Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Scarisbrick Hall. In Victorian Gothic style with a 30m tower, the hall was designed by Pugin
for Thomas Eccleston, who drained most of Martin Mere by steam power in 1787 to leave
behind a lot of farmland and what has become an important waterbird reserve. Scarisbrick
Hall is now a mixed independent school for children up to 16 years.
There used to be a packet boat point by the Blue Elephant Indian restaurant at Pinfold,
used by carriages from Southport along what is now the A570, crossing at Scarisbrick Bridge.
Once the mere was drained, Wheelwright's Wharf was employed to receive night soil from
Liverpool to use as fertiliser, no doubt adding flavour to the leeks grown here. Scarisbrick
Cross, made from a single slab of stone, is one of two lines of waymarkers and shrines laid
through the marshes to Ormskirk and Burscough Priory.
A road crossing past the Saracen's Head on one side of the canal and a monkey puzzle tree
on the other leads to Halsall, where the Grade I St Cuthbert's church of 1290 is the oldest
and one of the best in Lancashire. It has a 15th century octagonal tower with spire, original
medieval door with an ornate top and a choir vestry that was the grammar school of 1592.
Views from here are extensive across the flat farmland with its fine soil. Although the canal's
inaugural meeting was in Skipton, it was here, in this much easier topography, that digging
of the canal began.
Eanam Wharf was once one of the busiest on the canal
.
Lancashire gives way to Merseyside but the 14th century Scotch Piper Inn may be the
oldest in what was Lancashire before the county was broken up. The A5147 makes a final
crossing over Lollies Bridge at the start of Lydiate, an attractive village of small but well-
kept houses with long smart gardens running down to the canal. More low suspension bridges
follow, including one near the Running Horses public house in Maghull. The Mersey Motor
Boat Club is said to be the oldest of its kind in the country.
