Rivington Gardens, Bolton, England

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

HISTORIC DEVELOPMENT

Rivington Gardens was one of a series of three major private gardens produced by Thomas Hayton Mawson (1861-1933) in collaboration with the industrialist and philanthropist Lord Leverhulme, the other two being The Hill, Hampstead, London and Thornton Manor, Thornton Hough, Merseyside (see descriptions of both these sites elsewhere in the Register). The Rivington site was bought by Lever in 1899 as a parcel of land which included the area now occupied by Lever Park (see the description of this site elsewhere in the Register) to the west. He had already formulated ideas on how the grounds might be developed when, in 1905, he met Mawson who collaborated with him in the design of the gardens over the period 1906-22. Following Lord Leverhulme's death in 1925 the house and gardens were purchased by John Magee. After his death in 1939 the site was acquired by Liverpool Corporation and it passed to the North West Water Authority in 1974 following local government reorganisation.