Rochdale Canal
THE first canal to be built over the formidable barrier of the Pennines, the Rochdale runs from the Calder and Hebble Navigation at Sowerby Bridge.
It passes through Hebden Bridge, Todmorden and Littleborough before skirting Rochdale and Oldham into the centre of Manchester.
The only trans-Pennine canal without a tunnel, it climbs 600 feet in its 33 mile length and has 92 locks that could take barges measuring 74 feet by 14 feet and two inches.
Engineer William Jessop distrusted tunnels as the technique was still in its infancy, so the workmen sliced into the valley at Dean Head, Littleborough, creating a cheaper and quicker 'cut' 40 feet deep.
The decision to create a Rochdale Canal dated back to a meeting in the Union Flag Inn, on what is now Lord Square, Rochdale, in 1766. Supporters included the Lord of the Manor, Lord Byron, Richard Townley of Belfield Hall and Colonel Beswick of Pike House, Littleborough. They and 44 other prominent citizens subscribed a sum of £237.4.6d towards a survey. A canal over the Pennines would link the coalfields and canal networks of the east with the mills and ports of the west.
The canal had to climb 350 feet through 36 locks in just 14 miles between Sowerby Bridge and Summit, then fall 435 feet through 56 to Manchester which made it the most heavily locked canal in the country - the shortest section without a lock being just three miles.
Rochdale Canal
THE first canal to be built over the formidable barrier of the Pennines, the Rochdale runs from the Calder and Hebble Navigation at Sowerby Bridge.
It passes through Hebden Bridge, Todmorden and Littleborough before skirting Rochdale and Oldham into the centre of Manchester.
The only trans-Pennine canal without a tunnel, it climbs 600 feet in its 33 mile length and has 92 locks that could take barges measuring 74 feet by 14 feet and two inches.
Engineer William Jessop distrusted tunnels as the technique was still in its infancy, so the workmen sliced into the valley at Dean Head, Littleborough, creating a cheaper and quicker 'cut' 40 feet deep.
The decision to create a Rochdale Canal dated back to a meeting in the Union Flag Inn, on what is now Lord Square, Rochdale, in 1766. Supporters included the Lord of the Manor, Lord Byron, Richard Townley of Belfield Hall and Colonel Beswick of Pike House, Littleborough. They and 44 other prominent citizens subscribed a sum of £237.4.6d towards a survey. A canal over the Pennines would link the coalfields and canal networks of the east with the mills and ports of the west.
The canal had to climb 350 feet through 36 locks in just 14 miles between Sowerby Bridge and Summit, then fall 435 feet through 56 to Manchester which made it the most heavily locked canal in the country - the shortest section without a lock being just three miles.