The long and winding road ..

Dear Motley Crew,

It was going to be a reasonably long day today – in terms of our days at least. We’d breakfasted early, weighed anchor, and were now making our way along the Leeds and Liverpool Canal Leigh Branch, in the direction of Liverpool. Given the early hour, it somehow seemed appropriate that the first factory that should hove into view should be the Kelloggs plant.

Coming into existence just prior to WW2,

it was very nearly blown out of existence during the Manchester Blitz in December 1940,

but survived to continue the transformation of American grain into Cornflakes, Coco Pops and Frosties.

Grain was shipped along the canal to the factory by these enormous barges

Perhaps our blood sugar levels were particularly low as a result of the early start, or perhaps we were just feeling ebullient, but almost simultaneously, we burst into a rendition of the Kellogs Cornflakes jingle. From there, it was but a short transition to the original Debbie Renyolds version of “Good Morning” and we were away down the canal singing our hearts out. Too long living on a narrowboat has been known to bring on bouts of this unpredictable and idiosyncratic behaviour, but the Ship’s Nurse has advised that typically, it’s not fatal.

Rounding a bend, our warbling was brought to an abrupt finale for there ahead of us was the Barton Swing Aqueduct.

Opened in 1894, it spans the Manchester Ship Canal, and is designed, when closed, to allow narrowboats to pass along the Bridgewater Canal without pause. When open, however, it allows the passage of large vessels to pass along the MSC. The stunning thing about all of this is, that when in this open position, it retains about 800 tonnes of water in the trough.

It is the most exquisite piece of engineering and, perhaps not surprisingly, is the first and only swing aqueduct in the world.

For those who require a more detailed explanation, this is how all the bits and pieces work behind the scenes.

No sooner were we off the aqueduct, than we were immediately thrust into the hurley-burley of the morning commute of the good folk of Patricroft.

This coming together of two forms of such very different means of transport is an absolute delight to experience. Interestingly, I don’t think that too many people even notice the boats.

Not too far along the canal, inattention on our behalf was to cause us some consternation and a small degree of embarrassment. Narrow-boating is a great leveller – just when you think you’ve got the skills nailed, something comes along to bring you back to earth with a thump.

As we came into the village of Worsley, we spied this stunning residence in the distance.

The Packet House was the ticket sales office and boarding station for passengers wishing to travel along the Bridgewater Canal

So bedazzled were we by the house, that we missed the turn to the left, thought we should go right, and ended up almost embedded in their front garden.

These archways on the right were what confused us momentarily. They are, in fact, the entrances to old coal mines.

Having extricated ourselves from their petunias, we summoned up as much sang froid as was possible in the situation, took the correct turn to the left, and pointed ourselves in the general direction of Leigh and its imposing, but redundant textile mills.

Not far on from Leigh, we came upon the small community of Abram. How we wished we had happened upon it just three days prior, for each year, on the last Saturday in June, a Morris Dancing Festival is held. Now that would have been something to see.

Leigh also marks another milestone, for it is the first of many encounters that narrow boaters make on the run into Liverpool, with the sometimes idiosyncratic, but always challenging, swing bridges.

Some are automated, some manual. Some can only be operated during certain hours, and some require keys in addition to “handcuff” keys. The one thing that is common to all of them, is that the road is always clear of traffic until you lower the barriers. At that point, cars, some of them not caring to hide their impatience, appear on both sides of the canal, whilst you operate buttons or laboriously push recalcitrant manual bridges to and fro.

At one bridge, a woman ran towards me screaming in dismay as I began closing the barrier. “Oh no, no, no”, she wailed. “My bus goes in 5 minutes and there’s not another one for an hour. Oh no, no, no. What will I do?” By this stage, she was standing at the barrier clutching her head in her hands and looking absolutely distraught. I have no idea what delight or dilemma awaited her at the end of said bus ride, but clearly, something had to be done. I paused the bridge opening and let her through. Heavens knows what injury she may have inflicted upon my person had I not.

We were now at the end of the Leigh Branch of the L&L canal and an ending always indicates that a choice has to be made. In this case, we could take the right-hand branch which would take us up the Wigan 21, a flight of locks that often strikes fear and apprehension into the strongest of arms, or turn left to Wigan town and then on to Liverpool. Left it was – we would tackle the 21 later.

But firstly, I needed to figure out how all of this worked.

These upright drums operate the gates.

Closed ..,

open.

Simple when you know how.

As with Leigh, and so many of the towns along this canal, Wigan was a mill town. Textiles, and then later cotton mills dominated, with the latter, as in so many other towns, being the source of unbearable conditions, low pay and the employer of child labour. Coal mines were also plentiful, and records show that in 1854 there were 54 collieries operating in or around the town.

Another abandoned mill, another dream gone sour. Perhaps it could post an ad in the Personal Column?

"Solid, dependable mill – seeking new life with outrageously bright and vibrant partner/s with view to long-term relationship. Should be fond of antiques, good food, jazz, and an out-going lifestyle. Able to provide waterside views. Genuine respondents only. Please call John or Hayley."

Burscough – another junction, and more enticing arches, but no chance of us being waylaid here or enticed off the main canal, for this one leads to the Ribble Link and Lancaster. This one is a scary one, so we scurried past.

The Wharf Buildings in Burscough were originally purpose-built as a veterinary centre to care for the horses that hauled the barges along the canal. These days, the wharf offers services for narrow boaters only, but the old stables, weighbridge, barns, and harness rooms are all still there.

In contrast to Wigan Pier, Ainscough’s huge flour mill near Burscough has certainly found its way into a new relationship and is now a very smart set of apartments.

Owned by the flour mill, these beautiful, riveted barges were used to carry grain and coal to and from the docks at Liverpool. We spied them moored up along the canal.

When journeying along the canals, especially when on the southern waterways, it’s easy to forget that the entire system originated up here in the north of England. In fact, the first canal was the Bridgewater, along which we had just travelled, and which connected Worsley to Manchester.

Near Halsall, we came upon this sculpture of a “navvy”, standing close to the place where the first sod was turned for the Leeds and Liverpool canal. Easy to forget too, that the canals were dug by hand.

The word 'navvy' came from the 'navigators' who built the first navigation canals

We were now nearing our goal, and it seemed that the proximity of this house to Liverpool had clearly been the catalyst for this piece of sculpture.

Could this be Les Claypool’s Fearless Flying Frog Brigade, and the forerunner of sixties bands with animal names?

More graffiti,

and more abandoned warehouses. We must be nearly there surely

As we neared the junction of the Leeds and Liverpool canal with Stanley docks, we came upon these unusual, cantilevered wharves along the edges of the canal.

It seems that, for many years, as a counterpart to incoming coal, manure was a staple outgoing cargo to the farmlands of West Lancashire for use as fertilizer. In this case, the manure was human. I swear that there was still an abhorrent stench to the whole area.

The last few bridges along the canal were beautiful – such a shame that the surrounding area is so run-down and despondent.

But, suddenly, here we were, at the top lock on the Stanley flight, awaiting the word to begin our descent into Liverpool.

There were five boats going down that morning. We were to travel down with Uz Boat, who we’d first met up with quite some time ago, in Stone. Unbeknown to either of us, we were both there for five days and were to be moored side by side in Salthouse Dock.

We had made it.

The Captain, The Commodore, and Mrs Chippy