Leigh

"LEIGH, a parish and market town in the hundred of West Derby, county Lancaster, 7 miles S. of Bolton, 15 from Manchester, and 193¼ from London. It has two stations --one at Leigh, the other at Atherton, on the Bolton and Kenyon branch of the London and North-Western railway. The parish is situated in the S. parliamentary division of the county, and is intersected by the Wigan and Leigh branch of the Leeds and Bridgwater canal. It is of large extent, comprising the townships of Astley, Atherton, Bedford, Pennington, and West Leigh, which two last form the town of Leigh. The growth of this town has been extremely rapid, the population having more than doubled in the decennial period from 1851 to 1861: at the former census the inhabitants were returned at 5,206, and at the latter at 10,621. The streets are regularly laid out, and most of the houses of recent erection. The town is well paved, and lighted with gas. The principal public institutions are the townhall, erected in 1840; union poorhouse; offices of the Warrington division of the county constabulary, which has its head-quarters here; a mechanics' institute, with library containing 1,200 volumes, established in 1842; a branch bank; market-place; new cemetery, opened in October, 1856, for the rest of the parish, except the township of Atherton, which has a cemetery of its own, formed in 1857. There are also extensive silk and cotton factories, maltings, corn-mills, a brewery, andiron foundries; and, in the adjoining township of Atherton, establishments for the manufacture of nails and bolts. One weekly newspaper, the Leigh Chronicle, is published in the town on Saturday. In the vicinity of the town are collieries, stone quarries, and brickfields. The soil is clayey, on a subsoil of sandstone. The chief crops are wheat, oats, potatoes, and in the township of Atherton grass and vegetables. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Manchester, value £263. The parish church, dedicated to St.