Leigh, Greater Manchester

Leigh is a town in the Metropolitan Borough of Wigan in the Greater Manchester region of England. It is located on low-lying terrain northwest of Chat Moss and is the county town of Wigan.

It was once the administrative centre of a vast ecclesiastical parish that included six vills or townships that were within the borders of the ancient county of Lancashire. When the three townships of Pennington, Westleigh, and Bedford merged in 1875 to form the Leigh Local Board District, the name Leigh was adopted as the official name for the town, despite the fact that the name had been applied to the area of Pennington and Westleigh around the parish church for many centuries prior to that. When a portion of Atherton was annexed, the town was elevated to the status of an urban district in 1894. In 1899, the town of Leigh was elevated to the status of municipal borough. The first town hall, located on King Street, was demolished in 1907 and rebuilt with the current structure.