Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
managed to complete the longest single canal in the country and the one that took the longest
time to build. Once built, it was one of the most prosperous, especially from 1820 to 1850,
promoting work in the mill towns and carrying coal, limestone, cement, machinery, wool,
cotton, groceries, beer and spirits. Liverpool corporation had helped with the financing. Most
traffic was at the two ends rather than across the Pennines but the finances were sufficiently
healthy to support the whole canal and it has been the only trans-Pennine canal to remain
open throughout. From the 1870s it lost longhaul traffic to the railways, the decline being
exacerbated by water supply problems, but it was the 13-week freeze in 1963 that finished
much of the local traffic.
It is perhaps England's finest canal for scenery and variety. As it is almost the most north-
erly in England and on the extremity of the canal network, it is much less frequently visited
than popular routes to Llangollen and Oxford. Although it is a broad canal it has short locks
that keep out some of the longer narrowboats. The broad beam reduced the impact of the
railways. Two of the canal's wide boats are on show in the National Waterways Museum,
Ellesmere Port.
River Lock in Leeds, at the junction with the Aire & Calder Navigation. Bridgewater Place towers
above everything else
.
The fastest commercial crossing was in 52 hours, the towpath has been run in 35 hrs 5 mins
and it has been cycled in a day.
The canal leaves the Aire & Calder Navigation at River Lock in Leeds, an area where
otters are present. Locks and bridges are mostly of dark millstone grit. The bridge arch is of-
