Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Old canalside buildings refurbished at the White Cross
.
By the infirmary is the Canal & River Trust depot with its hand-operated crane. The West
Coast Main Line crosses for the last time but is to follow the canal for much of the rest
of its journey to Preston. Also crossing is Aldcliffe Road footbridge, made in 1954 from a
shortened ship's gangplank, with a postbox in the road side of the bridge.
The canal moves south from Lancaster past a neat fence dividing it from an adjacent road.
It passes an old castellated brick boathouse, smothered in ivy, as it enters the 3km long Bur-
row Heights cutting. In the centre of the cutting is Broken Back Bridge. It takes its name from
the unusual lines of its stone courses. Hidden is Burrow Beck, which passes beneath in a sy-
phon. During construction of the cutting, a Roman find of two lions, four heads and a stone
statue of Ceres was unearthed, now in the Lancaster City Museum.
From the bridge in Galgate, the canal crosses the Conder Aqueduct and winds round a
cricket pitch to meet the A6 and the railway. The latter frames the far side of the village with
high embankment, bridges and a viaduct. Beyond the viaduct is the tower of the church of St
John, by which is the oldest silk-spinning mill in England, built in 1792. The stone village
comes to an end with Galgate Basin Wharf picnic table area, moorings and basin excavated
in 1972-1973. Canalside moorings are extensive with boats moored at an angle on the east
side as well as parallel along the west bank.
At Lodge Hill, the Glasson Dock Branch of 1825 leaves to run down the Conder valley to
Glasson and the Lune estuary, until recently the canal's one contact with the outside world.
At the junction are a narrow stone bridge and a lock keeper's cottage, frequent locks on the
branch contrasting with the absence of them on the main line.
