Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Leigh was a coalmining town and also has a number of mills, with prominent chimneys,
dating from Edwardian times. Frankie & Benny's and a canyon of houses are among the
more recent developments by the canal. After crossing the line of a disused railway, the canal
passes Butt's Basin with its wharf and canal office.
A new brick bridge has been built in a style in keeping with the original brick-arched
bridges, and is followed by a school on the left, approached along the towpath by many pu-
pils. The housing is a mixture of modern estates backing on to the canal and new terraces
with roads meeting the canal at right angles.
A bridge gives one of a number of reminders of the 6km/h speed limit with another stop
board crane close by. Glimpses of more open country appear with lower land leading on to
Chat Moss, away to the south, and views northwards to the Pennines and a prominent aerial.
Astley Green is a colliery village, dominated by its 30m pithead gear, the last in Lan-
cashire, and one of the largest steam winding engines ever built, the disused mine being used
for the Astley Green Colliery Museum. A red-brick Victorian church stands to the south side
of the canal with the waterside Old Boathouse public house built opposite.
The canal forms a southerly loop as it follows the contours. At intervals a blackened but
delicate church spire stabs the sky above the housing. Up the hill from the one at Worsley is
Old Hall, a 16th century manor house once owned by the Duke of Bridgewater. Extensively
remodelled in the 19th century, it now has restaurants and hosts Jacobean banquets. Briefly
back to the current day, as it is overlain by Junction 13 of the M60, the canal passes unex-
pectedly into one of the jewels of the Canal & River Trust network, the basin at Worsley and
its surroundings. The canal goes into cutting, passing below a stop board crane and heavily
timbered house and under a brick arch into the basin. The basin is breathtaking. At its head
stands the magnificent, ornate, timbered Packet House and former passenger-boat landing
steps for Manchester and Wigan, used from 1781. Scott's church of 1848 contains a rich col-
lection of Duke of Bridgewater monuments.
From the north-east corner of the basin leads a channel that divides before the Tung Fong
restaurant. The channels pass under the A572: the one on the left through rough-hewn arches
festooned with ivy, the one on the right through brick arches with interesting holes going off
at angles. The two routes rejoin in a pond surrounded by a rock cliff. At the back are en-
trances in the rock. A double-track inclined plane operated between 1797 and 1822, protected
at the top by locks. This served the mines, which were worked from the 14th century onwards
and in which the Duke of Bridgewater cut 74km of canal tunnel on four levels. Despite the
fact that this was the first of the industrial canals built over two centuries ago, those tunnels
still account for 52 per cent of the canal tunnelling in Britain and exceed the total number of
canal tunnels in the rest of the world. The mines are now considered too dangerous to enter
but water is pumped out and the iron ore in it has coloured the canal orange for a considerable
distance. There are hopes that some of the mined area can be made safe for public access.
