Heaton Park

Heaton Hall had been owned by the Holland family since the Middle Ages. In 1684, when Sir John Egerton, 3rd Baronet of Wilton, married Elizabeth Holland, the hall came to the Egerton family. In 1772, Sir Thomas Egerton, 7th Baronet (later the 1st Earl of Wilton), commissioned the fashionable architect James Wyatt to design a new home for his young family. Although Wyatt had already established a reputation for himself as an innovative architect, he was only 26 years old and Heaton Hall was his first country house commission. Wyatt's neo-classical masterpiece was built in phases and was mostly completed by 1789. The park was originally laid out by William Emes in the style of Capability…

In recent years the park has hosted some open-air theatre productions. From 1998 Feelgood Theatre Productions performed open-air promenade productions many of which received Manchester Evening News Theatre Awards and the Horniman Award for outstanding service to theatre. Productions include: Blue Remembered Hills (Potter), The Wizard of Oz, The Wind in the Willows, The Three Musketeers, Arthur - King of the Britons, Dracula - The Blood Count, Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream and Macbeth. In 2016 Feelgood returned and performed the world premier of Whispers of Heaton (May and November) and Ghost Story of Heaton (October). Feelgood is now (2016) the official theatre partner for Heaton…