Within the boundaries of the historic county of Lancashire, Leigh was originally the centre of a large ecclesiastical parish covering six vills or townships.

Leigh is derived from the Old English leah which meant a place at the wood or woodland clearing, a glade and subsequently a pasture or meadow, it was spelt Legh in 1276.

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.

[5] Pennington was recorded as Pininton and Pynynton in 1246 and 1360, Penynton in 1305, Pynyngton in 1351 and 1442 and Penyngton in 1443, the ending tun denotes an enclosure, farmstead or manor in Old English.

[7] 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.

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.

[10] In the 12th century the ancient parish of Leigh was made up of six townships, including Pennington,[11] Bedford,[12] Westleigh,[13] Atherton, Astley, and Tyldesley cum Shakerley.

[7] The family were recusants and secretly kept the "old faith" when Roman Catholicism was subject to civil or criminal penalties.

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.

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.

[9] 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.

[18] 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.

Those arrested were severely punished, while others ensured that radicalism continued in Leigh, leading eventually to electoral reform and universal suffrage.

[27] The extent of mining at Parsonage Colliery increased in the 1960s with the driving of the Horizon Tunnel, which accessed previously inaccessible seams around 6 ft (2 m) high that were easy to work.

Mining disasters in Leigh included the explosion of firedamp which caused the deaths of 38 miners at Bedford Colliery on 13 August 1886.

[28] 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.

[29][30] Other notable industry included the tractor factory of David Brown Limited, which was in Leigh following the acquisition in 1955 of Harrison, McGregor and Guest's Albion range of farm machinery products.

[39] In 1998, an area (Lately Common) was further ceded to the Borough of Warrington – one of the few parts of England to have been in three different counties since the mid-20th century[citation needed]: Lancashire, then Greater Manchester, then Cheshire.

[2] The southeast of the town has alluvial and peaty soils,[7] but the rest is loam overlaying sandstone, or coal measures in the north.

[56] 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.

[74] In 2011 "The Loom" a £50million retail development opened on the north side of the Bridgewater Canal with a seven-screen cinema, Tesco Extra store, Nando's and Frankie and Benny's.

[76] Many town centre buildings including the Boar's Head public house[77] are in red Ruabon or Accrington bricks, often with gables and terracotta dressings.

[9] 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.

[80] There had been suggestions to reopen the railway via Tyldesley to Manchester, but a guided busway[81] scheme was chosen for the route; this decision was not universally popular.

[87] The nearest railway station to Leigh is at Atherton, 3 miles (5 km) to the north; it provides regular services between Wigan and Manchester, operated by Northern.

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 and Liverpool Canal at Leigh in March 1830.

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.

[104] 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.

[119] 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.