Lever Park, Rivington, Chorley, England

The following is from the English Heritage Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest.

Designed by Thomas Hayton Mawson in collaboration with William Hesketh Lever, later first Viscount Leverhulme, Lever Park was laid out as a country park in 1901-11. The layout is substantially as shown on the OS map of 1929.

LOCATION, AREA, BOUNDARIES, LANDFORM, SETTING

The roughly 160 hectare site is situated between the villages of Rivington and Horwich, on land which slopes westwards down to Lower Rivington Reservoir. The park is divided from Rivington Gardens to the east by meadowland. The village of Rivington is on the north-west side and forms part of the northern boundary, and there is a band of agricultural land separating the site from Horwich to the south. The western boundary was originally formed by a wrought-iron fence along the edge of the reservoir, erected by Liverpool Corporation. This has largely been removed apart from a section along the north-west side. The northern boundary is formed by fencing along the edge of Sheep House Lane and Hall Lane. The remaining boundaries are formed by fencing between the site and agricultural land. Within the park there are two farms: Top o'th' Hill Farm close to the centre of the site and Middle Derbyshires towards its southern end. Both these, and fields immediately around them, were excluded from the sale in 1902 to Liverpool Corporation and they have never been part of the Park. The same applies to Rivington and Blackrod High School and its grounds at the southern end of the site. The site is bisected by Rivington Lane which runs north/south between Rivington and Horwich.

REFERENCES Used by English Heritage

T H Mawson, Civic Art: Studies in Town Planning, Parks, Boulevards and Open Spaces (1911), (quoted in Cobham Resource Consultants)

M D Smith, Leverhulme's Rivington (1984)

Lever Park, (Cobham Resource Consultants no date, around 1989)

Lever Park Management Plan, (Pauline Roscoe Associates 1996)

Maps

T H Mawson, Lever Park, Rivington, Bolton, 1911

Plan based on Mawson's notes and annotations to the survey map of 1905

Map based on the executed plan and the OS 6" to 1 mile 1929-30 (All reproduced in Cobham Resource Consultants)

OS 6" to 1 mile: 1st edition surveyed 1845-7; 2nd edition published 1909; 1929 edition with additions 1938
 

Description written: May 1997

Amended: June 1998

Edited: March 1999