Things to do in Bury: 12 free, and the market hall shut

Two things have changed in Bury that most listings have not caught up with. The indoor market hall is closed, after reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete was found in the structure, and its traders have moved outdoors and into Mill Gate. And the Heaton Park tramway is not running, and has not been for over a year.

Everything else on this page was checked against the venue’s own website on 9 August 2026. Prices are adult unless stated.

What a day out costs

The East Lancashire Railway

The East Lancashire Railway is the borough’s biggest draw and the reason people come to Bury from outside it. It is a 12-mile heritage line with seven stations, running from Heywood through Bury Bolton Street, Burrs Country Park, Summerseat, Ramsbottom and Irwell Vale to Rawtenstall. It is a registered charity and it runs steam and heritage diesel on published operating days rather than every day, so check the calendar before you set off.

There are two tickets and they are easy to confuse.

• Day Rover, unlimited travel all day: £26 on the day, £19.50 booked online in advance. Young person 16 to 17 £22 or £15.50, child 3 to 15 £18.50 or £12.50, family of two adults and two children £67 or £62.
• Full Line Return, one round trip with hop-offs allowed: £24 on the day, £18.50 in advance. Child £16.50 or £10.50, family £57 or £52.

There is a £2.50 booking fee per order, not per ticket, and Bury residents holding a resident permit pay £10 for an adult Day Rover.

Dated events for the rest of 2026: Bluey and Bingo on 12 September, the Autumn Diesel Gala on 18 to 20 September, Day Out With Thomas on 3 and 4 October, the Autumn Steam Gala on 16 to 18 October, billed as the last large-scale steam event of the year, and a diesel railcar gala on 7 and 8 November. Santa Specials follow at Christmas.

Bury Transport Museum

Across the road from Bolton Street station, in the restored Castlecroft Goods Warehouse of 1848, the transport museum charges £5 for adults and £3 for children aged 3 to 17, and is free to anyone holding an ELR Day Rover. It opens 10am to 4pm whenever public services are running, with last entry at 3.30pm. Among the exhibits are a horse-drawn tram that spent part of its life as a chip shop and Hilda, a steam roller.

The two museums on Moss Street

Bury Art Museum and Sculpture Centre is free, including all exhibitions. It opens Tuesday to Friday 10am to 5pm and Saturday 10am to 4.30pm, and closes on Mondays, Sundays and bank holidays. There is no car park.

The permanent collection includes more than a hundred paintings of Bury by James “Clock” Shaw. The museum has also acquired the Ramsbottom Hoard, four medieval coins found by a local metal detectorist, a gold half noble, two silver groats and a silver half groat, bought under the Treasure Act with help from the V&A Purchase Grant Fund. They are evidence of people being active around Ramsbottom in the later 1300s, which nobody had established before, and they are on permanent display at the Ramsbottom Heritage Gallery on Carr Street. The Bury Festival of Art runs on 10 and 11 October 2026.

One caution. The museum’s Victoria Wood exhibition, marking ten years since her death, closed temporarily after 4 July and the museum says only that it anticipates reopening in August. If that is why you are going, ring first.

The Fusilier Museum, a few doors along Moss Street, charges £4.95 for adults, £3.95 concessions, £2.95 children and £12.95 for a family, and the ticket works as an annual pass giving unlimited return visits for twelve months. It opens Monday to Friday 10am to 5pm and Saturday 10am to 4pm, with last admission an hour before closing, and closes on bank holidays. Two galleries cover the Lancashire Fusiliers from 1688 and the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers to the present day, and there is a shooting simulator. BBC Radio 4’s Any Questions? is being recorded there on 4 September 2026, 6.30pm to 9pm, included with admission.

The market

Bury Market is the town’s best-known institution and it is in the middle of a £33m rebuild, so the practical detail matters more than usual.

• Outdoor market: Wednesday and Friday 9am to 4.30pm, Saturday 9am to 5pm.
• Fish and Meat Hall: Monday to Saturday 9am to 4.30pm, closing at noon on Tuesdays, with limited stock on Mondays and Tuesdays.
• Relocated market hall traders, on Princess Parade and in the Mill Gate Centre: Monday to Saturday 9am to 5pm.
• Closed on bank holiday Mondays, Christmas Day and Boxing Day.

The indoor market hall itself is shut. Reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete was found in the structure and it was closed on government health and safety advice, with traders dispersed to the three locations above.

Meanwhile the new outdoor canopies are finished and the events hall, now named Casewells after a shop on Union Street believed to be the site of Bury’s first black pudding shop in 1810, is being fitted out. It will hold twelve food and retail units, a central bar and a stage, and the council expects it to open in autumn 2026. More on that in Bury planning news.

The Met

The Met on Market Street is the borough’s music and comedy venue, and the building is free to walk into. The ticket counter opens Wednesday 10am to 5pm, Thursday and Friday noon to 5pm and Saturday 10am to 2pm, plus an hour before any show. Fratelli at The Met serves New York style pizza Wednesday to Saturday noon to 9pm and Sunday 2pm to 7pm.

Autumn highlights on the venue’s own listing include free heritage tours of the building on Saturday 12 September, taking in backstage areas normally closed to the public, John Bramwell of I Am Kloot on Wednesday 16 September and Cara Dillon on Friday 18 September, both at 8pm.

Parks, moor and water, all free

Burrs Country Park, a mile north-west of the town centre on Woodhill Road, is 36 hectares on the River Irwell with a free car park, a playground, picnic tables, industrial archaeology, Irwell Sculpture Trail artworks, its own station on the East Lancashire Railway, the Brown Cow pub and the Lamppost Cafe, open Wednesday to Sunday 10am to 4pm. There is a Caravan and Motorhome Club site with 80 pitches.

Clarence Park in Walmersley is the borough’s largest urban community park at just over 20 hectares, opened in 1888 and Green Flag awarded since 2005. It has two bowling greens, two tennis courts, a skate park, a bandstand and the Clarence Lido, a former reservoir drained of 10,000 gallons in 1962 and opened as a boating and angling lake on 13 May 1967. Clarence parkrun uses it on Saturday mornings.

Whitehead Park in Elton, about 7.8 hectares, was opened by the Prince of Wales, Prince Albert Victor, on 21 July 1888. It has three football pitches, two tennis courts, and a croquet and boules lawn maintained by Bury Croquet Club.

Close Park in Radcliffe, 11.19 hectares off Dumers Lane, has been Green Flag awarded since 2004. Seven full-size football pitches, an outdoor gym, a sensory garden, sculpture trail artworks, river fishing and a heritage trail that takes in the medieval remains of Radcliffe Tower. The one-mile jogging loop is named the Terry Nortley mile.

Philips Park in Prestwich is Bury’s largest local nature reserve and the first one it declared, in October 1999. It was a deer park before it was the Philips family estate, and it now holds mixed woodland, grassland, ponds and meadows known for orange tip, brimstone and peacock butterflies. It has the borough’s first mountain bike trail and its first Countryside Centre, in the barn of the old estate farm.

Chesham Woods, declared in December 2000, is six woodlands and grazing meadows on the edge of Bury, three of them the semi-ornamental grounds of houses long since demolished. Bury has seven declared local nature reserves in total: Chapelfield, Chesham Woods, Hollins Vale, Kirklees Valley, Philips Park, Redisher Wood and Springwater Park.

The Irwell Sculpture Trail runs 33 miles from Bacup to Salford Quays through Rossendale, Bury and Salford, with more than 70 artworks along it. You do not have to walk it end to end; it is organised in clusters, and the Burrs and Close Park sections are easy afternoons. Parts are difficult for anyone with limited mobility, and the trail is still being extended, so expect occasional works.

Holcombe Hill and Peel Tower

The climb up Holcombe Hill from Ramsbottom to the Peel Monument is the best free view in the borough, and the hill and the tower’s exterior are open at all times. Whether you can climb the tower itself is another matter: it opens occasionally, when volunteers are available, and there is no official website publishing the dates. Do not plan a day around getting inside it. Bury Tourist Information, on 0161 253 5111, is the place to ask.

While you are in Ramsbottom, Visit Ramsbottom is the town’s current events listing, and the Ramsbottom Heritage Society is an unusually active local archive with more than 9,300 photographs and 80 oral history recordings. Its current exhibition, in Ramsbottom Library, marks the bicentenary of the Chatterton Catastrophe of 1826.

Heaton Park, and what is not open there

Heaton Park sits on the Prestwich boundary and is run by Manchester City Council, not Bury. Entry is free and it opens 8am to dusk every day. Parking is pay and display, charged every day from 10am to 5pm, at £1.50 for up to an hour, £2.50 for one to three hours and £3.50 for longer. Blue Badge holders park free. The Animal Centre is free, open 10am to 4pm.

Two things are commonly listed and are not currently available. Heaton Hall and the Orangery are not open to the public, in the council’s own words. The Grade I listed hall was designed by James Wyatt in 1772; Manchester Corporation bought the estate in 1902 for £230,000. And the Heaton Park Tramway is not running. The trams have been out of service for over a year while the electrical substation is overhauled, with £481,000 committed to restoring them and a restart targeted for summer 2026 but not yet confirmed. The council’s own tramway page still quotes 2021 prices, so ignore it.

Swimming and leisure

Bury Leisure is run in-house by the council, not by an outside operator. An adult swim is £5.50, juniors £3.30, under-fives £1.30 and over-65s £4. Residents eligible for the free Live Well discount card pay £3.60 for an adult swim.

There are two centres open: Castle Leisure Centre on Bolton Street in Bury, 6.15am to 10pm on weekdays, with a 64-station gym and main and teaching pools, and Ramsbottom Pool and Fitness Centre on Porritt Way, 6.45am to 9pm on weekdays, with a 25 metre pool and free parking.

Radcliffe Leisure Centre is closed. Its replacement is inside the new Radcliffe Hub, with a 25 metre six-lane pool, a learner pool, a 100-station gym and Clip’n Climb walls, but the council has not published an opening date. Until it does, Radcliffe swimmers are directed to Castle and Ramsbottom.

Getting there

Bury, Radcliffe, Whitefield and Prestwich are all on the tram, and the park and rides at Radcliffe and Whitefield are free with a valid Metrolink ticket. Ramsbottom, Tottington and Holcombe are not on the tram and need a car or a bus, and the A56 through the valley is the road to check first.

One warning about links you may find elsewhere. visitbury.com, the borough’s old tourism site, has been suspended and serves a registrar holding page. Anything pointing at it, including the old Peel Tower open days page, is dead.