page_title: St Helens, Merseyside
section_title: Culture and leisure
hierarchical_section_title: St Helens, Merseyside / Culture and leisure
caption_attribution_description: English: View of the Dream taken from the path leading to the sculpture facing away from the M62.
context_page_description: St Helens is a large town in Merseyside, England, with a population of 102,629. It is the administrative centre of the Metropolitan Borough of St Helens, which had a population of 176,843 at the 2001 Census.
  St Helens is in the south west of the historic county of Lancashire, 6 miles north of the River Mersey. The town historically lay within the ancient Lancashire division of West Derby known as a "hundred". The town initially started as a small settlement in the township of Windle but by the mid 1700s the town had become synonymous with a wider area, and by 1838 was formally made responsible for the administration of the four townships of Eccleston, Parr, Sutton and Windle. In 1868 the town was created by incorporation as a municipal borough and later became a county borough in 1887 and a metropolitan borough in 1974 with an expanded administrative responsibility for smaller towns and villages in close proximity.
  The area developed rapidly in the Industrial Revolution of the 18th and 19th centuries into a significant centre for coal mining and glassmaking.
caption: Dream unveiled in 2009
exif: {"Image Make": "Canon", "Image Model": "Canon EOS 350D DIGITAL", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image DateTime": "2009:06:14 17:32:09", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "224", "Image CustomRendered": "Normal", "Image ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "Image WhiteBalance": "Auto", "Image SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "9308", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "5456", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/1600", "EXIF FNumber": "5", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Portrait Mode", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "100", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2009:06:14 17:32:09", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2009:06:14 17:32:09", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "174389/16384", "EXIF ApertureValue": "76085/16384", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "64", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "1152", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1728", "EXIF FocalPlaneXResolution": "192000/97", "EXIF FocalPlaneYResolution": "864000/437", "EXIF FocalPlaneResolutionUnit": "2"}