Astley and Bedford Mosses

Astley was a railway station on the Liverpool and Manchester Railway on Chat Moss to the south of Astley village in what was then the county of Lancashire, England.

Lamb's Cottage was a short-lived, original railway station on the Liverpool and Manchester Railway to the southeast of Astley village in what was then the county of Lancashire, England. The station was 32 chains (0.64 km) east of what later became Astley station and in 2015 was Astley signal box and level crossing carrying Rindle Road.

Astley Mosley Common is an electoral ward in Leigh, England. It forms part of Wigan Metropolitan Borough Council, as well as the parliamentary constituency of Leigh.

Flow Moss was a short-lived, original railway station on the Liverpool and Manchester Railway south of Astley village in what was then the county of Lancashire, England.

Leigh Rural District was, from 1894 to 1933, a rural district of the administrative county of Lancashire, in northwest England. It spanned a rural area outlying from the town Leigh. It was created based on the rural sanitary district and consisted of the civil parishes of Astley, Culcheth, Kenyon and Lowton. The district was abolished in 1933 under a County Review Order. The parishes of Kenyon, Lowton and part of Culcheth went to the Golborne urban district, Astley was added to Tyldesley Urban District, and the remainder of Culcheth parish became part of the parish of Croft in Warrington Rural District. Since 1974 the parishes of Croft and Culcheth and Glazebury form part of the borough of Warrington and the rest are part of the Metropolitan Borough of Wigan.

Chat Moss is a large area of peat bog that makes up part of the City of Salford, Metropolitan Borough of Wigan and Trafford in Greater Manchester, England. North of the Manchester Ship Canal and River Mersey, 5 miles (8 km) to the west of Manchester, it occupies an area of about 10.6 square miles (27.5 km2). As it might be recognised today, Chat Moss is thought to be about 7,000 years old, but peat development seems to have begun there with the ending of the last ice age, about 10,000 years ago. The depth of peat ranges from 24 to 30 feet (7 to 9 m). A great deal of reclamation work has been carried out, particularly during the 19th century, but a large-scale network of drainage channels is still required to keep the land from reverting to bog. In 1958 workers extracting peat discovered the severed head of what is believed to be a Romano-British Celt, possibly a sacrificial victim, in the eastern part of the bog near Worsley. Much of Chat Moss is now prime agricultural land, although farming in the area is in decline. A 228-acre (92 ha) area of Chat Moss, notified as Astley and Bedford Mosses, was designated a Site of Special Scientific Interest in 1989. Along with nearby Risley Moss and Holcroft Moss, Astley and Bedford Mosses has also been designated as a European Union Special Area of Conservation, known as Manchester Mosses. Chat Moss threatened the completion of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, until George Stephenson, with advice from East Anglian marshland specialist Robert Stannard, succeeded in constructing a railway line through it in 1829; his solution was to "float" the line on a bed of bound heather and branches topped with tar and covered with rubble stone. The M62 motorway, completed in 1976, crosses the bog, to the north of Irlam. Also the A580 crosses the bog, forming Leigh, Lowton and Astley's (Wigan MBC)'s boundary with Warrington, Culcheth and Glazebury, Croft, and Kenyon.

Astley Green Colliery was a coal mine in Astley, Greater Manchester, then in the historic county of Lancashire, England. It was the last colliery to be sunk in Astley. Sinking commenced in 1908 by the Pilkington Colliery Company, a subsidiary of the Clifton and Kersley Coal Company, at the southern edge of the Manchester Coalfield, working the Middle Coal Measures where they dipped under the Permian age rocks under Chat Moss. The colliery was north of the Bridgewater Canal. In 1929 it became part of Manchester Collieries, and in 1947 was nationalised and integrated into the National Coal Board. It closed in 1970, and is now Astley Green Colliery Museum.

The Astley Green Colliery Museum is a museum run by the Red Rose Steam Society in Astley near Tyldesley in Greater Manchester, England. (grid reference SJ70509996) Before becoming a museum, the site was a working colliery that produced coal from 1912 to 1970; it is now protected as a Scheduled Monument. The museum occupies a 15-acre (6 ha) site by the Bridgewater Canal which has the only surviving pit headgear and engine house on the Lancashire Coalfield.

Morleys Hall, a moated hall converted to two houses, is situated at grid reference SJ 689 992 on Morleys Lane, on the edge of Astley Moss in Astley in the historic county of Lancashire and the ceremonial county of Greater Manchester, England. It was largely rebuilt in the 19th century on the site of a medieval timber house. The hall is a Grade II* listed building and the moat a scheduled ancient monument. Morleys is a private residence.

St Mary's Catholic High School is a Roman Catholic secondary school located in Astley, in the Metropolitan Borough of Wigan, Greater Manchester, England. It is a large school hosting approximately 1,700 pupils including a sixth form.

Astley is a village in the Metropolitan Borough of Wigan, Greater Manchester, England. Within the boundaries of the historic county of Lancashire, it is crossed by the Bridgewater Canal and the A580 East Lancashire Road. Continuous with Tyldesley, it is equidistant from Wigan and Manchester, both 8.3 miles (13.4 km) away. Astley Mosley Common ward had a population of 11,270 at the 2011 Census.Astley's name is Old English, indicating Anglo-Saxon settlement. It means either "east (of) Leigh", or ēastlēah the "eastern wood or clearing". Throughout the Middle Ages, Astley constituted a township within the parish of Leigh and hundred of West Derby. Astley appears in written form as Asteleghe in 1210, when its lord of the manor granted land to the religious order of Premonstratensian canons at Cockersand Abbey. Medieval and Early Modern Astley is distinguished by the dignitaries who occupied Damhouse, the local manor house around which a settlement expanded. The Bridgewater Canal reached Astley in 1795, and the Liverpool and Manchester Railway in 1830. The Industrial Revolution introduced the factory system when the village's cotton mill was built in 1833. Coal mining became an important industry. Mining subsidence and a decline in coal production led to a reduction in the industry in the mid-20th century; its cotton mill closed in 1955, and the last coal was brought to the surface in 1970. Astley has grown as part of a commuter belt, supported by its proximity to Manchester city centre and inter-city transport links. Astley Green Colliery Museum houses collections of Astley's industrial heritage.

St Stephen's Church is a parish church in Astley, Greater Manchester, England. It is an active Anglican church built in 1968 and part of Leigh deanery in the archdeaconry of Salford and diocese of Manchester. The church, together with St George's Church, Tyldesley and St John's Church, Mosley Common is part of the united benefice of Astley, Tyldesley and Mosley Common. Its origins are in Astley Chapel, a chapel of ease of Leigh Parish Church built in 1631 and its successor which was burned in an arson attack in 1961.