A Manchester Canal: During our short stay in Manchester earlier this month we did quite a bit of walking around the city, mainly admiring its Victorian and early 20th Century architecture, but also its canals – and more.
Of course Manchester isn’t Venice, and canals are one of the few things that Manchester has to concede that Birmingham rather outdoes it, but canals played a vital role in the development of the city – starting with James Brindley who built the Bridgewater Canal to bring the Duke’s coal 39 miles into the city to enable the industrial revolution which was just starting. Opened in 1761 it was the first true canal in Britain.
These pictures are from a short walk into the city centre from Ancoats along a different canal, the Ashton canal and ending on the Rochdale Canal at Piccadilly Basin. Also built largely to bring coal from the city, it was built in the 1790s. Traffic had virtually ended by the Second World War and finally ended in 1958. The canal was left to rot and became unnavigable, but was eventually restored for leisure use.
Once lined with industry, residential development around this section of the canal began around 1990 and on this section few of the original buildings remain. But the canal and its banks are still there, now adorned with a few relics of a past age.
The canals now provide a convenient and direct traffic-free route into the city centre for cyclists and pedestrians. From where I took the final picture above it was just a short stroll to a pub on Piccadilly for a cheap and pleasant evening meal – and it was ‘happy hour’.
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