Aston Under Lyne & Peak Forest Canal Guide and Map

Ashton Under Lyne Canal & Peak Forest Canal

Ashton Under Lyne Canal: An early success of the canal restoration movement, this thoroughly urban canal climbs west-east to Ashton-under-Lyne on the edge of the Manchester conurbation.

 

The free labour of gangs of canal enthusiasts in 1968 (600 volunteers) and 1972 (1000 volunteers) kick started the remedial works. Much redevelopment has taken place along the canal in East Manchester, partly as a result of the 2002 Commonwealth Games.

 

Twenty five years after the Bridgewater Canal was opened to Castlefield, two canals were promoted eastwards to the industries of Huddersfield and the limestone quarries of Peak Forest. Typical of the fragmented processes of the Canal Mania years, there was a separate Act (1792) for the 6 miles of the Manchester and Ashton-under-Lyne Canal and its 11 miles of now derelict branches.

 

The Huddersfield Narrow and the Peak Forest Canals link with the end of the Ashton around the Portland Basin and all three were finally opened at practically the same time (1800). Trade was further boosted when the Cromford and High Peak Railway and Macclesfield Canal funnelled extra trade into the Peak Forest Canal (1831). However, the coming of the railways reduced trade and the canal sold out to the competition (1848).

 

Peak Forest Canal: Running south from Greater Manchester, the canal towpath links with hundreds of miles of footpaths up the Goyt Valley, past reservoirs into the Peak National Park and along the High Peak Trail. Stunning scenery.

 

T. Brown’s ‘parliamentary’ survey (1791) of this canal into the hills of Derbyshire had a major lock flight at Marple, another at Chapel Milton and ended with a ‘railway or stone road’ into the limestone of the Peak beyond Chapel-en-le-Frith. The ‘railway or stone road’ is now called a ‘tramway’ but has never seen trams, nor was it a railway as understood today but a pioneering ‘plateway’. Instead of the present day technique of flanged wheels running on I-section metal rails, waggons or carts with broad wheels were hauled along flat iron surfaces and were kept on course by L-shaped upstands on the running plates - plateways.

 

Bugsworth Basin is an unique canal/tramway interchange where lime, limestone and gritstone arriving on tramways from Derbyshire quarries was transhipped to narrowboats to feed the demands of the Industrial Revolution in the north west. Closed in 1927 after a long decline caused by losing traffic to the railways it was finally reopened after 30 years of hard work by volunteers in 2005 and is a Scheduled Ancient Monument.

 

Whaley Bridge, the branch terminus, has a stone built warehouse and wharf, now used as a base for restaurant/trip boat. Its two arches, formerly for rail wagons, sit either side of a covered wharf. Within a few yards is the start of the first incline on the rail line to Cromford. Waggons were hauled up by chains powered by a horse capstan at the top of the Whaley Rise for over 125 years.

 

Some information from Britains Waterways by Brian Roberts used with permission.

 

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