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The Sankey Canal (Sankey Brook Navigation)

The Sankey Canal or Sankey Brook Navigation as it is also know is to be found in Cheshire joining St Helen’s ( Merseyside) with the River Mersey.

It was built largely to carry coal from the Lancashire coal fields to Liverpool to feed the growing chemical industries there.

The first survey was done  by Henry Berry and William Taylor and an application to Parliament was duly made resulting in the Act of 20^th March 1755 which authorised the project. Work was commenced swiftly and the project was complete by 1757 including three branches to local collieries.

In 1797 an experimental steam powered boat was tried on the canal carrying a cargo of copper ore, which successfully completed its 10 mile journey along the canal on the 16^th June.

A further development authorised by an Act of Parliament in 1830 provided a link from Fiddler’s Ferry to Wines Wharf on the west bank of the Mersey and was completed by 1833.

The canal was designed for “Mersey Flats” a local sailing boat, to accommodate the masts of which swing bridges were used rather than the stone bridges of other routes, with the initial railways having to use a similar type of bridge.

Pollution became a noted problem in 1877 when it was found that mud deposits in places had an arsenic content of 2.26% due to the outflow from the local Leblanc Alkali Works and the water was so acid that iron and steel fittings could no longer be used. The problem of heavy metal pollutants of local muds and soils persists until the present day.

While built initially to carry coal from the coalfields to the Mersey, the reverse journey also became popular for the transport of raw sugar to to Sankey Sugar Works at Earlestown providing a useful income after the coalfield output had diminished

1845 saw the successful canal company merge with the St Helens and Runcorn Gap Railway Company.

Sugar traffic on the canal ended in 1959 leading to the end of commercial traffic on the canal and its closure in 1963, with some swing bridges being replaced by fixed bridges.

Restoration began in 1980 leaving most of the canal now in water, though some sections remain isolated where fixed bridges have replaced the original swing bridges. The accessible sections have been restored to navigable waterway.