Hebden Bridge Rochdale Canal
The Rochdale Canal spans the Pennines for 32 miles from the centre of Manchester to its junction with the Calder & Hebble Navigation at Sowerby Bridge. It was one of three trans-Pennine routes, the others being the Leeds & Liverpool Canal and the Huddersfield Narrow Canal.
In 1804, it became the first of them to be fully opened - perhaps due to the choice of a route over the top of the Pennines, avoiding the problems with tunnel construction that had bedevilled the other two waterways.
Principal cargoes included coal, agricultural produce and materials for the textiles industry. The large number of locks on a relatively short length of canal, rising to a height of over 600 feet (180m), meant that water supply was always a problem. Several reservoirs were built especially to service the line.
Locks were made large enough to accommodate broad-gauge (14ft), boats with commercial payloads of up to 70 tons. All the locks were made with exactly the same fall: this meant all the gates were the same size, making maintenance easier, and conserved water by using the same amount of water for each lock operation.
The canal proved a success until the combined effects of road and rail competition took their inevitable toll. The last regular through-traffic ended just before World War II, and by the 1950s commercial carrying had virtually ceased altogether. Unusually, the canal had not been nationalised in 1948, and remained in private ownership.
The canal closed as a through route just four years later. One short length remained: the nine locks in central Manchester between the Ashton Canal and the Bridgewater Canal, which was an essential part of the Cheshire Cruising Ring.
Restoration work began in the 1970s, and the following decade saw much of the canal reopened on the Yorkshire side from Littleborough eastwards. This was reconnected to the waterway network in 1996 by the glorious new lock at Tuel Lane near Sowerby Bridge, which combines two earlier locks so that the canal may tunnel under a road built on its original level. At almost 20 feet (6m) deep, it vies with Bath Deep Lock for the title of the deepest lock in Britain.
Restoration of the Rochdale Canal entailed the total refurbishment of 24 locks, the cutting of a new section of channel, massive dredging of the original line and the construction of 12 new road bridges. It was reopened throughout in 2002 and now, together with the reopened Huddersfield Narrow Canal, forms part of the South Pennine Cruising Ring.
Information from the Waterscape website.
www.waterscape.com/canals-and-rivers/rochdale-canal/history
More information and history here.
Hebden Bridge Rochdale Canal
The Rochdale Canal spans the Pennines for 32 miles from the centre of Manchester to its junction with the Calder & Hebble Navigation at Sowerby Bridge. It was one of three trans-Pennine routes, the others being the Leeds & Liverpool Canal and the Huddersfield Narrow Canal.
In 1804, it became the first of them to be fully opened - perhaps due to the choice of a route over the top of the Pennines, avoiding the problems with tunnel construction that had bedevilled the other two waterways.
Principal cargoes included coal, agricultural produce and materials for the textiles industry. The large number of locks on a relatively short length of canal, rising to a height of over 600 feet (180m), meant that water supply was always a problem. Several reservoirs were built especially to service the line.
Locks were made large enough to accommodate broad-gauge (14ft), boats with commercial payloads of up to 70 tons. All the locks were made with exactly the same fall: this meant all the gates were the same size, making maintenance easier, and conserved water by using the same amount of water for each lock operation.
The canal proved a success until the combined effects of road and rail competition took their inevitable toll. The last regular through-traffic ended just before World War II, and by the 1950s commercial carrying had virtually ceased altogether. Unusually, the canal had not been nationalised in 1948, and remained in private ownership.
The canal closed as a through route just four years later. One short length remained: the nine locks in central Manchester between the Ashton Canal and the Bridgewater Canal, which was an essential part of the Cheshire Cruising Ring.
Restoration work began in the 1970s, and the following decade saw much of the canal reopened on the Yorkshire side from Littleborough eastwards. This was reconnected to the waterway network in 1996 by the glorious new lock at Tuel Lane near Sowerby Bridge, which combines two earlier locks so that the canal may tunnel under a road built on its original level. At almost 20 feet (6m) deep, it vies with Bath Deep Lock for the title of the deepest lock in Britain.
Restoration of the Rochdale Canal entailed the total refurbishment of 24 locks, the cutting of a new section of channel, massive dredging of the original line and the construction of 12 new road bridges. It was reopened throughout in 2002 and now, together with the reopened Huddersfield Narrow Canal, forms part of the South Pennine Cruising Ring.
Information from the Waterscape website.
www.waterscape.com/canals-and-rivers/rochdale-canal/history
More information and history here.