Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
wool traditionally gave way to cotton because Lancashire was wetter than Yorkshire and cot-
ton manufacture requires more moisture than wool.
At Foulridge Wharf, the former Colne & Skipton Railway crossed on a trestle bridge.
Limekilns have been restored and Foulridge Tea Rooms are in old stables. This is at the end
of the Foulridge Tunnel.
The walking route is complex and not clearly marked at all turns. It involves negotiating
the B6251 and a series of housing estate roads, rather less safe than going through the tunnel
for many people with smalls boats to portage. Indeed, what signs there are avoid following
the most direct route, along the B6251, instead leading down to one of the Canal & River
Trust's canal water supply reservoirs, which are located around the tunnel. The reservoir is
used for sailing and few will want to portage beside it when 800m on the water across to the
clubhouse is more direct.
The seven Barrowford Locks drop the canal from its summit level to a 39km pound.
As the lock flight bends round, across the field by the A682 is the Grade II Pendle Heritage
Centre, at one time home to runner Roger Bannister. The centre is 6km from Pendle Hill
but on Pendle Water, which the canal is to follow. It features a 15th century cruck barn,
a 17-18th century farm labourer's cottage and information about the Pendle witches, ten
mostly poverty-ridden females from children to octogenarians who admitted witchcraft and
were hung in Lancaster in 1612 after a witch hunt.
The Bingley Five Rise Locks, Britain's highest lock staircase
.
The canal crosses Colne Water on the three-arched Swinden Aqueduct, opposite Park Hill.
Colne, from the British Celtic
calna
, means noisy river.
The canal winds its way past the terraced houses and weaving sheds of the textile mill
town of Nelson, which takes its name from a Lord Nelson Inn in place of its former names of
Greater and Little Marsden.
