WW GUIDE Canal

Discover… While October marked the 200th anniversary of the opening of the full length of the & Liverpool Canal, another trans-Pennine route, the , was also the focus of celebrations. After a ten-month stoppage following severe lood damage to its eastern section last winter, the canal inally reopened to navigation. Once again boaters can enjoy the full 32-mile route from WW guide to the… central to . Yet in spite of its raw, natural beauty, array of ine market towns – , , Littleborough – and ROCHDALE rugged stone architecture, it is likely that the Rochdale will continue to be one of the quietest CANAL mainline canals in Britain. One reason is the locks: 91 of After a ten-month closure, the entire Rochdale them, all broad. Others are the James Francis Fox maintenance issues that have Canal has reopened. takes us on beset the waterway since it was an exhausting but thoroughly exhilarating cruise irst restored to navigation in 2002 and its shortage of facilities. Without doubt it’s a demanding cruise, but its spectacular scenery alone makes it worth every efort. And for those wanting only a quick sample of its charms, the stretch is attractive, full of interest and almost trouble- free, so deserves to be on everyone’s cruising itinerary.

Downloaded by David A Calverley from waterwaysworld.com www.waterwaysworld.com December 2016 53 In brief 7

CASTLEFIELD BASIN TO ROCHDALE 9½ miles, 42 locks Cruising time: 12 hours Starting in Manchester, you are thrown in at the deep end with a heavily locked climb through the city, including the much-feared Rochdale Nine. Along the way, you’ll find the city’s canalsides have much of interest – particularly in the way of industrial architecture. It is not until , around 5 miles east of Castlefield Basin, that crews can take a well-earned breather, before another cluster of locks up to Rochdale. It’s heavy going, for sure, but it’s worth the effort. 6

1 Basin is more a complex network of arms than a traditional , and marks the Rochdale’s meeting point with the Bridgewater. One of the irst modern redevelopments of a city centre canal, it is less avariciously commercial than most. Well lit and often busy, this is the best place to moor for a stay in Manchester, with the excellent Museum of Science Castlefield Basin. & Industry, MOSI, close by.

2 Feared and revered in equal measure, the Rochdale Nine is made up of broad locks with the standard Rochdale rise of 10ft. There is no consistent towpath, and even when 5 there’s a street adjacent, a high wall and safety fence complicate access to the locks. Where the towpath does exist, it is closed of at night, while one (Piccadilly, 85) is spookily subterranean. At another, a powerful drainage outfall below the bottom gate sends your boat of course. Single-handing is very, very hard; even a crew of two will struggle. In spite of all this, the Rochdale Nine is one of the most rewarding lights on the system. From Dukes Lock 92, which raises you from Castleield, the canal is hemmed in by nightclubs, old factories, oices and restaurants. One moment it’s all stone walls and cobbles, the next a concrete undercroft. 4 Crowds on Canal Street, Manchester’s gay village, will cheer you on your way. Mooring within the light is not permitted so ensure you have Concrete canyons enough time to clear it characterise the within daylight hours Rochdale Nine. before setting of.

FOOD & DRINK STOPS Dukes 92, Manchester Named after the Duke of Bridgewater 3 and close to Castlefield Basin, this hip bar/restaurant has recently benefited from a £1m revamp. Time your visit 2 with fine weather for a chance to enjoy its new outdoor kitchen and bars. Rose of Lancaster, No-nonsense pub grub and great views of the canal and railway make 1 this a top stop for famished boaters. Downloaded by David A Calverley from waterwaysworld.com 54 December 2016 www.waterwaysworld.com WW GUIDE Rochdale Canal

Eventually, you emerge into daylight at Lock 84 3 The last of the 19 locks through Manchester is Top Lock 65 at (one of the hardest) with a T-junction in front of you. 4 Failsworth. Passing through a retail park, with a giant Tesco Here at the Ducie Street Junction canalside, it is an ideal place for stocking up. The canal beyond the arrives from the right, bringing Ring boaters onto town ofers a welcome breather between locks and some ine industrial the Rochdale to head down the very locks you’ve just architecture before traversing a green corridor to the M60. journeyed up. Comfortable overnight moorings are available at Piccadilly Basin if you’ve had enough for the day. Continuing through , just a stone’s throw from central Manchester, regeneration has taken hold with luxury mill conversions and new-build apartments, the towpath walled in by gabions. It is this 4-mile section to Failsworth that has given the Rochdale its poor reputation, with frequent obstructions in the channel, heavy gates, debris in locks and stif paddles. Once again, steer a steady course along the centre, and take care through bridgeholes. Passage is signiicantly easier after rain, with more water in the channel. Old and new architecture at Failsworth.

5 Walkers are subject to a diversion as the canal sneaks under the M60 motorway; the IWA and Rochdale Canal Society’s success in securing a navigable culvert in 1986, against the wishes of the road-building government, was arguably the turning point for the whole restoration. Three miles north of Failsworth is the famously temperamental Grimshaw Lane Bridge, a hydraulic (vertically lifting) bridge operated with a CRT key and a muttered prayer. There are good pub-side overnight moorings on this stretch: before the lift-bridge at the Boat & Horses where the A663 crosses the canal, or beyond at the more rural Rose of Lancaster at Chadderton.

Grimshaw Lane Ducie Street Junction. Bridge.

6 The six-lock Slattocks Flight is worth all the efort, with the top The farm culvert lock nestling between a well-kept cottage and the Hopwood Arms pub. under the M62. Beyond, there is a brief interlude of countryside, before the canal’s next motorway encounter: the M62. Crossed using an existing farmer’s culvert, this is a modern detour after the motorway scythed through the canal in the late 1960s.

7 On the approach to Rochdale, an entire motorway interchange, the terminus of the A627(M), was remodelled to permit the canal to pass. The tight channel under two roads has no space for a towpath and walkers The top of are sent on a long detour (follow cycle route 66 signs). Slattocks Flight. Boaters should watch for the blind corner in the tunnel. Downloaded by David A Calverley from waterwaysworld.com www.waterwaysworld.com December 2016 55 In brief

ROCHDALE TO TODMORDEN 12½ miles, 33 locks Cruising time: 14 hours There is no let-up in the hard work with 14 locks up 63 to the summit followed by 19 down to Todmorden. Moorings are irregular, and you’ll see very few other boats. The Pennine moorland is the main attraction, a raw, barren and at times almost lunar landscape. Here, uniquely on the waterway network, you feel you’re boating through, not under, the mountains.

1 The canal keeps its distance from the town of Rochdale, though you’ll ind the towpath busy with local walkers. Take special care through bridgeholes, cutting the revs to minimise the chance of picking up something with your prop. Mooring is safe during the day but inadvisable overnight. Soon shaking of the outskirts of the town, there is a brief lockless rural section, before the beautiful Pennine hills come ever closer – a harbinger of the canal’s long rise to the summit. Two can cope, but we would suggest a crew of three or more. Sharing locks with another boat will make life easier, of course, but note that subsidence has caused some of these locks to narrow, forcing passage one at a time. (These are well signposted.) 5

4

3

Looking towards Lock 48.

2

Little Clegg Swing Bridge at .

2 Smithy Bridge is 1 a well-to-do dormitory settlement on a hillside, with its railway station handily FOOD & DRINK STOPS located canalside, ofering direct trains to Manchester The Red Lion, Littleborough and Leeds. Look out for Quality real ales, a soundtrack of ofside piling installed to 1950s/'60s music and a characterful protect the Rochdale’s landlord, make this dog-friendly boozer ecology, notably the rare a welcome trip down memory lane. loating water plantain. Downloaded by David A Calverley from waterwaysworld.com 56 December 2016 www.waterwaysworld.com WW GUIDE Rochdale Canal

View from the canal 3 Heavily locked and campaign for the Rochdale’s near Littleborough. heading under the new revival. A balance beam plaque Ben Healey Bridge, the canal records the contribution of skirts Littleborough, prime mover Keith Parry. another town founded on Fluctuating water levels in the textile industry where this closely packed light mean some of the canalside mills that mooring is forbidden are still working: look out for beyond Sladen Lock 44. Keen Fothergill Fabrics’ attractive ramblers will want to moor clock tower. This marshy before the town and walk up settlement was transformed to . Built by the coming of the canal, to feed the Rochdale Canal, for drainage reasons as much it developed into a popular as for transport, so it’s only local amenity with a pleasure- itting that the Littleborough boating tradition of its own. It Action Group did so much to still waters the canal today.

Excellent moorings are 4 Looking east available at Chelburn from Lock 38 with Wharf, below West Summit Chelburn Wharf just Lock 37, installed by the out of view behind Rochdale Canal Society. Do the right-hand trees. stay here, or on the summit itself (by consent of the keeper), if you can. Nowhere else on the waterways will you experience scenery like this.

5 At less than one mile, the Rochdale summit is exceptionally short. Once the canal was fed by eight reservoirs. Today only two are in use. Water, then, is at a premium. Keep to the centre of the channel where possible. Fortunately, the locks are close enough together for your crew to walk from one to the next. If you do get stuck, don’t be tempted to run of water from the next lock up: you may simply be storing up trouble for later. Instead, call the lock-keeper who is well practised in reloating boats.

Impressive scenery on the short summit.

Gauxholme Railway Bridge.

6 Locks with lovely long names, such as ‘Winterbutlee’ and ‘Smithyholme’, lower the canal out of the hills, with the setting of Lightbank Lock being particularly delightful. Gauxholme’s restored warehouse and wharf also make for a superlative canalscape, as does its skew iron railway bridge. Downloaded by David A Calverley from waterwaysworld.com www.waterwaysworld.com December 2016 57 In brief TODMORDEN TO SOWERBY BRIDGE 10 miles, 16 locks Cruising time: 7 hours We’d recommend the cruise from Sowerby 3 Bridge to Todmorden to any boater, irrespective of skill level. The navigation is robust, the locks gently spaced and the surroundings uniformly pleasant. Hebden Bridge is undoubtedly the highlight of this section, though Todmorden and are well worth visiting too. 2 Beyond Todmorden the valley closes in, its wooded sides sloping down to the canal as farm tracks and bridleways cross on original stone bridges. As you head down from the , the efect is slightly reminiscent of the upper Llangollen. This is now comparatively easy cruising with just ten locks to Hebden Bridge but boats are still few and far between. Pickwell & Arnold’s workshops 2 by Shawplains Lock are a welcome oasis of boating activity, a long established irm building well-regarded Dutch barges.

1

A green corridor leads to Hebden Bridge.

It used to be the case that you’ll hear the irst traces of 1 Hebden Bridge. Todmorden was the unglamorous, accents here. Statues outside the town hall unpretentious cousin to nose-in-the-air illustrate the divide: half show Lancashire’s Hebden Bridge. Today, little old Tod is cotton industry, the others Yorkshire’s decidedly on the up. It has the well-reviewed agriculture and engineering. Those engineers’ micro-brewery, Bare Arts, which doubles as inest achievement was the railway through a gallery specialising in micro nude igures, Todmorden: not just the viaduct that towers as well as plenty of dining-out opportunities. above the town centre, but also the Great Todmorden was once a border town, and Wall of Tod that “keeps t’railway out o’ t’cut”.

Todmorden.

The little Yorkshire mill town of 3 Hebden Bridge has a claim to be the Bohemian capital of ; its unique mix of tie-dyed clothing, organic delis, and real ale pubs bringing out the ‘hipster’ in every visitor. Little terraces, free of cars but rich in climbing plants, descend from the canal to the main street. You’ll see a recycled bicycle workshop, a recently reopened Thai restaurant, immaculate municipal gardens, and converted warehouses. If you can, stop here for a couple of days. In the town centre, which deserves a day in itself, walk up the steep cobbled pathway to Heptonstall, an impossibly pretty textile village high in the hills; poet Ted Hughes’ wife Sylvia Plath is buried here. On a rather less poetic note, take the opportunity to empty your Elsan and ill up your water – facilities are otherwise sparse on the Rochdale. Downloaded by David A Calverley from waterwaysworld.com 58 December 2016 www.waterwaysworld.com WW GUIDE Rochdale Canal

4 Mytholmroyd is a good stopping-of point, particularly for the literary-minded. The poet Branwell Brontë worked as the station booking clerk, and Ted Hughes was born here. The town, like Hebden Bridge, was particularly badly hit in the Boxing Day loods, being submerged under 5ft of water – levels not seen in living memory.

4 5

Brearley Upper Lock 6. 5 The village of ofers useful sources of sustenance for the canal traveller and is where the 2-mile pound is fed. Though the main road, canal and railway are crammed together into the valley, this stretch feels remote and unhurried, the only intrusion coming from the sound of 7 railbuses rattling past every half hour. 6

FOOD & DRINK STOPS

Stubbing Wharf of its country pub character Hebden Bridge – nor its good range of This flood-hit pub finally Yorkshire beers. reopened in June, six Shalimar, Sowerby Bridge months after the cellar was Could this be the best curry Canalside terraces submerged and a wall fell house in the county? The at Luddendenfoot. down. Thankfully it's lost none locals seem to think so.

6 Tuel Lane Lock is numbered 3/4 – that’s ‘three and four’, not ‘three-quarters’ – as in 1996 it replaced two earlier chambers, becoming Britain’s deepest lock in the process, with a rise just shy of 20ft. (The Rochdale locks were built with a standard rise where possible, so that a stock of standard lock-gates could be kept ready.) Combining the two locks enabled the canal to tunnel under a main road blockage, which you will encounter just beyond. The lock is strictly keeper-operated with passage by booking only.

Moored boats at Sowerby Bridge.

7 Sowerby Bridge is where the Rochdale meets the Calder & Hebble Navigation, broad like the Rochdale, but with shorter locks (57ft 6in vs 72ft). The basin is one of the inest on the network, with its large transhipment warehouses and uniformed Shire Cruisers . There are plentiful moorings for a visit to the town, which is a down-to-earth kind of place, its Entering the tunnel clutter of stone buildings climbing up the valley sides. It pays to at Tuel Lane Lock. learn the local pronunciation: ‘Sowerby’ is pronounced ‘Soar-bi’. Downloaded by David A Calverley from waterwaysworld.com www.waterwaysworld.com December 2016 59 Planning your trip WALKING & CYCLING  Booking is required at Tuel Lane The canal may attract Lock. Call the Canal & River Trust's comparatively few boats, but Red Bull offi ce on 0303 040 4040 the towpath is always busy, right 24 hours in advance of your passage. from Manchester to Sowerby Bridge. Two long-distance paths,  Wide-beams are required to book the Way and passage through Bridge 65B. Way, follow the route for a while.  Light in facilities, ensure you take To slavishly follow the towpath would be a missed opportunity on supplies wherever possible. given the hill-walking opportunities available between Hebden Bridge and Littleborough: signposting is generally good but an Ordnance Survey map is recommended. A Heritage Trail departs from the canal railway follows the full length of the at the Summit Inn and takes in several canal with frequent stations (see industrial archaeological sites. The maps), making one-way walks easy.

Dimensions Boatyards  Length 72ft, beam 13ft 4in, draught 2ft 6in Shire Cruisers: 01422 832712 Although the Rochdale was built to full 72ft x 14ft dimensions, the Calder & Hebble, hire / repairs / pump-out / diesel / chandlery which it meets at Sowerby Bridge, has locks only 57ft 6in long. Consequently the canal is Bronte Boats: 01706 815103 a cul-de-sac for boats over this length. (Narrowboats of up to 60ft may be able to pass hire / repairs / pump-out / diesel / chandlery the C&H with extreme care by diagonal positioning in locks.) Several chambers have Pickwell & Arnold: 01706 812411 repairs subsided slightly and will not accommodate two narrowboats.

History Taken in around 1900, this The fi rst canal to be built over the construction picture shows the delivery of a steam-boat to the formidable barrier of the Pennines, work continued

Rochdale Canal Company. MIKE CLARKE the Rochdale was conceived in for three more 1776, when a group of Rochdale years. Principal men raised £237 and commissioned cargoes included to survey possible coal, agricultural routes between Sowerby Bridge and produce and Manchester. However, it wasn’t until materials for the 1794 that its Act of Parliament was textile industry. passed, the two previous bills being Locks were built rejected due largely to the water to accommodate supply concerns of mill owners. 14ft boats with The canal opened in stages as sections commercial were completed, with the Rochdale payloads of up Branch the fi rst in 1798 and further to 70 tons. sections in 1799. O cially the canal The canal was soon considered a commercial carrying had became fully navigable in 1804, but success and remained profi table into the virtually ceased altogether. 20th century, a Apart from a short profi table section in lot longer than Manchester, most of the length was closed most. However, in 1952 when an Act of Parliament was through the obtained to ban public navigation. By the combined the mid1960s the remainder was almost MIKE CLARKE e ects of road unusable, and construction of the M62 competition, motorway at the end of the decade took new legislation no account of the canal, cutting it in two. and a decline The Rochdale restoration began of traditional in the 1970s and by 1990 the entire industries, eastern section from Sowerby Bridge it ran into to Littleborough was opened. Six years fi nancial later, the canal was reconnected to the di culties in network with the opening of the new the 1920s. Its Tuel Lane Lock. In 2002 navigation was last regular restored throughout, with the entire through project requiring the refurbishment tra c ended of 24 locks, the cutting of a new The canal has changed a in 1937, and section of channel, dredging and the fair bit at Littleborough. by the 1950s construction of 12 new road bridges. Downloaded by David A Calverley from waterwaysworld.com 60 December 2016 www.waterwaysworld.com