[3] The early history of Westleigh is closely involved with 'the church of Westley in Leigh', dedicated to St Peter on the Westleigh-Pennington boundary.

Daughters of Richard Urmston married into the Heaton, Shuttleworth, and Bradshaw families who sold the manor to the Athertons and Hiltons.

Westleigh Old Hall was left to Leigh Corporation, the house demolished and the grounds became Marsh playing fields.

In 1872 Ackers and Whitley began to develop the Bickershaw Colliery in neighbouring Pennington, accessed off Plank Lane, Westleigh which by 1970 employed 1,489 men who in that year produced 1,716,479 tons of coal.

[5] Parsonage Colliery was sunk by the Wigan Coal and Iron Company between 1913 and 1920 with shafts exceeding 1,000 yards in depth.

[6] Westleigh was a township in the ancient ecclesiastical parish of Leigh in the hundred of West Derby in Lancashire.

It is built in the decorated style and stands on land given by Lord Lilford, who also provided the stone used to build it.

It is a Grade II* listed building by Paley and Austin, built in brick with red sandstone dressings.

[12] A growing Roman 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.