Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
chutes down to the Weaver brought much new trade. In 1875 Sir Edward Leader-Williams
erected the steel viaduct and pair of guillotine gates to allow boats to be transferred the 15m
between the two waterways as salt had previously been transferred by handcart from narrow-
boats. The boat lift's 22.9 x 4.7m tanks weighed 91 tonnes empty and 252 tonnes full and
were counterbalanced. This was the most daring-ever use of hydraulics, water from a cylin-
der below the descending tank being used to force up the other tank, assisted by limited steam
power for the eight-minute cycle. In 1903 the locks were powered by electricity and allowed
to operate separately, becoming individually counterbalanced in 1908. The hydraulics were
replaced by thirty-six 1.8m diameter wheels for each tank, each loaded by a 7t weight stack,
the cycle time now being reduced to a mere six minutes.
Looking south from Barnton tunnel towards the A533 crossing
.
The Anderton Nature Park has been opened in the area adjacent to the lift with its flashes
and has recorded over 220 species of bird, 25 species of butterfly and nearly a score of
dragonfly and damselfly species, including several rare migrants. The last week in July usu-
ally offers the chance of seeing the maximum number of species.
Ingram's Lion Salt Works is now a museum, Britain's last works to produce salt by evap-
orating brine, operating from 1842 to 1986. It has a horizontal steam engine, nodding donkey
brine pump and 1900s pitched-roof railway salt wagon, but the most interesting feature is
right next to the canal where the arches at the tops of the boiler room doorways are now at
towpath level, such has been the settlement.
