In 1853 Bury was described as a respectable and thriving market town and parliamentary borough, pleasantly situated at the junction of the East Lancashire with the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway, and in a fertile valley on the left bank of the Irwell, which runs close to the west side of the town and intersects the parish from north to south, and is joined by the stream of the Roach, which after watering the vale of the Heap, forms a junction with it at the southern extremity of the parishes of Bury and Radcliffe.

Emigrant Flemings established themselves in this parish in the reign of Edward III.