THE Royal Fusiliers are celebrating their 50th Anniversary with a Freedom Parade through Bury.

The historic regiment will commemorate the milestone with a special parade and a service at Bury Parish Church on April 29, during this year's Gallipoli weekend.

Over 400 people are expected to take part in the event which includes serving troops from the First and Fifth Fusiliers, as well as cadets and veterans.

They will be joined by civic guests and dignitaries who will accompany Colonel of the Regiment, General Paul Nanson MBE, when he takes the salute.

Two further parades will also take place in Rochdale and Salford on April 28.

Colonel James Denny, regimental secretary for the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers said: "2018 is a very special year for the Regiment so we wanted to mark our 50th anniversary with a series of events that everybody could get involved with.

"The Freedom parades in Bury, Rochdale and Salford will enable members from the wider Fusilier family and the general public to come out in force and join in our special, anniversary celebrations."

The parade will start with a commemorative church service at Bury Parish Church at The Rock for VIPs and invited guests, from 11.45am.

It will then line up in Bolton Street before heading off at 1.15pm along the same route as the Gallipoli 100 parade, held last year — moving through Market Place, Market Street, Haymarket Street, Angouleme Way, Manchester Road and Silver Street where the salute will be taken outside the Fusilier Museum.

The parade will then split with Combined Bands heading right across Market Street, counter-marching in The Rock, and continuing to play for the Fusilier Association and cadet units who will dismiss in front of Castle Armoury in Castle Street.

The First and Fifth Fusilier Colour Parties will turn left in to Bolton Street and dismiss outside the East Lancashire Railway Station.

The Royal Regiment of Fusiliers, is an English infantry regiment formed in 1968, when the Lancashire Fusiliers joined with three other historic regiments.

Its official anniversary falls on St George's Day, and was marked by a thanksgiving service at the Regimental Headquarters in the Tower of London.

The four merged Fusilier units from Lancashire, Northumberland, Warwickshire and London, had almost three centuries of strong peace and wartime links.

Raised in the second half of the 17th century, they saw action together in the Netherlands in 1674, during the 1685 Monmouth Rebellion, at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690, as well as during the War of Spanish Succession, the Seven Years War, The American War of Independence, The Crimean War, and both World Wars.

The Royal Regiment of Fusiliers has since seen service across the globe, in Northern Ireland, Cyprus, the Balkans, the Gulf Wars and Afghanistan.