeast of Wigan
, and 12.6 miles (20.3 km) west of Manchester
. Leigh is situated on low lying land to the north west of Chat Moss
.
Historically
a part of Lancashire
, Leigh was originally the centre of a large ecclesiastical parish covering six vill
s or township
s. When the three townships of Pennington
, Westleigh
and Bedford
merged in 1875 forming the Leigh Local Board District, Leigh became the official name for the town although it had been applied to the area of Pennington and Westleigh around the parish church for many centuries.
The town became an Urban District in 1894 when part of Atherton was added. In 1899 Leigh became a municipal borough. The first Town Hall was built in King Street and replaced by the present building in 1907.
Originally an agricultural area noted for dairy farming, domestic spinning and weaving led to a considerable silk and, in the 20th century, cotton industry. Leigh also exploited the underlying coal measures
particularly after the town was connected to the canals and
railways. Leigh had an important engineering base. The legacy of Leigh's industrial past can be seen in the remaining red brick mills – some of which are listed buildings – although it is now a mainly residential town, with Edwardian
and Victorian
terraced housing packed around the town centre. Leigh's present-day economy is based largely on the retail sector.
subsequently a pasture or meadow, it was spelt Legh in 1276. Other recorded spellings include Leech, 1264; Leeche, 1268; Leghthe, 1305; Leght, 1417; Lech, 1451; Legh, 16th century. As its name denotes it was a district rich in meadow and pasture land, and the produce of its dairies, the Leigh cheese, was formerly noted for its excellence.
Westleigh, the west clearing, has been named Westeley in 1237, Westlegh in 1238 and also Westlay in Legh in 1292.
Pennington has been spelt Pininton and Pynynton in 1246 and 1360, Penynton in 1305, Pynyngton in 1351 and 1442 and Penyngton in 1443, the ending ton or tun denotes an enclosure, farmstead or manor in Old English.
Bedford, the ford of Beda, probably through Pennington Brook gave its name to this part of Leigh. Spellings include Beneford from 1200–21 and Bedeford in 1200 and 1296.
, nothing was written about Leigh. However evidence for the presence of Saxons
in what was a sparsely populated and isolated part of the country is provided by local township place names that incorporate the Old English suffix leah, such as Leigh, Tyldesley, Shakerley, and Astley.
, including Pennington, Bedford, Westleigh,Atherton
, Astley
, and Tyldesley
cum Shakerley
. Weekly markets were held by the parish church and a cattle fair held twice-yearly.
Bedford manor
was mentioned in documents in 1202 when it was held by Sir Henry de Kighley whose family held it until the 16th century, but never actually lived there.
The Shuttleworths, landowners from the 14th century, were another prominent Bedford family. Richard Shuttleworth married a daughter of the Urmstons from Westleigh and brought part of
the Westleigh inheritance to Bedford. This family lived at Shuttleworth House, or Sandypool Farm as it is also known, which is south of the Bridgewater Canal
near to the old manor house, Bedford Hall, which survives today as a Grade II listed building. Another prominent Bedford family, the Sales of Hope Carr Hall, had a great deal of influence in Bedford for over 400 years, and owned more land than the Shuttleworths. The family were recusants and secretly kept the "old faith" when Roman Catholicism was subject to civil or criminal penalties. Hope Carr Hall was moat
ed as was nearby Brick House.
The manor house of Westleigh was at Higher Hall and existed in Richard I
's time (1189–1199). In 1292 Sigreda, the heiress of the manor, married Richard de Urmston, and the manor passed to the Urmston family and remained there until the last of the male Urmstons died in 1659. It was later abandoned because of mining subsidence
and Westleigh Old Hall became the manor by repute. The Ranicars and the Marsh families lived here. Westleigh Old Hall was another Leigh hall that had a moat.
The Pennington family owned Pennington Hall from about 1200 until they were replaced by the family of Bradshaw or Bradshaigh in 1312. The Bradshaws held the manor until 1703 when John, the last of the male line died. Pennington Hall was rebuilt in 1748 by the then owner Samuel Hilton and in 1807 sold to the Gaskell family of Thornes, Wakefield, who let it to a succession of tenants. Around 1840 James Pownall, one of the founder members of the silk
manufacturing firm of Bickam and Pownall was tenant. Later occupants were Charles Jackson, cotton manufacturer, Jabez Johnson, and F. W. Bouth founder of Bouth's Mill in 1862, The last resident was brewer, George Shaw who in 1920 offered the Hall and grounds to the Leigh Corporation. The hall was converted to a museum and art gallery in 1928 but was demolished in 1963. The grounds are now Pennington Park.
, some of the population supporting the Royalist
s' cause while others supported the Parliamentarians
. A battle was fought in the town on 2 December 1642, when a group of Chowbenters, men from neighbouring Atherton, beat back and then routed Cavalier troops under the command of James Stanley, the 7th Earl of Derby
.
Sir Thomas Tyldesley of Myerscough and Morleys Hall, Astley
, was killed on 25 August 1651 at the Battle of Wigan Lane
and is buried in the Tyldesley Chapel in Leigh Parish Church.
The Earl of Derby passed through Leigh again in 1651, when he spent his last night in the King's Arms, before going on to his execution outside Ye Olde Man & Scythe Inn in Bolton
.
At the end of the 16th century, although agriculture and the dairy industry, particularly the production of Leigh cheese, sometimes known as Leigh Toaster, were important,spinning
and weaving
began to develop as a cottage industry. Work was brought from Manchester by agents who brought work weekly often to an inn, and where they collected the finished cloth. At first this work was done to supplement the income of local farmers and their families. The cloth woven in Leigh was fustian
, a sort of rough corduroy
, and by the end of the 17th century middlemen, fustian masters, were dealing directly with weavers and selling the finished cloth in Manchester.
It is a tradition in the town that a local man, Thomas Highs
, was the inventor of a spinning jenny
and the water frame
in the 1760s, the latter invention being pirated by Richard Arkwright
, who subsequently made a fortune from the patent
royalties.
These 18th-century improvements to the spinning process meant that weavers were in great demand. but as power looms were introduced in factories in Manchester there was less work for the handloom weavers and there was serious unemployment in the town. In 1827 silk
weaving began in Leigh, either as the result of a dispute or a labour shortage in the Middleton
silk industry. William Walker was a middleman who opened the first silk mill in Leigh in 1828, and others quickly followed, including James Pownall and Henry Hilton, whose mill survived until 1926.
Several cotton mill
s were built in Leigh after the mid 1830s and some silk mills converted to cotton after 1870.
The Leigth Feight took place on 14 August 1839. The chartists
had called for a strike at a time when there was social unrest over high levels of unemployment and the high cost of living. A mob of at least 2,000 gathered in Leigh. About 400-500 workers from Chowbent threatened to burn down Hayes Mill. A detachment of troops from Haydock
was called out and special constables sworn in by the local magistrate. The Riot Act
was read by Squire Thomas Withington of Culcheth Hall and for a while the mob dispersed but reassembled later. Many were injured in the fighting that took place and arrests were made. Those arrested were severely punished while others ensured that radicalism continued in Leigh leading eventually to electoral reform and universal suffrage.
The large multi-storey spinning mills came later and five survive today. There were mill complexes at Kirkhall Lane and Firs Lane in Westleigh, Pennington and Bedford. Leigh Mill, otherwise known as Leigh Spinners is a Grade II* listed building. Mather Lane Mill close to the Bridgewater Canal is a Grade II listed building. Over 6,000 people were employed in textiles in Leigh in 1911.
There had been drift mines in Westleigh since the 12th century but during the second half of the 19th century it became possible to mine the deeper seams and coal
began to be an important industry and coal mining
became the largest user of labour after the textile industry in Leigh. Parsonage Colliery
, the last mine to be sunk in Leigh, was one of the deepest mines in the country, going down to over 3000 ft (914.4 m). The extent of the mining in Parsonage Colliery increased in the 1960s with the driving of a tunnel (the Horizon Tunnel), which accessed previously inaccessible seams around 6 ft (2 m) high that were easy to work on compared to the previous seams of coal of 3 ft (1 m) or less. The seams were wet, and a series of pumps was used to remove the water into underground canals before it was finally pumped into the canal at Leigh. The winding engine
at Parsonage was a steam engine, fuelled by methane
extracted from the mine, while the neighbouring Bickershaw Colliery
had a superior electric system. In 1974, the two were linked underground, and all coal was wound up at Bickershaw, which had better winding facilities, while Parsonage was used for supplies. The entire Lancashire Coalfield
is now closed to deep mining, although several open-cast mines are still in operation elsewhere in the county.
Mining disasters in Leigh included the explosion
of firedamp
which caused the deaths of 38 miners at Bedford Colliery
on 13 August 1886. There were several accidents at Bickershaw Colliery, but the most serious was in 1932, when 19 men were drowned in the sump at the bottom of the shaft after an overwind of the cage.
List of coal mines operating in Leigh
factory of David Brown Limited, which was located in Leigh following the acquisition in 1955 of Harrison, McGregor and Guest's Albion range of farm machinery products. Rope
-manufacture was another local industry: Mansley's Rope works on Twist Lane made rope by hand, using a rope walk. The factory burnt down in 1912. Anchor Cables had a large works close to the Bridgewater Canal. The company was bought by Callender's Cables, in 1903, later to become British Insulated Callender's Cables
(BICC), and now part of Balfour Beatty
. Another major 20th-century employer was Sutcliffe Speakman, which made activated carbon
and brick-making equipment.
. Each ward elects three councillors to the 75-member metropolitan borough council, Wigan's local authority. As of 2009, all twelve ward councillors for Leigh, including Leader of the Council, Lord Smith of Leigh, are members of the Labour Party
who control the council.
Historically, Leigh's townships formed part of the Hundred of West Derby
, a judicial division of southwest Lancashire. Pennington, Westleigh and Bedford were three of the six townships or vills that made up the ancient parish of Leigh. The townships existed before the parish.
Under the terms of the Poor Law Amendment Act 1834
the townships formed part of the Leigh Poor Law Union
, which was established on 26 January 1837 and was responsible for an area covering the whole of the ancient parish of Leigh and part of Winwick. There were workhouse
s in Pennington, Culcheth, Tyldesley, and Lowton, but they were replaced by Leigh Union workhouse
at Atherleigh in the 1850s.
In 1875 Leigh Local Board of Health was established, covering the areas of the former Bedford, Pennington, and Westleigh Local Boards of Health. In 1894 the area of the Local Board, together with part of Atherton township, became Leigh Urban District
, which was granted honorific borough status
in 1899 becoming the Municipal Borough of Leigh
. In 1969 there was an exchange of very small areas with Golborne Urban District. Following the Local Government Act 1972
, the Municipal Borough of Leigh was abolished and its territory granted as part of the Metropolitan Borough of Wigan
, a local government district of Greater Manchester
. In 1998, an area (Lately Common) was further ceded to the Warrington
borough – one of the few parts of England to have been in three different counties since the mid-20th century: Lancashire, then Greater Manchester, then Cheshire
.
Leigh's MP is Andy Burnham who has represented the parliamentary seat for Leigh
for the Labour Party since the 2001 General Election
. Between 10 June 2009 and the 2010 General Election he was Secretary of State at the Department of Health. At the 2010 General Election Burnham retained the Leigh seat with 24,295 votes
and a majority of 15,011, representing 51.3% of the vote. The Conservatives
took 19.6% of the vote, the Liberal Democrats
17.0%, the UKIP
3.2%, the BNP
5.8%, the Christian Party 0.3% and Independents 2.8%.
, is 50 feet (15.2 m) above mean sea level. The highest land, to the north and west, rises gently to 125 feet (38.1 m). The land is situated in the River Mersey
Basin; it is drained into the Mersey by several streams, including the Westleigh and Pennington Brooks that join others flowing through Bedford to form the Glaze Brook. The southeast of the town has alluvial
and peaty soils, but the rest is loam overlaying sandstone, or coal measures in the north. There is magnesian limestone in Bedford and neighbouring Astley. Mining subsidence and flooding have caused the formation of "flashes" to the south and west of the town, the largest of which is south of the Leeds and Liverpool Canal in Pennington. Pennington Flash Country Park is a 490 acres (198.3 ha) country park and nature reserve with a 170 acres (68.8 ha) flash or lake.
Leigh is crossed by the Bolton to St Helens Road high road, an old packhorse route that became a Turnpike Trust
in 1762. The A579 road bypasses the town centre using the line of the Bolton and Leigh Railway
. The Bridgewater Canal and the Leigh Branch of the Leeds and Liverpool Canal
cross the town west to east, the canals meeting at Leigh Bridge just south of the town centre.
In the 1930s the A580 "East Lancashire" Road
was built crossing to the south of the town.
At the time of the United Kingdom Census 2001
, according to the Office for National Statistics
, the Urban Subdivision of Leigh was part of the Greater Manchester Urban Area
and had a total resident population of 43,006, of which 20,990 (48.8%) were male and 22,016 (51.2%) were female, with 18,270 households. The settlement occupied 884 hectares (3.4 sq mi), compared with 858 hectares (3.3 sq mi) in the 1991 census. Its population density was 48.65 people per hectare compared with an average of 40.20 across the Greater Manchester Urban Area. The median age of the population was 37, compared with 36 within the Greater Manchester Urban Area and 37 across England and Wales.
The majority of the population of Leigh were born in England (95.92%); 2.10% were born elsewhere within the United Kingdom, 0.95% within the rest of the European Union, and 1.47% elsewhere in the world.
Data on religious beliefs across the town in the 2001 census show that 85.5% declared themselves to be Christian
, 7.6% said they held no religion, and 0.6% reported themselves as Muslim
.
The majority of Leigh is within the Warrington
& Wigan
Travel to Work Area
(TTWA), whilst part of the eastern side of the town is within the Manchester
TTWA. The entire town is within the Manchester Larger Urban Zone.
At the time of the 2001 Census, there were 19,051 people (44.3%) in employment who were resident within Leigh. Of these, 18.36% worked within the wholsesale and retail trade, including repair of motor vehicles; 21.60% worked within manufacturing industry; and 11.99% worked within the health and social work sector. 45.16% of households owned a single car or van, with 30.77% owning none. The average car ownership per household was 0.98, compared with 0.93 across the Greater Manchester Urban Area.
Leigh has a traditional town centre with daily outdoor and indoor markets. Part of the town centre is pedestrianised and there are local independent and multiple retailers. The Spinning Gate Centre in the centre of town has about thirty retail units.
A retail park
developed on the old Parsonage Colliery site is within walking distance of the town centre.
The new Leigh Sports Village
, includes a 10,000-capacity stadium shared by Leigh Genesis and Leigh Centurions
, a new athletics arena for Leigh Harriers, new facilities for Leigh East Rugby League Club, a new college campus, hotel, leisure and business facilities for the community.
Another large regeneration project is taking place on the site the Bickershaw Colliery complex, which closed in 1992 and is set for a new lease of life as part of a plan to redevelop the site and canal side with a large country park and housing.
that replaced the original market cross
is also situated here. Many town centre buildings including the Boar's Head Public House are in red Ruabon
or Accrington
bricks, often with gable
s and terracotta dressings. There are several large multi-storey cotton mills built along the Bridgewater Canal that are a reminder of Leigh's textile industry but most are now underused and deteriorating despite listed building status. Leigh's War Memorial by local architect J. C. Prestwich is at the junction of Church Street and Silk Street and is a Grade II listed structure. St Joseph's Church and St Thomas's Church on opposite sides of Chapel Street are both imposing churches using different materials and styles.
, Jim Stones
and First Manchester
from Leigh Bus Station to many local destinations including Wigan and other places including, Bolton
, Warrington
, Manchester
and St Helens
. There have been suggestions to reopen the railway via Tyldesley to Manchester, the latest proposal is for a guided busway but this not universally popular.
was extended from Worsley
to the middle of Leigh in 1795. In 1819 the fifth Leeds and Liverpool Canal Act was passed for the construction of the Leigh Branch and by 1820 the Leigh branch canal was cut from the Leeds-Liverpool Canal at Poolstock, Wigan to meet the Bridgewater at Leigh Bridge, giving access from Leigh to all parts of Lancashire, Yorkshire and the Midlands.
of the 7.5 miles (12 km) long Bolton and Leigh Railway
. George Stephenson
carried out the survey for the line. It opened between Bolton and William Hulton's coal mines at Chequerbent for freight on 1 August 1828 and to the terminus at the Leeds-Liverpool Canal at Leigh in March 1830. Passengers were carried from 13 June 1831. The first locomotive on the line was an 0-4-0
called The Lancashire Witch. The town station was at Westleigh
. Later the line was extended southwards to Pennington. Atherleigh
opened in 1935. The line was closed to passenger traffic on 29 March 1954, and later closed completely.
In 1861 the London and North Western Railway
revived powers granted to the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway
to build a railway from Manchester
via Eccles
and Tyldesley
to Wigan
with a branch to Kenyon Junction
on the Liverpool to Manchester Line via Leigh and Pennington
. There was a station, originally named Bedford Leigh
to serve the town. The railway crossed the town on a viaduct which has since been largely demolished. It was closed in May 1969, leaving the town without a railway: after the reopening of Mansfield
and Corby railway station
s, Leigh is now one of the largest towns in Great Britain without a railway station. Numerous colliery lines crossed the town, but with the closure of the collieries
these were no longer required.
The nearest railway station is at Atherton
, 3 miles (5 km) miles to the north, with trains to Wigan
and Manchester operated by Northern Rail
, leaving the bus station as Leigh's only public transport link.
In 1900, a Bill authorising the South Lancashire Tramways
Company to construct over 62 miles (99.8 km) of tramway in southern Lancashire was given Royal Assent.
However, by November 1900 the South Lancashire Electric Traction and Power Company had acquired the shares. The first section of tramway opened on 20 October 1902 between Lowton
and Four Lanes Ends via Leigh and Atherton. This company got into financial difficulty and in turn became Lancashire United Tramways later Lancashire United Transport
. On 16 December 1933, the last tram service ran from Leigh to Four Lane Ends. The following day trolley buses took over.
An Act of 4 August 1920 authorised the Borough of Leigh to run its own buses. A garage was built on Windermere Road which was soon outgrown and replaced by one on Holden Road. The corporation had a fleet of 70 vehicles during world War II.
Leigh Grammar School
existed in 1655 but its foundation is unclear. The building was next to the churchyard, but the school moved to Manchester Road in 1931. A Girls Grammar School was established in 1921, but both schools were abolished by the then Secretary of State for Education, Shirley Williams, in the 1976 Education Act. Leigh High Schools include Bedford High School
, which now has specialist Business and Enterprise College
status, and Westleigh High School. Students also attend schools in Atherton, Lowton, Golborne, and Astley. Wigan and Leigh College provides post-16 education.
has been in existence since the 12th century and probably much earlier. It was once known as the Church of St Peter at Westleigh in Leigh, and straddles the boundary between the old townships of Westleigh and Pennington, the nave and churchyard being in Westleigh and the chancel in Pennington. Its early history is tied up with the Westleigh and Urmston families. The dedication changed to St Mary the Virgin in the 14th century. The church tower, said to have been built in 1516, is all that remains of the medieval structure, which was replaced by the present church after becoming unsafe. Paley and Austin of Lancaster designed the present church, the foundation stone was laid in 1871 and the church consecrated in 1873. The church is built in red sandstone it is a Grade II listed building.
There are now parish churches in each of the old townships. The first St Thomas church in Bedford was consecrated in 1840 and replaced by the present church in 1909. The church is built of Accrington red brick with Runcorn red sandstone facings, it was designed by J. S. Crowther
. Pennington Christ Church, designed by architect E. H. Shellard, was built in Yorkshire stone and was consecrated in 1854. The site to the south of the canal was a rapidly growing area at this time. It is Grade II listed. Westleigh St Paul, founded in 1847 is on Westleigh Lane. Westleigh St Peter, a Grade II* listed building by Paley and Austin, built in brick with red sandstone dressings, was founded 1881 is on Firs Lane.
The first Catholic Chapel was built in Bedford on the corner of Mather Lane and Chapel St in 1778 and this lasted until it was replaced in 1855 by the present church dedicated to St Joseph by architect Joseph Hansom
. A growing Catholic population in the area led to the building of Our Lady of the Rosary in Plank Lane in 1879, Twelve Apostles in 1879, and Sacred Heart in 1929. Other denominations catered for include Wesleyan, Independent, Primitive, Welsh and United Methodists.
There are also Unitarian, Baptist, and Jehovah's Witness places of worship in the town.
Leigh has a professional rugby league
team – Leigh Centurions
– whose main claim to fame is beating Leeds
24–7 in the 1971 Challenge Cup
final. They played in the Super League
in the 2005 season. Leigh also has several amateur clubs, including Leigh East and Leigh Miners Rangers.
The town had a semi-professional football
team, Leigh Genesis (formerly Leigh RMI), which ceased operations at a senior level in June 2011. The most successful amateur club is Leigh Athletic, which currently plays in the Manchester Football League
.
Leigh also has an athletics club, Leigh Harriers AC, founded in 1909, and a Rugby Union club, Leigh RUFC, based at Round Ash Park, which gained promotion in 2007, to RFU league North 2 (West), and is current holder of the Lancashire Trophy which it won in May 2008 for the third consecutive year. Attached to the club is a crown green bowling
section which runs several teams in local bowling leagues. Leigh has two cricket clubs, Leigh Cricket Club play in the ECB Premier League Liverpool Competition. Westleigh Cricket Club, play in Division 1 of the Manchester Association
.
, a gift to Leigh from Lord Lilford in 1914 and Pennington Park, the grounds of Pennington Hall which was demolished in 1963 after being used as a museum, are open to the public.
Leigh's wealth as an industrial town resulted in many outlets for the entertainment of its population, including theatres, cinemas and public houses. In 1908 the Hippodrome Theatre on Leigh Road was built on the site of Walker's silk mill of 1827, this subsequently became a cinema, first the Odeon, later the Classic. Another theatre, the Theatre Royal, was built on Lord Street,
this later became the Leigh Casino Club. The Palace Cinema was built in 1913 on Railway Road and the assembly rooms above the Conservative Club, were converted to a cinema known as the Sems in 1908. Brewery Lane is a reminder that there was once a brewery in Bedford belonging to George Shaw & Co.
The old Leigh College and Library on Railway Road was built between 1894 and 1986 by the Leigh Literary Society to designs by J. C. Prestwich and J. H. Stephen. The present library was built in 1971 between the Parish Church and Town Hall.
and Pete Shelley
were old pupils of Leigh Grammar School. Jazz musician Georgie Fame
was born in Leigh in 1943. Thomas Burke tenor and opera singer was born in 1890 and attended St Joseph's School. The author of "Goodbye, Mr Chips", James Hilton
was also born in Leigh. He should not be confused with the local businessman of the same name who became chairman of Leigh RLFC after the War and after whom the club's former ground, Hilton Park, was named..
Metropolitan Borough of Wigan
The Metropolitan Borough of Wigan is a metropolitan borough of Greater Manchester, in North West England. It is named after its largest component town, Wigan and also includes the towns of Leigh, Ashton-in-Makerfield, Ince-in-Makerfield, and Hindley. The borough was formed in 1974 and is an...
, in Greater Manchester
Greater Manchester
Greater Manchester is a metropolitan county in North West England, with a population of 2.6 million. It encompasses one of the largest metropolitan areas in the United Kingdom and comprises ten metropolitan boroughs: Bolton, Bury, Oldham, Rochdale, Stockport, Tameside, Trafford, Wigan, and the...
, England. It is 4 miles (6 km) southeast of Wigan
Wigan
Wigan is a town in Greater Manchester, England. It stands on the River Douglas, south-west of Bolton, north of Warrington and west-northwest of Manchester. Wigan is the largest settlement in the Metropolitan Borough of Wigan and is its administrative centre. The town of Wigan had a total...
, and 12.6 miles (20.3 km) west of Manchester
Manchester
Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...
. Leigh is situated on low lying land to the north west of Chat Moss
Chat Moss
Chat Moss is a large area of peat bog that makes up 30 percent of the City of Salford, in Greater Manchester, England. It is north of the River Irwell, to the west of Manchester, and occupies an area of about...
.
Historically
Historic counties of England
The historic counties of England are subdivisions of England established for administration by the Normans and in most cases based on earlier Anglo-Saxon kingdoms and shires...
a part of Lancashire
Lancashire
Lancashire is a non-metropolitan county of historic origin in the North West of England. It takes its name from the city of Lancaster, and is sometimes known as the County of Lancaster. Although Lancaster is still considered to be the county town, Lancashire County Council is based in Preston...
, Leigh was originally the centre of a large ecclesiastical parish covering six vill
Vill
Vill is a term used in English history to describe a land unit which might otherwise be described as a parish, manor or tithing.The term is used in the period immediately after the Norman conquest and into the late medieval. Land units in Domesday are frequently referred to as vills, although the...
s or township
Township
The word township is used to refer to different kinds of settlements in different countries. Township is generally associated with an urban area. However there are many exceptions to this rule. In Australia, the United States, and Canada, they may be settlements too small to be considered urban...
s. When the three townships of Pennington
Pennington, Greater Manchester
Pennington, a suburb of Leigh, Greater Manchester is one of three ancient townships, Pennington, Westleigh and Bedford that merged in 1875 to form the town of Leigh...
, Westleigh
Westleigh, Greater Manchester
Westleigh, a suburb of Leigh, Greater Manchester is one of three ancient townships, Westleigh, Bedford, Greater Manchester and Pennington, that merged in 1875 to form the town of Leigh.-Toponymy:...
and Bedford
Bedford, Greater Manchester
Bedford, a suburb of Leigh, Greater Manchester is one of three ancient townships, Bedford, Pennington and Westleigh, that merged in 1875 to form the town of Leigh.-Toponymy:...
merged in 1875 forming the Leigh Local Board District, Leigh became the official name for the town although it had been applied to the area of Pennington and Westleigh around the parish church for many centuries.
The town became an Urban District in 1894 when part of Atherton was added. In 1899 Leigh became a municipal borough. The first Town Hall was built in King Street and replaced by the present building in 1907.
Originally an agricultural area noted for dairy farming, domestic spinning and weaving led to a considerable silk and, in the 20th century, cotton industry. Leigh also exploited the underlying coal measures
Coal Measures
The Coal Measures is a lithostratigraphical term for the coal-bearing part of the Upper Carboniferous System. It represents the remains of fluvio-deltaic sediment, and consists mainly of clastic rocks interstratified with the beds of coal...
particularly after the town was connected to the canals and
railways. Leigh had an important engineering base. The legacy of Leigh's industrial past can be seen in the remaining red brick mills – some of which are listed buildings – although it is now a mainly residential town, with Edwardian
Edwardian architecture
Edwardian architecture is the style popular when King Edward VII of the United Kingdom was in power; he reigned from 1901 to 1910, but the architecture style is generally considered to be indicative of the years 1901 to 1914....
and Victorian
Victorian architecture
The term Victorian architecture refers collectively to several architectural styles employed predominantly during the middle and late 19th century. The period that it indicates may slightly overlap the actual reign, 20 June 1837 – 22 January 1901, of Queen Victoria. This represents the British and...
terraced housing packed around the town centre. Leigh's present-day economy is based largely on the retail sector.
Toponymy
Leigh is derived from the Old English leah which meant a place at the wood or woodland clearing, a glade andsubsequently a pasture or meadow, it was spelt Legh in 1276. Other recorded spellings include Leech, 1264; Leeche, 1268; Leghthe, 1305; Leght, 1417; Lech, 1451; Legh, 16th century. As its name denotes it was a district rich in meadow and pasture land, and the produce of its dairies, the Leigh cheese, was formerly noted for its excellence.
Westleigh, the west clearing, has been named Westeley in 1237, Westlegh in 1238 and also Westlay in Legh in 1292.
Pennington has been spelt Pininton and Pynynton in 1246 and 1360, Penynton in 1305, Pynyngton in 1351 and 1442 and Penyngton in 1443, the ending ton or tun denotes an enclosure, farmstead or manor in Old English.
Bedford, the ford of Beda, probably through Pennington Brook gave its name to this part of Leigh. Spellings include Beneford from 1200–21 and Bedeford in 1200 and 1296.
Early history
The earliest signs of human activity in Leigh are evidenced by a Neolithic stone axe found in Pennington and a bronze spearhead from south of Gas Street. A single Roman coin was found at Butts in Bedford. After the Roman departure from Britain, and into the history of Anglo-Saxon EnglandHistory of Anglo-Saxon England
Anglo-Saxon England refers to the period of the history of that part of Britain, that became known as England, lasting from the end of Roman occupation and establishment of Anglo-Saxon kingdoms in the 5th century until the Norman conquest of England in 1066 by William the Conqueror...
, nothing was written about Leigh. However evidence for the presence of Saxons
Saxons
The Saxons were a confederation of Germanic tribes originating on the North German plain. The Saxons earliest known area of settlement is Northern Albingia, an area approximately that of modern Holstein...
in what was a sparsely populated and isolated part of the country is provided by local township place names that incorporate the Old English suffix leah, such as Leigh, Tyldesley, Shakerley, and Astley.
Townships
In the 12th century the ancient parish of Leigh was made up of six townshipsTownship (England)
In England, a township is a local division or district of a large parish containing a village or small town usually having its own church...
, including Pennington, Bedford, Westleigh,Atherton
Atherton, Greater Manchester
Atherton is a town within the Metropolitan Borough of Wigan, in Greater Manchester, England, historically a part of Lancashire. It is east of Wigan, north-northeast of Leigh, and northwest of Manchester...
, Astley
Astley, Greater Manchester
Astley is a settlement within the Metropolitan Borough of Wigan in Greater Manchester, England, variously described as a suburb or a village. Astley lies on flat land to the northwest of the city of Manchester, and is crossed by the Bridgewater Canal and the A580 "East Lancashire Road"...
, and Tyldesley
Tyldesley
Tyldesley is a town within the Metropolitan Borough of Wigan, in Greater Manchester, England. It occupies an area north of Chat Moss near the foothills of the West Pennine Moors, east-southeast of Wigan and west-northwest of the city of Manchester...
cum Shakerley
Shakerley
Shakerley is a suburb of Tyldesley in the Metropolitan Borough of Wigan, Greater Manchester, England.It was anciently a hamlet in the northwest of the township of Tyldesley cum Shakerley, in the ancient parish ofLeigh....
. Weekly markets were held by the parish church and a cattle fair held twice-yearly.
Bedford manor
Manorialism
Manorialism, an essential element of feudal society, was the organizing principle of rural economy that originated in the villa system of the Late Roman Empire, was widely practiced in medieval western and parts of central Europe, and was slowly replaced by the advent of a money-based market...
was mentioned in documents in 1202 when it was held by Sir Henry de Kighley whose family held it until the 16th century, but never actually lived there.
The Shuttleworths, landowners from the 14th century, were another prominent Bedford family. Richard Shuttleworth married a daughter of the Urmstons from Westleigh and brought part of
the Westleigh inheritance to Bedford. This family lived at Shuttleworth House, or Sandypool Farm as it is also known, which is south of the Bridgewater Canal
Bridgewater Canal
The Bridgewater Canal connects Runcorn, Manchester and Leigh, in North West England. It was commissioned by Francis Egerton, 3rd Duke of Bridgewater, to transport coal from his mines in Worsley to Manchester...
near to the old manor house, Bedford Hall, which survives today as a Grade II listed building. Another prominent Bedford family, the Sales of Hope Carr Hall, had a great deal of influence in Bedford for over 400 years, and owned more land than the Shuttleworths. The family were recusants and secretly kept the "old faith" when Roman Catholicism was subject to civil or criminal penalties. Hope Carr Hall was moat
Moat
A moat is a deep, broad ditch, either dry or filled with water, that surrounds a castle, other building or town, historically to provide it with a preliminary line of defence. In some places moats evolved into more extensive water defences, including natural or artificial lakes, dams and sluices...
ed as was nearby Brick House.
The manor house of Westleigh was at Higher Hall and existed in Richard I
Richard I of England
Richard I was King of England from 6 July 1189 until his death. He also ruled as Duke of Normandy, Duke of Aquitaine, Duke of Gascony, Lord of Cyprus, Count of Anjou, Count of Maine, Count of Nantes, and Overlord of Brittany at various times during the same period...
's time (1189–1199). In 1292 Sigreda, the heiress of the manor, married Richard de Urmston, and the manor passed to the Urmston family and remained there until the last of the male Urmstons died in 1659. It was later abandoned because of mining subsidence
Subsidence
Subsidence is the motion of a surface as it shifts downward relative to a datum such as sea-level. The opposite of subsidence is uplift, which results in an increase in elevation...
and Westleigh Old Hall became the manor by repute. The Ranicars and the Marsh families lived here. Westleigh Old Hall was another Leigh hall that had a moat.
The Pennington family owned Pennington Hall from about 1200 until they were replaced by the family of Bradshaw or Bradshaigh in 1312. The Bradshaws held the manor until 1703 when John, the last of the male line died. Pennington Hall was rebuilt in 1748 by the then owner Samuel Hilton and in 1807 sold to the Gaskell family of Thornes, Wakefield, who let it to a succession of tenants. Around 1840 James Pownall, one of the founder members of the silk
Silk
Silk is a natural protein fiber, some forms of which can be woven into textiles. The best-known type of silk is obtained from the cocoons of the larvae of the mulberry silkworm Bombyx mori reared in captivity...
manufacturing firm of Bickam and Pownall was tenant. Later occupants were Charles Jackson, cotton manufacturer, Jabez Johnson, and F. W. Bouth founder of Bouth's Mill in 1862, The last resident was brewer, George Shaw who in 1920 offered the Hall and grounds to the Leigh Corporation. The hall was converted to a museum and art gallery in 1928 but was demolished in 1963. The grounds are now Pennington Park.
Civil War
Leigh was divided in its allegiance during the English Civil WarEnglish Civil War
The English Civil War was a series of armed conflicts and political machinations between Parliamentarians and Royalists...
, some of the population supporting the Royalist
Cavalier
Cavalier was the name used by Parliamentarians for a Royalist supporter of King Charles I and son Charles II during the English Civil War, the Interregnum, and the Restoration...
s' cause while others supported the Parliamentarians
Roundhead
"Roundhead" was the nickname given to the supporters of the Parliament during the English Civil War. Also known as Parliamentarians, they fought against King Charles I and his supporters, the Cavaliers , who claimed absolute power and the divine right of kings...
. A battle was fought in the town on 2 December 1642, when a group of Chowbenters, men from neighbouring Atherton, beat back and then routed Cavalier troops under the command of James Stanley, the 7th Earl of Derby
James Stanley, 7th Earl of Derby
James Stanley, 7th Earl of Derby KG was a supporter of the Royalist cause in the English Civil War.Born at Knowsley, he is sometimes styled the Great Earl of Derby, eldest son of William Stanley, 6th Earl of Derby and Lady Elizabeth de Vere. During his father's life he was known as Lord Strange...
.
Sir Thomas Tyldesley of Myerscough and Morleys Hall, Astley
Astley, Greater Manchester
Astley is a settlement within the Metropolitan Borough of Wigan in Greater Manchester, England, variously described as a suburb or a village. Astley lies on flat land to the northwest of the city of Manchester, and is crossed by the Bridgewater Canal and the A580 "East Lancashire Road"...
, was killed on 25 August 1651 at the Battle of Wigan Lane
Battle of Wigan Lane
The Battle of Wigan Lane was fought on 25 August 1651 during the Third English Civil War, between Royalists under the command of the Earl of Derby and elements of the New Model Army under the command of Colonel Robert Lilburne...
and is buried in the Tyldesley Chapel in Leigh Parish Church.
The Earl of Derby passed through Leigh again in 1651, when he spent his last night in the King's Arms, before going on to his execution outside Ye Olde Man & Scythe Inn in Bolton
Bolton
Bolton is a town in Greater Manchester, in the North West of England. Close to the West Pennine Moors, it is north west of the city of Manchester. Bolton is surrounded by several smaller towns and villages which together form the Metropolitan Borough of Bolton, of which Bolton is the...
.
Industrial Revolution
Spinning (textiles)
Spinning is a major industry. It is part of the textile manufacturing process where three types of fibre are converted into yarn, then fabric, then textiles. The textiles are then fabricated into clothes or other artifacts. There are three industrial processes available to spin yarn, and a...
and weaving
Weaving
Weaving is a method of fabric production in which two distinct sets of yarns or threads are interlaced at right angles to form a fabric or cloth. The other methods are knitting, lace making and felting. The longitudinal threads are called the warp and the lateral threads are the weft or filling...
began to develop as a cottage industry. Work was brought from Manchester by agents who brought work weekly often to an inn, and where they collected the finished cloth. At first this work was done to supplement the income of local farmers and their families. The cloth woven in Leigh was fustian
Fustian
Fustian is a term for a variety of heavy woven, mostly cotton fabrics, chiefly prepared for menswear. It is also used to refer to pompous, inflated or pretentious writing or speech, from at least the time of Shakespeare...
, a sort of rough corduroy
Corduroy
Corduroy is a textile composed of twisted fibers that, when woven, lie parallel to one another to form the cloth's distinct pattern, a "cord." Modern corduroy is most commonly composed of tufted cords, sometimes exhibiting a channel between the tufts...
, and by the end of the 17th century middlemen, fustian masters, were dealing directly with weavers and selling the finished cloth in Manchester.
It is a tradition in the town that a local man, Thomas Highs
Thomas Highs
Thomas Highs , of Leigh, Lancashire, was a reed-maker and manufacturer of cotton carding and spinning engines in the 1780s, during the Industrial Revolution...
, was the inventor of a spinning jenny
Spinning jenny
The spinning jenny is a multi-spool spinning frame. It was invented c. 1764 by James Hargreaves in Stanhill, Oswaldtwistle, Lancashire in England. The device reduced the amount of work needed to produce yarn, with a worker able to work eight or more spools at once. This grew to 120 as technology...
and the water frame
Water frame
The water frame is the name given to the spinning frame, when water power is used to drive it. Both are credited to Richard Arkwright who patented the technology in 1768. It was based on an invention by Thomas Highs and the patent was later overturned...
in the 1760s, the latter invention being pirated by Richard Arkwright
Richard Arkwright
Sir Richard Arkwright , was an Englishman who, although the patents were eventually overturned, is often credited for inventing the spinning frame — later renamed the water frame following the transition to water power. He also patented a carding engine that could convert raw cotton into yarn...
, who subsequently made a fortune from the patent
Patent
A patent is a form of intellectual property. It consists of a set of exclusive rights granted by a sovereign state to an inventor or their assignee for a limited period of time in exchange for the public disclosure of an invention....
royalties.
These 18th-century improvements to the spinning process meant that weavers were in great demand. but as power looms were introduced in factories in Manchester there was less work for the handloom weavers and there was serious unemployment in the town. In 1827 silk
Silk
Silk is a natural protein fiber, some forms of which can be woven into textiles. The best-known type of silk is obtained from the cocoons of the larvae of the mulberry silkworm Bombyx mori reared in captivity...
weaving began in Leigh, either as the result of a dispute or a labour shortage in the Middleton
Middleton, Greater Manchester
Middleton is a town within the Metropolitan Borough of Rochdale, in Greater Manchester, England. It stands on the River Irk, south-southwest of Rochdale, and north-northeast of the city of Manchester...
silk industry. William Walker was a middleman who opened the first silk mill in Leigh in 1828, and others quickly followed, including James Pownall and Henry Hilton, whose mill survived until 1926.
Several cotton mill
Cotton mill
A cotton mill is a factory that houses spinning and weaving machinery. Typically built between 1775 and 1930, mills spun cotton which was an important product during the Industrial Revolution....
s were built in Leigh after the mid 1830s and some silk mills converted to cotton after 1870.
The Leigth Feight took place on 14 August 1839. The chartists
Chartism
Chartism was a movement for political and social reform in the United Kingdom during the mid-19th century, between 1838 and 1859. It takes its name from the People's Charter of 1838. Chartism was possibly the first mass working class labour movement in the world...
had called for a strike at a time when there was social unrest over high levels of unemployment and the high cost of living. A mob of at least 2,000 gathered in Leigh. About 400-500 workers from Chowbent threatened to burn down Hayes Mill. A detachment of troops from Haydock
Haydock
Haydock is a village within the Metropolitan Borough of St Helens, in Merseyside, England. It contains all of the Haydock electoral ward and a section of the Blackbrook electoral ward. The village is located roughly mid-way between Liverpool and Manchester, close to the junction of the M6 motorway...
was called out and special constables sworn in by the local magistrate. The Riot Act
Riot Act
The Riot Act was an Act of the Parliament of Great Britain that authorised local authorities to declare any group of twelve or more people to be unlawfully assembled, and thus have to disperse or face punitive action...
was read by Squire Thomas Withington of Culcheth Hall and for a while the mob dispersed but reassembled later. Many were injured in the fighting that took place and arrests were made. Those arrested were severely punished while others ensured that radicalism continued in Leigh leading eventually to electoral reform and universal suffrage.
The large multi-storey spinning mills came later and five survive today. There were mill complexes at Kirkhall Lane and Firs Lane in Westleigh, Pennington and Bedford. Leigh Mill, otherwise known as Leigh Spinners is a Grade II* listed building. Mather Lane Mill close to the Bridgewater Canal is a Grade II listed building. Over 6,000 people were employed in textiles in Leigh in 1911.
Coal mining
Coal
Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock usually occurring in rock strata in layers or veins called coal beds or coal seams. The harder forms, such as anthracite coal, can be regarded as metamorphic rock because of later exposure to elevated temperature and pressure...
began to be an important industry and coal mining
Coal mining
The goal of coal mining is to obtain coal from the ground. Coal is valued for its energy content, and since the 1880s has been widely used to generate electricity. Steel and cement industries use coal as a fuel for extraction of iron from iron ore and for cement production. In the United States,...
became the largest user of labour after the textile industry in Leigh. Parsonage Colliery
Parsonage Colliery
Parsonage Colliery was a coal mine operating on the Lancashire Coalfield from 1920 in Leigh, then in the historic county of Lancashire, England. The colliery, close to the centre of Leigh and the Bolton and Leigh Railway was sunk between 1913 and 1920 by the Wigan Coal and Iron Company...
, the last mine to be sunk in Leigh, was one of the deepest mines in the country, going down to over 3000 ft (914.4 m). The extent of the mining in Parsonage Colliery increased in the 1960s with the driving of a tunnel (the Horizon Tunnel), which accessed previously inaccessible seams around 6 ft (2 m) high that were easy to work on compared to the previous seams of coal of 3 ft (1 m) or less. The seams were wet, and a series of pumps was used to remove the water into underground canals before it was finally pumped into the canal at Leigh. The winding engine
Winding engine
A winding engine is a stationary engine used to control a cable, for example to power a mining hoist at a pit head. Electric hoist controllers have replaced proper winding engines in modern mining, but use electric motors that are also traditionally referred to as winding engines.Most proper...
at Parsonage was a steam engine, fuelled by methane
Methane
Methane is a chemical compound with the chemical formula . It is the simplest alkane, the principal component of natural gas, and probably the most abundant organic compound on earth. The relative abundance of methane makes it an attractive fuel...
extracted from the mine, while the neighbouring Bickershaw Colliery
Bickershaw Colliery
Bickershaw Colliery was a coal mine, located at Westleigh, Leigh, then within the historic county boundaries of Lancashire, England, south-southeast of Wigan.-History:...
had a superior electric system. In 1974, the two were linked underground, and all coal was wound up at Bickershaw, which had better winding facilities, while Parsonage was used for supplies. The entire Lancashire Coalfield
Lancashire Coalfield
The Lancashire Coalfield in north-west England was one of the most important British coalfields.-Geography and geology:The geology of the coalfield consists of the coal seams of the Upper, Middle and Lower Coal Measures, layers of sandstones, shales and coal of varying thickness, which were laid...
is now closed to deep mining, although several open-cast mines are still in operation elsewhere in the county.
Mining disasters in Leigh included the explosion
Bedford Colliery Disaster
The Bedford Colliery Disaster occurred on Friday 13 August 1886 when an explosion of firedamp caused the death of 38 miners at Bedford Colliery No.2 pit, near Leigh in what then was Lancashire....
of firedamp
Firedamp
Firedamp is a flammable gas found in coal mines. It is the name given to a number of flammable gases, especially methane. It is particularly commonly found in areas where the coal is bituminous...
which caused the deaths of 38 miners at Bedford Colliery
Bedford Colliery
Bedford Colliery, also known as Wood End Pit, was a coal mine on the Manchester Coalfield in Bedford, Leigh, Greater Manchester, England. The colliery was owned by John Speakman, who started sinking two shafts in about 1874 on land at Wood End Farm in the northeast part of Bedford, south of the...
on 13 August 1886. There were several accidents at Bickershaw Colliery, but the most serious was in 1932, when 19 men were drowned in the sump at the bottom of the shaft after an overwind of the cage.
| Colliery Name | Location | Owner | List & Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bankfield | Westleigh | J. Speakman | 1880 |
| Bedford Colliery Bedford Colliery Bedford Colliery, also known as Wood End Pit, was a coal mine on the Manchester Coalfield in Bedford, Leigh, Greater Manchester, England. The colliery was owned by John Speakman, who started sinking two shafts in about 1874 on land at Wood End Farm in the northeast part of Bedford, south of the... |
Bedford | J Speakman & Sons | 1880 1908 |
| Bickershaw Colliery Bickershaw Colliery Bickershaw Colliery was a coal mine, located at Westleigh, Leigh, then within the historic county boundaries of Lancashire, England, south-southeast of Wigan.-History:... |
Westleigh | Ackers Whitley & Co | 1854 1918 |
| Broadfield | Westleigh | John Speakman and Co. | 1854 1869 1880 |
| Hearts o'th'Meadow | Westleigh | Wigan Coal and Iron Co. | 1880 |
| Heyfield | Westleigh | Thomas Livesey | 1854 1869 1880 1908 1918 |
| Lower Hall | Westleigh | James Diggle | 1880 1908 1918 |
| Owens | Westleigh | James Diggle | 1869 |
| Parsonage Colliery Parsonage Colliery Parsonage Colliery was a coal mine operating on the Lancashire Coalfield from 1920 in Leigh, then in the historic county of Lancashire, England. The colliery, close to the centre of Leigh and the Bolton and Leigh Railway was sunk between 1913 and 1920 by the Wigan Coal and Iron Company... |
Westleigh | Wigan Coal and Iron Company Wigan Coal and Iron Company The Wigan Coal and Iron Company was formed when collieries on the Wigan Coalfield owned by John Lancaster were acquired by Lord Lindsay, the Earl of Crawford and Balcarres, owner of the Haigh Colliery in 1865... |
1918 |
| Priestners | Westleigh | Wigan Coal and Iron Company | 1880 1908 |
| Sovereign | Westleigh | Wigan Coal and Iron Company | 1908 1918 |
| Snapes | Westleigh | James Diggle | 1869 1880 1908 |
| Westleigh | Westleigh | James Diggle and Co. | 1854 1869 1880 1918 |
| Westleigh Lane | Westleigh | Samuel Banks | 1854 |
Manufacturing
Other notable industry included the tractorTractor
A tractor is a vehicle specifically designed to deliver a high tractive effort at slow speeds, for the purposes of hauling a trailer or machinery used in agriculture or construction...
factory of David Brown Limited, which was located in Leigh following the acquisition in 1955 of Harrison, McGregor and Guest's Albion range of farm machinery products. Rope
Rope
A rope is a length of fibres, twisted or braided together to improve strength for pulling and connecting. It has tensile strength but is too flexible to provide compressive strength...
-manufacture was another local industry: Mansley's Rope works on Twist Lane made rope by hand, using a rope walk. The factory burnt down in 1912. Anchor Cables had a large works close to the Bridgewater Canal. The company was bought by Callender's Cables, in 1903, later to become British Insulated Callender's Cables
British Insulated Callender's Cables
British Insulated Callender's Cables was a 20th century British cable manufacturer and construction company, now renamed after former subsidiary Balfour Beatty.-History:...
(BICC), and now part of Balfour Beatty
Balfour Beatty
Balfour Beatty plc is a British construction, engineering, military housing, rail and investment services company. It is one of the largest construction companies in the UK, and the 15th largest in the world...
. Another major 20th-century employer was Sutcliffe Speakman, which made activated carbon
Activated carbon
Activated carbon, also called activated charcoal, activated coal or carbo activatus, is a form of carbon that has been processed to make it extremely porous and thus to have a very large surface area available for adsorption or chemical reactions.The word activated in the name is sometimes replaced...
and brick-making equipment.
Governance
Leigh is covered by four electoral wards, Atherleigh, Leigh East, Leigh South and Leigh West, of the Metropolitan Borough of WiganMetropolitan Borough of Wigan
The Metropolitan Borough of Wigan is a metropolitan borough of Greater Manchester, in North West England. It is named after its largest component town, Wigan and also includes the towns of Leigh, Ashton-in-Makerfield, Ince-in-Makerfield, and Hindley. The borough was formed in 1974 and is an...
. Each ward elects three councillors to the 75-member metropolitan borough council, Wigan's local authority. As of 2009, all twelve ward councillors for Leigh, including Leader of the Council, Lord Smith of Leigh, are members of the Labour Party
Labour Party (UK)
The Labour Party is a centre-left democratic socialist party in the United Kingdom. It surpassed the Liberal Party in general elections during the early 1920s, forming minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929-1931. The party was in a wartime coalition from 1940 to 1945, after...
who control the council.
Historically, Leigh's townships formed part of the Hundred of West Derby
West Derby (hundred)
The hundred of West Derby was an ancient division of the historic county of Lancashire, in northern England. It was sometimes known as West Derbyshire, the name alluding to its judicial centre being the township of West Derby .It covered the southwest of Lancashire, containing the ancient...
, a judicial division of southwest Lancashire. Pennington, Westleigh and Bedford were three of the six townships or vills that made up the ancient parish of Leigh. The townships existed before the parish.
Poor Law Amendment Act 1834
The Poor Law Amendment Act 1834, sometimes abbreviated to PLAA, was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom passed by the Whig government of Lord Melbourne that reformed the country's poverty relief system . It was an Amendment Act that completely replaced earlier legislation based on the...
the townships formed part of the Leigh Poor Law Union
Poor Law Union
A Poor Law Union was a unit used for local government in the United Kingdom from the 19th century. The administration of the Poor Law was the responsibility of parishes, which varied wildly in their size, populations, financial resources, rateable values and requirements...
, which was established on 26 January 1837 and was responsible for an area covering the whole of the ancient parish of Leigh and part of Winwick. There were workhouse
Workhouse
In England and Wales a workhouse, colloquially known as a spike, was a place where those unable to support themselves were offered accommodation and employment...
s in Pennington, Culcheth, Tyldesley, and Lowton, but they were replaced by Leigh Union workhouse
Leigh Union workhouse
Leigh Union workhouse, also known as the Leigh workhouse and after 1930, Atherleigh Hospital, was a workhouse built in 1850 by the Leigh Poor Law Union on Leigh Road, Atherton in the historic county of Lancashire.-Background:...
at Atherleigh in the 1850s.
In 1875 Leigh Local Board of Health was established, covering the areas of the former Bedford, Pennington, and Westleigh Local Boards of Health. In 1894 the area of the Local Board, together with part of Atherton township, became Leigh Urban District
Urban district
In the England, Wales and Ireland, an urban district was a type of local government district that covered an urbanised area. Urban districts had an elected Urban District Council , which shared local government responsibilities with a county council....
, which was granted honorific borough status
Borough status in the United Kingdom
Borough status in the United Kingdom is granted by royal charter to local government districts in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. The status is purely honorary, and does not give any additional powers to the council or inhabitants of the district...
in 1899 becoming the Municipal Borough of Leigh
Municipal Borough of Leigh
The Municipal Borough of Leigh was, from 1894 to 1974, a local government district of the administrative county of Lancashire, England, consisting of the townships of Pennington, Westleigh, Bedford and part of the township of Atherton and named after the ancient Parish of Leigh...
. In 1969 there was an exchange of very small areas with Golborne Urban District. Following the Local Government Act 1972
Local Government Act 1972
The Local Government Act 1972 is an Act of Parliament in the United Kingdom that reformed local government in England and Wales on 1 April 1974....
, the Municipal Borough of Leigh was abolished and its territory granted as part of the Metropolitan Borough of Wigan
Metropolitan Borough of Wigan
The Metropolitan Borough of Wigan is a metropolitan borough of Greater Manchester, in North West England. It is named after its largest component town, Wigan and also includes the towns of Leigh, Ashton-in-Makerfield, Ince-in-Makerfield, and Hindley. The borough was formed in 1974 and is an...
, a local government district of Greater Manchester
Greater Manchester
Greater Manchester is a metropolitan county in North West England, with a population of 2.6 million. It encompasses one of the largest metropolitan areas in the United Kingdom and comprises ten metropolitan boroughs: Bolton, Bury, Oldham, Rochdale, Stockport, Tameside, Trafford, Wigan, and the...
. In 1998, an area (Lately Common) was further ceded to the Warrington
Warrington
Warrington is a town, borough and unitary authority area of Cheshire, England. It stands on the banks of the River Mersey, which is tidal to the west of the weir at Howley. It lies 16 miles east of Liverpool, 19 miles west of Manchester and 8 miles south of St Helens...
borough – one of the few parts of England to have been in three different counties since the mid-20th century: Lancashire, then Greater Manchester, then Cheshire
Cheshire
Cheshire is a ceremonial county in North West England. Cheshire's county town is the city of Chester, although its largest town is Warrington. Other major towns include Widnes, Congleton, Crewe, Ellesmere Port, Runcorn, Macclesfield, Winsford, Northwich, and Wilmslow...
.
Leigh's MP is Andy Burnham who has represented the parliamentary seat for Leigh
Leigh (UK Parliament constituency)
Leigh is a constituency represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It elects one Member of Parliament by the first past the post system of election.-Boundaries:...
for the Labour Party since the 2001 General Election
General election
In a parliamentary political system, a general election is an election in which all or most members of a given political body are chosen. The term is usually used to refer to elections held for a nation's primary legislative body, as distinguished from by-elections and local elections.The term...
. Between 10 June 2009 and the 2010 General Election he was Secretary of State at the Department of Health. At the 2010 General Election Burnham retained the Leigh seat with 24,295 votes
and a majority of 15,011, representing 51.3% of the vote. The Conservatives
Conservative Party (UK)
The Conservative Party, formally the Conservative and Unionist Party, is a centre-right political party in the United Kingdom that adheres to the philosophies of conservatism and British unionism. It is the largest political party in the UK, and is currently the largest single party in the House...
took 19.6% of the vote, the Liberal Democrats
Liberal Democrats
The Liberal Democrats are a social liberal political party in the United Kingdom which supports constitutional and electoral reform, progressive taxation, wealth taxation, human rights laws, cultural liberalism, banking reform and civil liberties .The party was formed in 1988 by a merger of the...
17.0%, the UKIP
United Kingdom Independence Party
The United Kingdom Independence Party is a eurosceptic and right-wing populist political party in the United Kingdom. Whilst its primary goal is the UK's withdrawal from the European Union, the party has expanded beyond its single-issue image to develop a more comprehensive party platform.UKIP...
3.2%, the BNP
British National Party
The British National Party is a British far-right political party formed as a splinter group from the National Front by John Tyndall in 1982...
5.8%, the Christian Party 0.3% and Independents 2.8%.
Geography
Leigh is low lying; land to the south and east, close to Chat MossChat Moss
Chat Moss is a large area of peat bog that makes up 30 percent of the City of Salford, in Greater Manchester, England. It is north of the River Irwell, to the west of Manchester, and occupies an area of about...
, is 50 feet (15.2 m) above mean sea level. The highest land, to the north and west, rises gently to 125 feet (38.1 m). The land is situated in the River Mersey
River Mersey
The River Mersey is a river in North West England. It is around long, stretching from Stockport, Greater Manchester, and ending at Liverpool Bay, Merseyside. For centuries, it formed part of the ancient county divide between Lancashire and Cheshire....
Basin; it is drained into the Mersey by several streams, including the Westleigh and Pennington Brooks that join others flowing through Bedford to form the Glaze Brook. The southeast of the town has alluvial
Alluvium
Alluvium is loose, unconsolidated soil or sediments, eroded, deposited, and reshaped by water in some form in a non-marine setting. Alluvium is typically made up of a variety of materials, including fine particles of silt and clay and larger particles of sand and gravel...
and peaty soils, but the rest is loam overlaying sandstone, or coal measures in the north. There is magnesian limestone in Bedford and neighbouring Astley. Mining subsidence and flooding have caused the formation of "flashes" to the south and west of the town, the largest of which is south of the Leeds and Liverpool Canal in Pennington. Pennington Flash Country Park is a 490 acres (198.3 ha) country park and nature reserve with a 170 acres (68.8 ha) flash or lake.
Leigh is crossed by the Bolton to St Helens Road high road, an old packhorse route that became a Turnpike Trust
Turnpike trust
Turnpike trusts in the United Kingdom were bodies set up by individual Acts of Parliament, with powers to collect road tolls for maintaining the principal highways in Britain from the 17th but especially during the 18th and 19th centuries...
in 1762. The A579 road bypasses the town centre using the line of the Bolton and Leigh Railway
Bolton and Leigh Railway
The Bolton and Leigh Railway was the first public railway in the historic county of Lancashire, England. It opened in 1828 for goods.-History:...
. The Bridgewater Canal and the Leigh Branch of the Leeds and Liverpool Canal
Leeds and Liverpool Canal
The Leeds and Liverpool Canal is a canal in Northern England, linking the cities of Leeds and Liverpool. Over a distance of , it crosses the Pennines, and includes 91 locks on the main line...
cross the town west to east, the canals meeting at Leigh Bridge just south of the town centre.
In the 1930s the A580 "East Lancashire" Road
A580 road
The A580 is a primary A road in England that connects Walton, near Liverpool and Salford, near Manchester and known officially as Liverpool-East Lancashire Road. Locally, the road is shortened to the "East Lancs". The road was designed and built to provide better access to the Port of Liverpool for...
was built crossing to the south of the town.
Demography
| Leigh Compared | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2001 Census United Kingdom Census 2001 A nationwide census, known as Census 2001, was conducted in the United Kingdom on Sunday, 29 April 2001. This was the 20th UK Census and recorded a resident population of 58,789,194.... |
Leigh | Wigan MB Metropolitan Borough of Wigan The Metropolitan Borough of Wigan is a metropolitan borough of Greater Manchester, in North West England. It is named after its largest component town, Wigan and also includes the towns of Leigh, Ashton-in-Makerfield, Ince-in-Makerfield, and Hindley. The borough was formed in 1974 and is an... |
GM Urban Area Greater Manchester Urban Area The Greater Manchester Urban Area is an area of land defined by the Office for National Statistics consisting of the large conurbation that encompasses the city of Manchester and the continuous metropolitan area that spreads outwards from it, forming much of Greater Manchester in North West England... |
England |
| Total population | 43,006 | 301,415 | 2,240,230 | 49,138,831 |
| White | 98.3% | 98.7% | 90.3% | 90.9% |
| Asian | 0.8% | 0.4% | 6.2% | 4.6% |
| Black | 0.2% | 0.2% | 1.3% | 2.3% |
| Source: Office for National Statistics | ||||
At the time of the United Kingdom Census 2001
United Kingdom Census 2001
A nationwide census, known as Census 2001, was conducted in the United Kingdom on Sunday, 29 April 2001. This was the 20th UK Census and recorded a resident population of 58,789,194....
, according to the Office for National Statistics
Office for National Statistics
The Office for National Statistics is the executive office of the UK Statistics Authority, a non-ministerial department which reports directly to the Parliament of the United Kingdom.- Overview :...
, the Urban Subdivision of Leigh was part of the Greater Manchester Urban Area
Greater Manchester Urban Area
The Greater Manchester Urban Area is an area of land defined by the Office for National Statistics consisting of the large conurbation that encompasses the city of Manchester and the continuous metropolitan area that spreads outwards from it, forming much of Greater Manchester in North West England...
and had a total resident population of 43,006, of which 20,990 (48.8%) were male and 22,016 (51.2%) were female, with 18,270 households. The settlement occupied 884 hectares (3.4 sq mi), compared with 858 hectares (3.3 sq mi) in the 1991 census. Its population density was 48.65 people per hectare compared with an average of 40.20 across the Greater Manchester Urban Area. The median age of the population was 37, compared with 36 within the Greater Manchester Urban Area and 37 across England and Wales.
The majority of the population of Leigh were born in England (95.92%); 2.10% were born elsewhere within the United Kingdom, 0.95% within the rest of the European Union, and 1.47% elsewhere in the world.
Data on religious beliefs across the town in the 2001 census show that 85.5% declared themselves to be Christian
Christian
A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...
, 7.6% said they held no religion, and 0.6% reported themselves as Muslim
Muslim
A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...
.
The majority of Leigh is within the Warrington
Warrington
Warrington is a town, borough and unitary authority area of Cheshire, England. It stands on the banks of the River Mersey, which is tidal to the west of the weir at Howley. It lies 16 miles east of Liverpool, 19 miles west of Manchester and 8 miles south of St Helens...
& Wigan
Wigan
Wigan is a town in Greater Manchester, England. It stands on the River Douglas, south-west of Bolton, north of Warrington and west-northwest of Manchester. Wigan is the largest settlement in the Metropolitan Borough of Wigan and is its administrative centre. The town of Wigan had a total...
Travel to Work Area
Travel to Work Area
A Travel to Work Area or TTWA is a statistical tool used by UK Government agencies and local authorities, especially by the Department for Work and Pensions and Job Centres, to indicate an area where the population would generally commute to a larger town, city or conurbation for the purposes of...
(TTWA), whilst part of the eastern side of the town is within the Manchester
Manchester
Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...
TTWA. The entire town is within the Manchester Larger Urban Zone.
At the time of the 2001 Census, there were 19,051 people (44.3%) in employment who were resident within Leigh. Of these, 18.36% worked within the wholsesale and retail trade, including repair of motor vehicles; 21.60% worked within manufacturing industry; and 11.99% worked within the health and social work sector. 45.16% of households owned a single car or van, with 30.77% owning none. The average car ownership per household was 0.98, compared with 0.93 across the Greater Manchester Urban Area.
Population change
| Population growth in Leigh from 1801 to 2001 | |||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Year | 1801 | 1811 | 1821 | 1831 | 1841 | 1851 | 1861 | 1871 | 1881 | 1891 | |
| Population | no data | no data | 18,372 | 20,083 | 28,568 | 5,206 | 10,621 | no data | no data | 28,708 | |
| Year | 1901 | 1911 | 1921 | 1931 | 1939 | 1951 | 1961 | 1971 | 1981 | 1991 | 2001 |
| Population | 40,001 | 44,103 | 45,532 | 45,317 | 45,458 | 48,728 | 46,174 | no data | 42,929 | 43,150 | 43,006 |
Parish 1821–1861 Urban Sanitary District 1891 Urban District 1901–1961 Urban Subdivision 1981–2001 |
|||||||||||
Economy
A retail park
Retail park
In the United Kingdom, a retail park is a grouping of many retail warehouses and superstores with associated car parking. Its North American equivalent is a power centre. Retail parks are found on the fringes of most large towns and cities in highly accessible locations and are aimed at households...
developed on the old Parsonage Colliery site is within walking distance of the town centre.
The new Leigh Sports Village
Leigh Sports Village
Leigh Sports Village is an £50 million multi-use sports, retail and housing development in Leigh, Greater Manchester, England. Leigh Sports Village plays host to three of the towns sporting clubs. Amateur rugby league club, Leigh East and amateur athletics club, Leigh Harriers occupy dedicated...
, includes a 10,000-capacity stadium shared by Leigh Genesis and Leigh Centurions
Leigh Centurions
Leigh Centurions is an English professional rugby league club based in Leigh, Greater Manchester who play in the Co-operative Championship.The club was founded in 1878 as Leigh Rugby Football Club and is one of the original twenty-two clubs that formed the Northern Rugby Football Union in...
, a new athletics arena for Leigh Harriers, new facilities for Leigh East Rugby League Club, a new college campus, hotel, leisure and business facilities for the community.
Another large regeneration project is taking place on the site the Bickershaw Colliery complex, which closed in 1992 and is set for a new lease of life as part of a plan to redevelop the site and canal side with a large country park and housing.
Landmarks
Major landmarks in Leigh are the red sandstone Parish Church and across the civic square, the Town Hall and associated shops on Market Street. The Grade II listed ObeliskObelisk
An obelisk is a tall, four-sided, narrow tapering monument which ends in a pyramid-like shape at the top, and is said to resemble a petrified ray of the sun-disk. A pair of obelisks usually stood in front of a pylon...
that replaced the original market cross
Market cross
A market cross is a structure used to mark a market square in market towns, originally from the distinctive tradition in Early Medieval Insular art of free-standing stone standing or high crosses, often elaborately carved, which goes back to the 7th century. Market crosses can be found in most...
is also situated here. Many town centre buildings including the Boar's Head Public House are in red Ruabon
Ruabon
Ruabon is a village and community in the county borough of Wrexham in Wales.More than 80% of the population of 2,400 were born in Wales with 13.6% speaking Welsh....
or Accrington
Accrington
Accrington is a town in Lancashire, within the borough of Hyndburn. It lies about east of Blackburn, west of Burnley, north of Manchester city centre and is situated on the mostly culverted River Hyndburn...
bricks, often with gable
Gable
A gable is the generally triangular portion of a wall between the edges of a sloping roof. The shape of the gable and how it is detailed depends on the structural system being used and aesthetic concerns. Thus the type of roof enclosing the volume dictates the shape of the gable...
s and terracotta dressings. There are several large multi-storey cotton mills built along the Bridgewater Canal that are a reminder of Leigh's textile industry but most are now underused and deteriorating despite listed building status. Leigh's War Memorial by local architect J. C. Prestwich is at the junction of Church Street and Silk Street and is a Grade II listed structure. St Joseph's Church and St Thomas's Church on opposite sides of Chapel Street are both imposing churches using different materials and styles.
Transport
Historically Leigh was well connected to the local transport infrastructure, but with the closure of the railway this is no longer the case. Public transport today is co-ordinated by the Transport for Greater Manchester. There are bus services operated by South Lancs TravelSouth Lancs Travel
South Lancs Travel is a privately owned bus operator in the districts of Bolton and Wigan in Greater Manchester operating an extensive commercial network along with tendered services on behalf of Transport for Greater Manchester. It also serves some areas of the districts of Salford & Trafford such...
, Jim Stones
Jim Stones Coaches
Jim Stones Coaches is a bus operator that operates a number of commercial and supported routes on behalf of Transport for Greater Manchester in the town Wigan Borough Town of Leigh in Western Greater Manchester area...
and First Manchester
First Manchester
First Manchester is one of the bus companies serving Greater Manchester, a metropolitan county in North West England. It forms part of FirstGroup, a company operating transport services across the British Isles and in North America...
from Leigh Bus Station to many local destinations including Wigan and other places including, Bolton
Bolton
Bolton is a town in Greater Manchester, in the North West of England. Close to the West Pennine Moors, it is north west of the city of Manchester. Bolton is surrounded by several smaller towns and villages which together form the Metropolitan Borough of Bolton, of which Bolton is the...
, Warrington
Warrington
Warrington is a town, borough and unitary authority area of Cheshire, England. It stands on the banks of the River Mersey, which is tidal to the west of the weir at Howley. It lies 16 miles east of Liverpool, 19 miles west of Manchester and 8 miles south of St Helens...
, Manchester
Manchester
Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...
and St Helens
St Helens, Merseyside
St Helens is a large town in Merseyside, England. It is the largest settlement and administrative centre of the Metropolitan Borough of St Helens with a population of just over 100,000, part of an urban area with a total population of 176,843 at the time of the 2001 Census...
. There have been suggestions to reopen the railway via Tyldesley to Manchester, the latest proposal is for a guided busway but this not universally popular.
Canals
The Bridgewater CanalBridgewater Canal
The Bridgewater Canal connects Runcorn, Manchester and Leigh, in North West England. It was commissioned by Francis Egerton, 3rd Duke of Bridgewater, to transport coal from his mines in Worsley to Manchester...
was extended from Worsley
Worsley
Worsley is a town in the metropolitan borough of the City of Salford, in Greater Manchester, England. It lies along the course of Worsley Brook, west of Manchester. The M60 motorway bisects the area....
to the middle of Leigh in 1795. In 1819 the fifth Leeds and Liverpool Canal Act was passed for the construction of the Leigh Branch and by 1820 the Leigh branch canal was cut from the Leeds-Liverpool Canal at Poolstock, Wigan to meet the Bridgewater at Leigh Bridge, giving access from Leigh to all parts of Lancashire, Yorkshire and the Midlands.
Railways
Leigh was the southern terminusTerminal Station
Terminal Station is a 1953 film by Italian director Vittorio De Sica. It tells the story of the love affair between an Italian man and an American woman. The film was entered into the 1953 Cannes Film Festival.-Production:...
of the 7.5 miles (12 km) long Bolton and Leigh Railway
Bolton and Leigh Railway
The Bolton and Leigh Railway was the first public railway in the historic county of Lancashire, England. It opened in 1828 for goods.-History:...
. George Stephenson
George Stephenson
George Stephenson was an English civil engineer and mechanical engineer who built the first public railway line in the world to use steam locomotives...
carried out the survey for the line. It opened between Bolton and William Hulton's coal mines at Chequerbent for freight on 1 August 1828 and to the terminus at the Leeds-Liverpool Canal at Leigh in March 1830. Passengers were carried from 13 June 1831. The first locomotive on the line was an 0-4-0
0-4-0
Under the Whyte notation for the classification of steam locomotives, 0-4-0 represents one of the simplest possible types, that with two axles and four coupled wheels, all of which are driven...
called The Lancashire Witch. The town station was at Westleigh
Westleigh railway station
Westleigh or West Leigh station was a station in Leigh, Greater Manchester, England onthe Bolton and Leigh Railway line. It was situated within the historic county of Lancashire...
. Later the line was extended southwards to Pennington. Atherleigh
Atherleigh railway station
Atherleigh railway station served an area of Leigh in what was then Lancashire, England. It was located on the Bolton and Leigh Railway line which ran from Kenyon Junction to Bolton Great Moor Street Station.-History:...
opened in 1935. The line was closed to passenger traffic on 29 March 1954, and later closed completely.
In 1861 the London and North Western Railway
London and North Western Railway
The London and North Western Railway was a British railway company between 1846 and 1922. It was created by the merger of three companies – the Grand Junction Railway, the London and Birmingham Railway and the Manchester and Birmingham Railway...
revived powers granted to the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway
Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway
The Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway was a major British railway company before the 1923 Grouping. It was incorporated in 1847 from an amalgamation of several existing railways...
to build a railway from Manchester
Manchester
Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...
via Eccles
Eccles, Greater Manchester
Eccles is a town in the City of Salford, a metropolitan borough of Greater Manchester in North West England, west of Salford and west of Manchester city centre...
and Tyldesley
Tyldesley
Tyldesley is a town within the Metropolitan Borough of Wigan, in Greater Manchester, England. It occupies an area north of Chat Moss near the foothills of the West Pennine Moors, east-southeast of Wigan and west-northwest of the city of Manchester...
to Wigan
Wigan
Wigan is a town in Greater Manchester, England. It stands on the River Douglas, south-west of Bolton, north of Warrington and west-northwest of Manchester. Wigan is the largest settlement in the Metropolitan Borough of Wigan and is its administrative centre. The town of Wigan had a total...
with a branch to Kenyon Junction
Kenyon Junction railway station
Kenyon Junction was a junction railway station at Kenyon on the Liverpool and Manchester Railway and the Bolton and Leigh Railway near Culcheth in Warrington, England. It was situated within the historic county of Lancashire. The station opened in 1831 and closed to passengers on 2 January 1961...
on the Liverpool to Manchester Line via Leigh and Pennington
Pennington railway station
Pennington Station was a railway station at Pennington, Leigh, Greater Manchester, England on the Bolton and Leigh Railway. It was situated within the historic county of Lancashire....
. There was a station, originally named Bedford Leigh
Leigh (Greater Manchester) railway station
Leigh railway station, originally named Bedford Leigh and later Leigh and Bedford, is a closed railway station located in Bedford, Leigh, Greater Manchester...
to serve the town. The railway crossed the town on a viaduct which has since been largely demolished. It was closed in May 1969, leaving the town without a railway: after the reopening of Mansfield
Mansfield railway station
Mansfield railway station serves the large town of Mansfield in Nottinghamshire, England. Alternatively it is named Mansfield Town, to distinguish itself from Mansfield Woodhouse and the GCR's former Mansfield Central...
and Corby railway station
Corby railway station
Corby railway station, owned by Network Rail and managed by East Midlands Trains , serves the town of Corby in Northamptonshire, England. The current station, opened on 23 February 2009, replaces an earlier one dating from 1879 and first closed in 1966 .Plans for the current station, built on a...
s, Leigh is now one of the largest towns in Great Britain without a railway station. Numerous colliery lines crossed the town, but with the closure of the collieries
Coal mining
The goal of coal mining is to obtain coal from the ground. Coal is valued for its energy content, and since the 1880s has been widely used to generate electricity. Steel and cement industries use coal as a fuel for extraction of iron from iron ore and for cement production. In the United States,...
these were no longer required.
The nearest railway station is at Atherton
Atherton railway station
Atherton railway station serves the town of Atherton, Greater Manchester, and is the main station on the line between Wigan and Manchester on the Manchester to Southport Line, and according to Strategic Rail Authority figures) is the busiest station on the line .The station is located 19 km...
, 3 miles (5 km) miles to the north, with trains to Wigan
Wigan Wallgate railway station
Wigan Wallgate railway station is one of two main railway stations serving the town of Wigan in Greater Manchester, England. The station is on 2 lines, the Manchester-Southport Line and the Manchester-Kirkby Line. It is north west of Manchester Victoria...
and Manchester operated by Northern Rail
Northern Rail
Northern Rail is a British train operating company that has operated local passenger services in Northern England since 2004. Northern Rail's owner, Serco-Abellio, is a consortium formed of Abellio and Serco, an international operator of public transport systems...
, leaving the bus station as Leigh's only public transport link.
Trams and trolley buses
South Lancashire Tramways
South Lancashire Tramways was a system of electric tramways in south Lancashire authorised by the South Lancashire Tramways Act of 1900. The South Lancashire Tramways Company was authorised by the act to build over of track to serve the towns between St Helens, Swinton, Westhoughton and Hulton...
Company to construct over 62 miles (99.8 km) of tramway in southern Lancashire was given Royal Assent.
However, by November 1900 the South Lancashire Electric Traction and Power Company had acquired the shares. The first section of tramway opened on 20 October 1902 between Lowton
Lowton
Lowton is a village, part of the Metropolitan Borough of Wigan, in Greater Manchester, England. It is around from Leigh and south of Wigan. The settlement lies across the A580 East Lancashire Road....
and Four Lanes Ends via Leigh and Atherton. This company got into financial difficulty and in turn became Lancashire United Tramways later Lancashire United Transport
Lancashire United Transport
Lancashire United Transport was a tram, bus and trolleybus operator based at Howe Bridge in Atherton, 10 miles north west of Manchester...
. On 16 December 1933, the last tram service ran from Leigh to Four Lane Ends. The following day trolley buses took over.
An Act of 4 August 1920 authorised the Borough of Leigh to run its own buses. A garage was built on Windermere Road which was soon outgrown and replaced by one on Holden Road. The corporation had a fleet of 70 vehicles during world War II.
Education
Grammar school
A grammar school is one of several different types of school in the history of education in the United Kingdom and some other English-speaking countries, originally a school teaching classical languages but more recently an academically-oriented secondary school.The original purpose of mediaeval...
existed in 1655 but its foundation is unclear. The building was next to the churchyard, but the school moved to Manchester Road in 1931. A Girls Grammar School was established in 1921, but both schools were abolished by the then Secretary of State for Education, Shirley Williams, in the 1976 Education Act. Leigh High Schools include Bedford High School
Bedford High School (Leigh)
Bedford High School is a comprehensive school with specialist Business and Enterprise College status in Leigh, Greater Manchester, England.-History:...
, which now has specialist Business and Enterprise College
Business and Enterprise College
Business and Enterprise Colleges were introduced in 2002 as part of the Specialist Schools Programme in the United Kingdom. The system enables secondary schools to specialise in certain fields...
status, and Westleigh High School. Students also attend schools in Atherton, Lowton, Golborne, and Astley. Wigan and Leigh College provides post-16 education.
Religion
The Church of St Mary the Virgin, LeighChurch of St Mary the Virgin, Leigh
The Parish Church of St Mary the Virgin, Leigh is a Church of England parish church in Leigh, Greater Manchester, England. It is a member of the Leigh deanery in the archdeaconry of Salford, diocese of Manchester.It is a Grade II* listed building....
has been in existence since the 12th century and probably much earlier. It was once known as the Church of St Peter at Westleigh in Leigh, and straddles the boundary between the old townships of Westleigh and Pennington, the nave and churchyard being in Westleigh and the chancel in Pennington. Its early history is tied up with the Westleigh and Urmston families. The dedication changed to St Mary the Virgin in the 14th century. The church tower, said to have been built in 1516, is all that remains of the medieval structure, which was replaced by the present church after becoming unsafe. Paley and Austin of Lancaster designed the present church, the foundation stone was laid in 1871 and the church consecrated in 1873. The church is built in red sandstone it is a Grade II listed building.
There are now parish churches in each of the old townships. The first St Thomas church in Bedford was consecrated in 1840 and replaced by the present church in 1909. The church is built of Accrington red brick with Runcorn red sandstone facings, it was designed by J. S. Crowther
J. S. Crowther
Joseph Stretch Crowther was an English architect who practised in Manchester.-Life:He studied under Richard Tattersall from 1838–1843. He worked as a managing clerk for Henry Bowman until 1846, when Bowman took him into partnership as Bowman & Crowther...
. Pennington Christ Church, designed by architect E. H. Shellard, was built in Yorkshire stone and was consecrated in 1854. The site to the south of the canal was a rapidly growing area at this time. It is Grade II listed. Westleigh St Paul, founded in 1847 is on Westleigh Lane. Westleigh St Peter, a Grade II* listed building by Paley and Austin, built in brick with red sandstone dressings, was founded 1881 is on Firs Lane.
The first Catholic Chapel was built in Bedford on the corner of Mather Lane and Chapel St in 1778 and this lasted until it was replaced in 1855 by the present church dedicated to St Joseph by architect Joseph Hansom
Joseph Hansom
Joseph Aloysius Hansom was a prolific English architect working principally in the Gothic Revival style, who invented the Hansom cab and was one of the founders of the eminent architectural journal, The Builder, in 1843....
. A growing Catholic population in the area led to the building of Our Lady of the Rosary in Plank Lane in 1879, Twelve Apostles in 1879, and Sacred Heart in 1929. Other denominations catered for include Wesleyan, Independent, Primitive, Welsh and United Methodists.
There are also Unitarian, Baptist, and Jehovah's Witness places of worship in the town.
Sport
Rugby league
Rugby league football, usually called rugby league, is a full contact sport played by two teams of thirteen players on a rectangular grass field. One of the two codes of rugby football, it originated in England in 1895 by a split from Rugby Football Union over paying players...
team – Leigh Centurions
Leigh Centurions
Leigh Centurions is an English professional rugby league club based in Leigh, Greater Manchester who play in the Co-operative Championship.The club was founded in 1878 as Leigh Rugby Football Club and is one of the original twenty-two clubs that formed the Northern Rugby Football Union in...
– whose main claim to fame is beating Leeds
Leeds Rhinos
Leeds Rhinos is an English professional rugby league football club based in Leeds, West Yorkshire. The club won the 2011 Super League and became the most successful club in the Super League era, beating St Helens 32-16 on 8th October 2011. Formed in 1890, Leeds competes in Europe's Super League...
24–7 in the 1971 Challenge Cup
Challenge Cup
The Challenge Cup is a knockout cup competition for rugby league clubs organised by the Rugby Football League. Originally it was contested only by British teams but in recent years has been expanded to allow teams from France and Russia to take part....
final. They played in the Super League
Super League
Super League is the top-level professional rugby league football club competition in Europe. As a result of sponsorship from engage Mutual Assurance the competition is currently officially known as the engage Super League. The League features fourteen teams: thirteen from England and one from...
in the 2005 season. Leigh also has several amateur clubs, including Leigh East and Leigh Miners Rangers.
The town had a semi-professional football
Football (soccer)
Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a sport played between two teams of eleven players with a spherical ball...
team, Leigh Genesis (formerly Leigh RMI), which ceased operations at a senior level in June 2011. The most successful amateur club is Leigh Athletic, which currently plays in the Manchester Football League
Manchester Football League
The Manchester Football League, currently known under terms of sponsorship as Bridgewater Office Supplies Football League, is a football league in England, covering a 20-mile radius from Manchester Town Hall. It was formed in 1893, although play ceased between 1912 and 1920. The 2010–11 champions...
.
Leigh also has an athletics club, Leigh Harriers AC, founded in 1909, and a Rugby Union club, Leigh RUFC, based at Round Ash Park, which gained promotion in 2007, to RFU league North 2 (West), and is current holder of the Lancashire Trophy which it won in May 2008 for the third consecutive year. Attached to the club is a crown green bowling
Bowls
Bowls is a sport in which the objective is to roll slightly asymmetric balls so that they stop close to a smaller "jack" or "kitty". It is played on a pitch which may be flat or convex or uneven...
section which runs several teams in local bowling leagues. Leigh has two cricket clubs, Leigh Cricket Club play in the ECB Premier League Liverpool Competition. Westleigh Cricket Club, play in Division 1 of the Manchester Association
Manchester and District Cricket Association
The Manchester and District Cricket Association is an English cricket association which contains 17 teams spread around the Greater Manchester area...
.
Culture
Many of Leigh's old houses have been demolished but the sites of Lilford Park, once the grounds of Atherton HallAtherton Hall, Leigh
Atherton Hall was a mansion house and estate in Atherton historically a part of Lancashire, England but since 1894 incorporated into Leigh, Greater Manchester...
, a gift to Leigh from Lord Lilford in 1914 and Pennington Park, the grounds of Pennington Hall which was demolished in 1963 after being used as a museum, are open to the public.
Leigh's wealth as an industrial town resulted in many outlets for the entertainment of its population, including theatres, cinemas and public houses. In 1908 the Hippodrome Theatre on Leigh Road was built on the site of Walker's silk mill of 1827, this subsequently became a cinema, first the Odeon, later the Classic. Another theatre, the Theatre Royal, was built on Lord Street,
this later became the Leigh Casino Club. The Palace Cinema was built in 1913 on Railway Road and the assembly rooms above the Conservative Club, were converted to a cinema known as the Sems in 1908. Brewery Lane is a reminder that there was once a brewery in Bedford belonging to George Shaw & Co.
The old Leigh College and Library on Railway Road was built between 1894 and 1986 by the Leigh Literary Society to designs by J. C. Prestwich and J. H. Stephen. The present library was built in 1971 between the Parish Church and Town Hall.
Notable people
Sir John Lennard-Jones, Sir Peter Maxwell DaviesPeter Maxwell Davies
Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, CBE is an English composer and conductor and is currently Master of the Queen's Music.-Biography:...
and Pete Shelley
Pete Shelley
Pete Shelley is an English singer, songwriter and guitarist, best known as the leader of Buzzcocks.-Biography:...
were old pupils of Leigh Grammar School. Jazz musician Georgie Fame
Georgie Fame
Georgie Fame is a British rhythm and blues and jazz singer and keyboard player. The one-time rock and roll tour musician, who had a string of 1960s hits, is still a popular performer, often working with contemporaries such as Van Morrison and Bill Wyman.-Early life:Fame took piano lessons from the...
was born in Leigh in 1943. Thomas Burke tenor and opera singer was born in 1890 and attended St Joseph's School. The author of "Goodbye, Mr Chips", James Hilton
James Hilton
James Hilton was an English novelist who wrote several best-sellers, including Lost Horizon and Goodbye, Mr. Chips.-Biography:...
was also born in Leigh. He should not be confused with the local businessman of the same name who became chairman of Leigh RLFC after the War and after whom the club's former ground, Hilton Park, was named..