Leverhulme Park
Encyclopedia
Leverhulme Park is the largest park in the town of Bolton
, Greater Manchester
. It was donated to the people of Bolton by, and named after, the late Lord Leverhulme. The park is bounded by the Breightmet
, Darcy Lever
, the Haulgh, and Tonge Fold
. Since its earlier days as simply a park, Leverhulme Park has diversified. It is now home to a community centre
, an athletics stadium
and five-a-side football
pitches. It was also the home to the Bolton Show which ran intermittently for more than fifty years.
: part of the episode The Ice-Cream Man Cometh was set at Bolton Show. In modern times it regularly attracted crowds of up to 90,000. It included craft tents, displays by a number of professional entertainers including motorbike display teams, stunt performers, falconry
, and dog handlers, a large amusement fair, car boot sales and a closing firework display. The Bolton show was planned to return in the summer of 2006, but was cancelled due to lack of local council funds.
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...
, 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...
. It was donated to the people of Bolton by, and named after, the late Lord Leverhulme. The park is bounded by the Breightmet
Breightmet
Breightmet is a neighbourhood of Bolton, in Greater Manchester, England. Historically a township of the civil and ecclesiastical parish of Bolton le Moors in the Salford hundred of Lancashire, it lies 2 miles north east of Bolton and 4 miles north-west of Bury...
, Darcy Lever
Darcy Lever
Darcy Lever is a township within the Metropoliton Borough of Bolton in Greater Manchester, England. Historically part of Lancashire, the village lies on the B6209 , between Bolton and Little Lever...
, the Haulgh, and Tonge Fold
Tonge, Greater Manchester
Tonge is an outlying area of Bolton, in Greater Manchester, England. The name is supposed to be derived from the Old English "tang" or "twang" meaning a fork in a river. Tonge comprises two areas, namely Tonge Fold and Tonge Moor...
. Since its earlier days as simply a park, Leverhulme Park has diversified. It is now home to a community centre
Community centre
Community centres or community centers or jumping recreation centers are public locations where members of a community tend to gather for group activities, social support, public information, and other purposes. They may sometimes be open for the whole community or for a specialised group within...
, an athletics stadium
Track and field
Track and field is a sport comprising various competitive athletic contests based around the activities of running, jumping and throwing. The name of the sport derives from the venue for the competitions: a stadium which features an oval running track surrounding a grassy area...
and five-a-side football
Five-a-side football
thumb|240px|alt=Men playing football on artificial grass pitch.|Five-a-side game on astroturf pitch.Five-a-side football is a variation of association football in which each team fields five players , rather than the usual eleven on each team. Other differences from football include a smaller...
pitches. It was also the home to the Bolton Show which ran intermittently for more than fifty years.
Bolton Show
The Bolton Show grew out of an old agricultural show of the 1950s held to allow local horticultural, flower and vegetable societies to show off their produce. The Bolton Show was held every August in Leverhulme Park until 2003. The Bolton Show was made famous by That Peter Kay ThingThat Peter Kay Thing
That Peter Kay Thing was a series of six spoof documentaries shown on Channel 4 in January 2000. Set in and around Bolton, these followed the lives of different characters and starred Peter Kay as the subject of each documentary. All of the episodes displayed Kay's penchant for nostalgic humour and...
: part of the episode The Ice-Cream Man Cometh was set at Bolton Show. In modern times it regularly attracted crowds of up to 90,000. It included craft tents, displays by a number of professional entertainers including motorbike display teams, stunt performers, falconry
Falconry
Falconry is "the taking of wild quarry in its natural state and habitat by means of a trained raptor". There are two traditional terms used to describe a person involved in falconry: a falconer flies a falcon; an austringer flies a hawk or an eagle...
, and dog handlers, a large amusement fair, car boot sales and a closing firework display. The Bolton show was planned to return in the summer of 2006, but was cancelled due to lack of local council funds.