Leverhulme Park is the largest park in the town of

Bolton Bolton ( , locally ) is a town in Greater Manchester in England. In the foothills of the West Pennine Moors, Bolton is between Manchester, Blackburn, Wigan, Bury, Greater Manchester, Bury and Salford. It is surrounded by several towns and vill ...

Greater Manchester Greater Manchester is a ceremonial county in North West England. It borders Lancashire to the north, Derbyshire and West Yorkshire to the east, Cheshire to the south, and Merseyside to the west. Its largest settlement is the city of 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 A community centre, community center, or community hall is a public location where members of a community gather for group activities, social support, public information, and other purposes. They may be open for the whole community or for a sp ...

, an athletics stadium and

five-a-side football Five-a-side football is a version of minifootball, in which each team fields five players (four Outfield#In association football, outfield players and a goalkeeper (association football), goalkeeper). Other differences from association football ...

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 Horticulture (from ) is the art and science of growing fruits, vegetables, flowers, trees, shrubs and ornamental plants. Horticulture is commonly associated with the more professional and technical aspects of plant cultivation on a smaller and mo ...

, 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 Thing: 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 performer A stunt performer, often called a stuntman or stuntwoman and occasionally stuntperson or stunt-person, is a trained professional who performs daring acts, often as a career. Stunt performers usually appear in films or on television, as opposed ...

falconry Falconry is the hunting of wild animals in their natural state and habitat by means of a trained bird of prey. Small animals are hunted; squirrels and rabbits often fall prey to these birds. Two traditional terms are used to describe a person ...

, 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 One Big Weekend

Bolton's One Big Weekend was a weekend of family fun days held on Leverhulme Park. Organisers estimated around 20,000 people turned out to the event. The weekend included quadbike racing, bungee jumping, tank rides, a vintage car show, morris dancing, martial arts displays and a dog show.

Sport

parkrun Parkrun (stylised as parkrun) is a collection of 5K run, events for runners, walkers and volunteers that take place every Saturday morning at more than 2,000 locations in 23 countries across five continents. Parkrun was founded by Paul Sinto ...

takes place in the park every Saturday morning starting at 9 am.

References

{{reflist Tourist attractions in the Metropolitan Borough of Bolton Parks and open spaces in Greater Manchester