Pennington Flash Country Park is a

country park A country park is a natural area designated for people to visit and enjoy recreation in a countryside environment. United Kingdom History In the United Kingdom, the term ''country park'' has a special meaning. There are around 250 recognised cou ...

located between

Lowton Lowton is a suburban village within the Metropolitan Borough of Wigan, in Greater Manchester, England. It is around from Leigh, south of Wigan and west of Manchester city centre. The settlement lies across the A580 East Lancashire Road. W ...

and

Leigh Leigh may refer to: Places In England Pronounced : * Leigh, Greater Manchester, Borough of Wigan ** Leigh (UK Parliament constituency) * Leigh-on-Sea, Essex Pronounced : * Leigh, Dorset * Leigh, Gloucestershire * Leigh, Kent * Leigh, Staff ...

in Greater Manchester, England.

History

flash Flash, flashes, or FLASH may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Fictional aliases * Flash (DC Comics character), several DC Comics superheroes with super speed: ** Flash (Barry Allen) ** Flash (Jay Garrick) ** Wally West, the first Kid F ...

is a water-filled hollow formed by subsidence. Pennington Flash is a lake created at the turn of the 20th century by

coal mining Coal mining is the process of extracting coal from the ground. Coal is valued for its energy content and since the 1880s has been widely used to generate electricity. Steel and cement industries use coal as a fuel for extraction of iron fro ...

subsidence Subsidence is a general term for downward vertical movement of the Earth's surface, which can be caused by both natural processes and human activities. Subsidence involves little or no horizontal movement, which distinguishes it from slope move ...

, mainly from

Bickershaw Colliery Bickershaw Colliery was a coal mine, located at Pennington, in Leigh, then within the historic county boundaries of Lancashire, England. History Bickershaw is located in the Lancashire Coalfield, and required the sinking of deep shafts to acc ...

. Before the flash the area contained two farms, both of which were abandoned in the early 1900s due to flooding. During the 1960s and 1970s the idea to convert the flash for recreation was emerging and the country park was opened in 1981.

Nature

Pennington Flash Country Park is a nature reserve. Over 230 bird species have been recorded on site including black-faced bunting, nightingale,

marsh harrier The marsh harriers are birds of prey of the harrier subfamily. They are medium-sized raptors and the largest and broadest-winged harriers. Most of them are associated with marshland and dense reedbeds. They are found almost worldwide, excluding ...

, spoonbill and Leach's storm-petrel. Additionally, a wide variety of

butterflies Butterflies are insects in the macrolepidopteran clade Rhopalocera from the order Lepidoptera, which also includes moths. Adult butterflies have large, often brightly coloured wings, and conspicuous, fluttering flight. The group comprises ...

, dragonflies and damselflies can be spotted in the area.

Facilities

Facilities include a small information centre, a nine-hole municipal golf course, a car park, a children's play area, toilets, picnic and recreation areas, eight

bird hide A bird hide (blind or bird blind in North America) is a shelter, often camouflaged, that is used to observe wildlife, especially birds, at close quarters. Although hides or hunting blinds were once built chiefly as hunting aids, they are now commo ...

s, fishing on certain shores, sailing, windsurfing and rowing through Leigh and Lowton Sailing Club. There is a network of tracks and footpaths suitable for walkers, cyclists, horse riders, joggers and wheelchair users. A

Parkrun Parkrun (stylised as parkrun) is a collection of events for walkers, runners and volunteers that take place every Saturday morning at more than 2,000 locations in 23 countries across six continents. Junior Parkrun (stylised as junior parkrun) ...

takes place every Saturday morning. A course here would have been the venue for rowing and canoeing if the

Manchester bid for the 2000 Summer Olympics The Manchester bid for the 2000 Summer Olympics and Paralympics was an unsuccessful campaign, first presented to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) on 1 February 1993. Ultimately it lost, having made it to the third round of voting with Syd ...

had been successful.

References

External links

Leigh Ornithological Society
{{coord, 53.486079, N, 2.547154, W, region:GB_type:landmark, format=dms, display=title Parks and commons in the Metropolitan Borough of Wigan Tourist attractions in the Metropolitan Borough of Wigan Country parks in Greater Manchester