It was another bright, sunny morning, although there was a cool breeze blowing, particularly on the embankment where we were exposed. The couple of miles to the start of the built up area is lovely. Despite the proximity of Altrincham & Sale, it is seemingly remote and pastoral. However, as you pass under Seamon’s Moss Bridge, you know it will be a few hours before you see green fields again.
Oldfield Brow marks the western extremity of the built up area, and ushers in a mixture of modern housing (some with their own mooring basin) and light industry. The canal strides through in long straight stretches, but this initial section is not without interest. |
| The new flats |
The Linotype Works of 1897 are a remarkable survival even if the 20th century has made some totally insensitive alterations to its looks. Towering above everything just ahead are two totally out of place skyscraper blocks of apartments. They rise over the canal in a series of metal steps looking something the prow of the Titanic.
Across the canal they overlook nothing more than a large factory with smoking chimneys, steam gushing pipes and throbbing machinery. Nice. The architect (assuming someone was brave enough to put their name to the plans) must have been “under the influence” when he (or she) came up with these aberrations. It is totally out of place and proportion.
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| Old canal warehouse |
A railway bridge brings the first of the morning’s lines of moored boats – an outpost of Sale Cruising Club this time. Under Timperley Bridge the railway comes alongside in the guise of Manchester’s Metrolink. It also announces the start of possibly the most boring stretch of canal in the country (and yes I include Milton Keynes in that assessment…..just) – the Sale Straight.
Apart from a slight “curve”, four miles of mind numbing inactivity awaits. The railway follows the canal so closely on one side that there is just room for a thin strip of rail-side waste land. The other is a mixture of nondescript pre-war housing and light industry. Walton Park introduces a small section of municipally organised greenery whilst rowers were getting ready for the first training runs of the day. We have often had to dodge the rowing boats along here. A more sombre note follows with a huge cemetery that spans both sides of Marsland Bridge.
Marsland Bridge also introduces three-quarters of a mile of linear moorings – the home of Sale Cruising Club. Things can’t get any worse.
Sale Bridge brings a welcome respite to the moored boats; the town centre is just a stones-throw away. Two pubs compete for your custom; the canalside The King’s Ransom has an attractive outdoor seating area and a length of good moorings if you feel so inclined. Personally, I just want to plough on and end the nightmare.
That slight curve I mentioned earlier is next and it is a real thrill to be able to twitch the tiller a little! The next bridge introduces a green section as the canal crosses the River Mersey. It is only a tiddler here compared to what it becomes in a few miles after its confluence with the River Irwell. Mind you, after all the rain we’ve had, it was flowing pretty quickly.
The M60 motorway crosses overhead and its noise follows you for some distance as another line of moored boats await you. These are the moorings of the Watch House Cruising Club. Their headquarters are in an old lengthman’s cottage.
Urban surroundings take over again as we enter Stretford. The gaggle of derelict cruisers at the old Rathbone’s Boatyard (long closed) gets more depressing each time we come by, three have sunk and two are on the verge of doing so. Some residential narrowboats follow.
The surroundings now are a curious mixture of pre-war and very recent housing, with another modern development having its own mooring basin and a new boatyard. The other side of the canal is industrial – the first signs of the huge Trafford Park Industrial Estate.
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| Waters Meeting |
A flurry of railway bridges announces that we are approaching Waters Meeting, the junction of the original Bridgewater line from Worsley to Manchester and the later line to Runcorn, although the Manchester – Runcorn line is now considered to be the ‘main ‘ line.
The name Waters Meeting conjures up an idyllic sylvan glade with two limpid streams gently merging. Instead, you are faced with a pipe bridge and a container terminal as your surroundings. All very prosaic.
More long straights lie ahead as the canal passes through the Industrial Estate. Kellogg’s’ factory is first up with the loading arm still in water although it is gated and boomed off. The rest of the passage through the industrial grot is of no interest. The industry does not recognise the canal being separated by coils of barbed wire. Fortunately trees line both banks hiding the worst excesses.
A short length of mooring rings are provided if any boaters feel they want to let their other halves run amok with their flexible friends in the huge Trafford Park Shopping Centre. All the same chain store names that you would find in any major High Street or other major out of town shopping centre are present in a complex of buildings that must have been designed by the same architect as the flats we passed earlier. An appalling combination of Italian campanile, Hindu temple dome and Moorish balustrades “adorn” this pastiche of all that is wrong with late C20th bling.
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| Entering 'The Tank' |
Fortunately, it is soon out of sight as the canal curves round to one of the Seven Wonders of the Waterways – the Barton Swing Aqueduct. Entering a steel trough, you pass high above the Manchester Ship Canal. The aqueduct replaced Brindley’s original stone built structure across the Irwell Navigation when the Ship Canal was built to allow sufficient headroom for ships to pass up the Canal to Manchester Docks, the whole steel structure swinging open on a central pivot. Sadly it is little used these days. This is our fifth journey through “The Tank”, and we have never seen it swing.
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| Manchester Ship Canal from 'The Tank' |
However, during our stay in Liverpool we are taking a boat trip from Birkenhead, up the Mersey to Eastham Locks, into and along the Ship Canal to Salford Quays, so will be able to cruise under it even if it doesn’t need to swing for us.
The canal now enters an intensely urban section as it passes through Salford’s outer suburbs of Barton, Patricroft, Eccles, Monton and Worsley. A road comes alongside the towpath with terraced housing facing across the canal, which is fringed by trees, weeping willows and flowering cherries among them. It is all rather charming and almost Fenlike in its character.
Having said that, there is the downside of another line of moored boats – this time from the Worsley Cruising Club. Fortunately they don’t last too long. The canal starts to wind in a most unfamiliar fashion as it passes under a railway line and past the demolished remains of an old mill that used to glory in the name “Eccles Spinning and Manufacturing Company”.
The waterway starts to turn the colour of tomato soup again, as at Harecastle Tunnel. The reason is the same - iron oxide leaching out from underground workings - this time at Worsley Delph a couple of miles away.
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| The Monton Lighthouse |
Another motorway crossing, this time the M602, brought us to one of those amusing little quirky sights the canals have a habit of throwing up at us – The Monton Lighthouse. Yes, a lighthouse. It seems that a chap living in an upmarket parkhome/chalet was upset when his view across Monton Pool was partially blocked by a new block of flats. So rather than being beaten, he got even and built a lighthouse in his garden – complete with observation tower and electric light at the top. Good for him!
Woods appear on the off side as the canal strides across an embankment to approach Worsley. New housing of a very upmarket style has crept east from Worsley, but there is a clear demarcation between the Monton & Worsley.
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| The Packet House, Worsley |
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| Worsley Delph - twin entrances to the old coal mines |
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| Worsley Dry-Docks |
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| The former L&L flyboat 'Dee' |
Once past the flurry of sliproads, the canal sets out for Leigh and Wigan, more often than not on heightened banks as land around it has subsided. Woods mark the approach to Boothstown basin, now the site of Bridgewater Marina. In 2008 we had to fill up with diesel here and paid 90p a litre for the privilege – even after all the recent price increases, we still pay less than that now from our fuel boat. We would never use them again!
Journey’s end was now in sight as we cruised through a landscape still struggling to cope with the aftermath of the cessation of coal mining. Small brick built buildings hint at pumping activity still going on while concrete or brick foundations are all that remain of buildings long forgotten. Nature is slowly reclaiming the land with gorse and silver birch colonising the sides of the tracks that line both sides of the canal.
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| Astley Green Colliery - former headstock |
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