LOCAL history writer Peter Riley has captured 100 years of history.

In an ingenious new book Then and Now Peter has taken a photographic look at the changing faces of 11 towns incuding Leigh, Atherton, Tyldesley, Golborne, Astley, Glazebury, Lowton and Culcheth.

He has gathered together 35 old pictures of the area and visited the same locations, standing in the same spot as the original Victorian and Edwardian photographers to capture life as it is today.

The book priced £4.99.

LEIGH has always been a fascinating town, and its coal mining and cotton helped make it one Lancashire's most important.

Today the industries may only be a memory, but they shaped the way Leigh people look at life.

In A Diary of Old Leigh by Tom Boydell, now reprinted due to popular demand, is a section devoted to sports and games, including bull baiting in King Street and bear baiting in Orchard Lane!

To compliment this publication, a sequel has been published for the first time, entitled A Diary of Old Leigh Volume 2 also written by Tom Boydell, once one of Leigh's major industrial figures.

This slim volume includes the history of Leigh's original six townships, its farms, the village constable, workhouse, stocks and dungeons, railways, and sections devoted to silk and cotton weaving.

Copies of both titles are available from Chamleys Bookshop, Union Street, Leigh, at £2.95 each.