CHILDREN and families from across Bury celebrated a summer of success at the closing event for Bury’d Treasure, the pirate-themed adventure game with treasure hunts hidden across seven of the borough's parks.

Launched by Bury Council in partnership with the I Will If You Will (IWIYW) campaign, Transport for Greater Manchester (TfGM) and 15 primary schools, the Bury’d Treasure routes were completed almost 600 times in total over nine weeks.

To mark the end of the Bury’d Treasure adventure, participating schools were invited to Clarence Park to take part in a real life treasure hunt with the overall winner of the programme.

The children were treated to a magical performance from Captain Dantastic, who revealed Millie Spencer was the overall winner of the nine-week programme, completing the most walks along with her parents out of everyone who took part.

Nine-year-old Millie and family completed the Bury’d Treasure routes at Nuttall Park, Holcombe Hill, Clarence Park, Philips Park and Outwood Country Park over the school summer holidays.

Millie was presented with a treasure map and led all the children to where X marked the spot to dig up the real buried treasure.

Millie’s mum, Andrea, said: “We’ve absolutely loved taking part in Bury’d Treasure over the summer, visiting local parks we’d never discovered before.

"It was a great way to keep busy as a family over the summer holidays so to find out we’d won was the icing on the cake.

“We’d love to have the opportunity to take part next year – it’s a brilliant initiative that didn’t cost us a penny but which created priceless memories.”

Greenhill Primary School and Woodbank Primary School were tied for the school prize, with children from both schools completing the same total amount of Bury’d Treasure routes over the nine weeks.

Greenhill’s very own Grace Munro, 9, was awarded an outstanding achievement prize for completing so many walks with her family.

Martyn Pilling, headteacher of Greenhill Primary School, said: “Being one of the founding schools of Bury’d Treasure has been an honour and to know our children completed so many of the treasure hunts and kept active over the summer makes me very proud.

“Grace is a brilliant representative for our school and we’re very pleased for her and her family.”

Councillor Catherine Preston (L, Radcliffe East), deputy cabinet member for health and wellbeing at Bury Council, said: “Bury’d Treasure has been a huge success and the closing event was a fantastic spectacle.

"We hope the Spencer family enjoy their prize and that everyone who completed a Bury’d Treasure hunt over the summer had a great day out.”