Bury

City and administrative headquarters of Bury metropolitan borough, Greater Manchester, northwest England, on the River Irwell, 16 km/10 mi north of central Manchester; population (2001) 60,700. The principal industries are textiles, paper-making, and engineering. Other activities include printing and the manufacture of chemicals, textile machinery, felt, and paint.

Excavations at Bury have revealed that a castle existed in the town from about 1315, although it was a ruin by 1636. Bury prospered during the Industrial Revolution when the cotton, wool, paper-making, and engineering industries flourished, using water from the Irwell as a source of power. A canal linking Bury to Bolton and Manchester was built in 1791, and from 1846 the East Lancashire Railway Company provided a rail link with Manchester.

Bury Art Gallery (1907) includes a collection of paintings by 19th-century artists including the English painters JMW Turner and John Constable. The East Lancashire Steam Railway runs as a tourist attraction and display of steam and diesel preservation. Boat trips run on the canal from Bury to Bolton and Manchester. Kay Gardens in the centre of the town contains a memorial to the English inventor of improved textile machinery John Kay. Bury has had a market since the 15th century, which continued in the same location at Market Place until the 1850's. The town is also home to the first light rapid transport system in Britain, the Bury Metrolink Interchange (1980) and was the birthplace of the Conservative politician Robert Peel, founder of the modern police force.