This is a disused canal in Manchester of about 15 miles
in length, built to link Bolton andBury with Manchester. Restoration is in
hand though, with hopeful completion about 2020?
The proposal for a canal to service Manchester Bolton and Bury was first
made about 1790, with the intention of providing transport for various
mining sites and other industries in the area, coal being of principal
interest. A
meeting in January 1791 prepared the presentation to Parliament and an Act
authorising the project was passed in May of the same year.
The sections from Bolton and Bury to the Oldfield road Terminus were
complete by 1808 and the original narrow canal was widened to a broad canal
with the decision to extent the project further to link into the Leeds and
Liverpool canal, which would provide a route across the Peninnes.
1830 saw a proposal to convert the canal to a railway and 1831 saw the first
meeting of the Manchester, Bolton and
Bury Canal Navigation and Railway Company, which the intention of
investigating this option, though the intention was to run a parallel route,
so preserving the canal. The rail route was completed by 1838, which saw an
end to the canal’s packet boats, both because the trains could provide a
much faster service and the speed of the boats was creating a wake which
severely damaged the canal banks.
In 1846 the company was bought by the Manchester and Leeds railway Company,
with a change of name in 1848 to the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway
Company. The railways all the time becoming increasingly dominant in the
carriage of freight , while at the same time the mines that provided the
original purpose for the canal construction where gradually being worked out
or becoming uneconomical.
1936 saw two major breaches of the canal, probably in part due to the
neglect of the canals, but with little incentive for repairs closure and
abandonment became imminent and was confirmed by Acts of Parliament in
1941and 1944 which progressively closed down sections of the canal.
Meanwhile the canal was nationalised in 1948 along with the railways, during
which period a 1955 survey stated that the canal had no commercial future,
followed by an Act allowing complete abandonment of the canal in 1961
leaving parts of the canal to be filled in and passed into private
ownership. Renovation started with the formation of the Manchester
Bolton and Bury Canal Society in 1987, with the object of preserving the
line of the canal with the long term intention of full restoration.
The Society now works in partnership with British Waterways and the local
authorities of Bolton, Bury and Salford to that end. The first 500m was
re-opened in September 2008
