The Lancaster canal
The Lancaster canal is found in the North of England
originally planned to run between Westhoughton in Lancaster and Kendal in
South Cumbria, though a central section crossing the River Ribble was not
completed so the full run has never been achieved.
North of Preston the section from Preston to Tewitfield is
currently navigable. This providing a 42 mile waterway, though north of
Tewitfield the remaining canal route is cut in three places by the M6
motorway and the A590. The
Southern section is navigable from Johnson’s Hillock to Wigan to Lock as
part of the Leeds and Liverpool Canal.
The original survey was conducted by Robert Whitworth in
1772 with another in 1791 by John Longbottom , Robert Dickinson and Richard
Beck. John
Rennie did a final survey also in 1791, which was followed
by an Act of Parliament and Royal Assent for the project the following year
( 1792 ).
Construction started with John Rennie as Chief
Engineer assisted by William
Crosseley with Archibald Millar as Resident Engineer.
Work on the Northern section commenced immediately on the
section between Preston and Tewitfield, the Lune aqueduct was complete by
1797, giving a workable navigable passage of just over 42 miles between
Preston and Tewitfield. This was followed in 1819 by the completion of the
canal north of Tewitfield, which gave access to Kendal with Glasson Dock
opening in 1826.
Meanwhile at
the southern end the Leeds and Liverpool had reached Blackburn by 1810 so it
made sense to link the southern end to it, rather than build a parallel
canal and two short sections of canal were built from the Lancaster canal to
accommodate passage between the two waterways, one from Johnson’s hillock
and th eotherfrom Bark Hill to wigan.
1851 saw the Southern end of the canal leased to the Leeds
and Liverpool with a permanent arrangement made in 1864.
Meanwhile the two sections of the Lancaster canal remained
unlinked to each other as no agreement had been settled on how the River
Ribble was to be crossed or aqueduct constructed, so as a temporary measure
a tramway was built across the river to provide continuity between the two
canal sections, this was completed in 1803 and was never actually replaced
with the aqueduct it was supposed to be standing in for.
Most of the Northen end survived until 1955 when an Act of
Parliament allowed closure of a half mile section north of Kendal Gas Works,
though the of the route south of Kendal survived, with the M^ cutting off
navigation north of Tewitfield.
2002 saw what had become a detached Nothern section
reunited with the rest of the canal system with construction of the Ribble
link.
Large parts of the Southern section were built over or
isolated first by the construction on the M61 and then the Clayton –le-woods
housing estate, which has put the restoration possibilities beyond
reasonable prospect, however sections linked to the Leeds and Liverpool
still remain navigable and are now considered part of the Leeds and
Liverpool canal.
Further restoration of the Northern end continues.