Lancaster Canal

Work started almost immediately on the level section from Preston to Tewitfield. Contracts for 27 miles (43 km) of canal southwards from Tewitfield to Ray Lane near Catterall was awarded to John Murray of Colne and John Pinkerton. Although Pinkerton was a well-known canal contractor, Millar complained that the quality of his work was poor, and that he failed to follow instructions. Murray and Pinkerton were dismissed in 1795, to be replaced by several contractors each building smaller lengths of canal.[6] In January 1794 work began on the Lune Aqueduct, which was built of stone, although Rennie thought brick should have been used, as it would have been considerably cheaper. By 1797 the aqueduct was completed, carrying the canal 62 feet (19 m) above the river, and boats were able to travel the 42.4 miles (68.2 km) from Preston to Tewitfield, known as the North End. Single span aqueducts carried the canal over the River Keer and the River Wyre. As the River Brock was on almost the same level as the canal, a weir was built above the canal and its bed was lowered beneath an aqueduct. Syphons were constructed to carry the River Calder and a stream near Ashton Hall under the canal. A formal opening ceremony was held on 27 November 1797, when six boats made the journey from Lancaster to the Lune aqueduct and back again, after which dinner was served at the King's Arms. £269,406 had been spent to get this far.[7]

The section south of the River Ribble was a little more complex, because part of it was close to the intended route of the Leeds and Liverpool Canal. Work had been started on the South End, as it was officially known, in July 1793, when a contract for the length from Bark Hill near Wigan to Nightingales, near Chorley, had been let to Paul Vickers of Thorne. Negotiations with the Duke of Bridgewater had led to plans for an extension southwards from Westhoughton to the Bridgewater Canal at Worsley, but the bill presented to Parliament to authorise it was defeated,[6] largely due to objections by the owner of Atherton Hall.[8] The committee felt that a connection to the Leigh branch of the Bridgewater Canal, which was soon to be constructed, might be a better option.[6] By February 1798, Vickers had completed construction of the canal from Bark Hill to Knowley Wharf near Chorley, and it was open for traffic. William Cartwright had been appointed as assistant resident engineer in January 1794, during the construction of the Lune aqueduct, but by July 1799 was resident engineer for the whole canal. He announced that 12 miles (19 km) of the South End was then open, as far north as Johnson's Hillock, and that the next section to Clayton Green was nearly completed, with the exception of the Whittle Hill tunnels. Meanwhile, the committee were struggling with cash flow problems, but the open sections brought in some much-needed revenue.[7]

Attention then turned to how to join the North End to the South End. Several options were considered, including linking to the Douglas Navigation, and although the Leeds and Liverpool agreed to improve that waterway, the Lancashire committee could not afford their part of the work. They asked Cartwright for his opinion in 1799, and he suggested a 5-mile (8 km) tramway, to run from Clayton Green on the South End to a little short of the current terminus of the North End, which would be extended slightly.[9] The committee then asked Rennie and William Jessop to consider Cartwright's tramway and another one that had been suggested, and to advise on a canal connection between the two sections. They suggested that an embankment should be used to support a canal at the same level as the section to Lancaster, with an aqueduct over the Ribble. Locks would be required to raise the level to meet the South End at Clayton Green. Their report included a design for an aqueduct with three arches, each of 117 feet (36 m), and a total length of 640 feet (200 m). Cartwright also submitted plans for an aqueduct, as did Thomas Gibson. Rennie and Jessop approved Cartwright's plan for a tramway as a temporary solution to the problem. They thought it would cost around £21,600, and work on it started shortly afterwards.[10]

The existing South End canal was extended by 1 mile (1.6 km) from Clayton Green to Walton Summit, and a 259-yard (237 m) tunnel was constructed at Whittle Hill. This proved to be difficult to build, and it was 1 June 1803 before the first boat was able to pass through it. By that time, the North End had been extended to a new basin near Fishergate in Preston, but the tramway had only reached Bamber Bridge, and finally opened at the end of 1803. The tramway had two tracks and three inclined planes, each powered by a stationary engine and an endless chain. A wooden trestle bridge carried it over the Ribble. Cartwright died shortly after it was completed, on 19 January 1804. One of his other achievements was the cutting of a tunnel between the canal at Preston and the River Ribble, to provide a water supply for the canal. After his death, the project was completed by William Millar of Preston, and in July 1806, a Boulton and Watt steam engine began pumping water through the tunnel.[11]

Change Bridge on the route of the canal through Kendal

When the committee had been set up in 1792, most of the members had been from Lancaster, with one from Preston and one from Kendal.[12] This continued to be the case, and resulted in the extension northwards to Kendal being continually deferred. Millar surveyed two routes in 1805, and also considered the possibility of a tramway. The tramway was much cheaper, but the committee obtained a new Act of Parliament in 1807, to authorise variations to Rennie's route between Tewitfield and Hincaster, which also reverted to having all of the locks at Tewitfield. After much debate and several changes of plan, terms were finally agreed with the Leeds and Liverpool Canal, which would allow them to use much of the South End. The Lancaster Canal would construct two branches, a short 0.5-mile (0.8 km) length from Bark Hill to Wigan top lock, and a longer branch rising 64 feet (20 m) through seven locks from Johnson's Hillock. In order to provide a water supply to the Kendal level, they bought 86 acres (35 ha) of land at Killington for a reservoir, but the cost of the branches and the reservoir meant that there was no money left to construct the canal, and so the link to Kendal was deferred again.[13]

Thomas Fletcher became the engineer in 1812, and his first task was to prepare estimates for the canal to Kendal. An agreement to start work was reached in 1813, and construction of the canal north of the locks, including Hincaster Tunnel and Killington Reservoir, was managed by William Crosley from May 1817. The tunnel was finished on 25 December 1817, but the finishing of the locks took a little longer. The embankment for Killington Reservoir was raised several times, so that it now covered an area of 153 acres (62 ha), and it was full by the time the locks were completed. The opening ceremony for the Northern Reaches, as this section would become known, was held on 18 June 1819, with a flotilla of boats followed by dinner and a ball at the Town Hall in Kendal.[14]

Lancaster Canal Navigation Act 1819
Act of Parliament
Parliament of the United Kingdom
Long title	An Act to alter and amend the several Acts passed for making and maintaining the Lancaster Canal Navigation.
Citation	59 Geo. 3. c. lxiv
Dates
Royal assent	14 June 1819
Text of statute as originally enacted

The next project would be the 2.5-mile (4 km) Glasson Dock branch, which had been authorised by the Act of Parliament obtained in 1792. There was opposition from Preston, who felt that the canal crossing of the Ribble was much more important, but the makeup of the committee meant that the Glasson Branch was preferred. They obtained another Act of Parliament (59 Geo. 3. c. lxiv) in 1819, to authorise the raising of more capital, and to retrospectively sanction the construction of Killington reservoir and the branch to the Leeds and Liverpool Canal at Johnson's Hillock. Crosley had taken over as superintendent of the entire canal from Fletcher in 1820, and work commenced in 1823. It was finished in December 1825, with six locks carrying the canal down 52 feet (16 m) to the basin and dock. The company was short of money, and the lack of warehouses and wharves initially led to trade developing slowly. With the project complete, Crosley left in June 1826 to become engineer on the Macclesfield Canal, and was replaced by Bryan Padgett Gregson.[15]

A canal crossing of the River Ribble was never constructed. In 1813, when the northern extension to Kendal was about to be built, some of the Preston proprietors, led by a man called Shuttleworth, proposed a scheme to cross the Ribble on the level, which Fletcher decided was not practicable. They then proposed an aqueduct at a lower level, with locks on both sides of the river. Fletcher estimated the cost as £160,537, and while it could be done, that amount of money was not available, and providing a water supply for the locks would be difficult. Shuttleworth then demanded a special general meeting in 1817, at which he suggested that the cost could be obtained by applying to the Exchequer Bill Loan Commission, but his proposal was defeated.[16]

Basin at Carnforth, frozen over in the winter

Once the North End and the South End were connected by the tramway, profitability increased significantly. In 1803, gross income was £4,853; the following year, with the tramway now open, income jumped to £8,490. Revenue from tolls in 1803 was £4,332, with around 29 per cent derived from the South End and tramway. By 1807, this had risen to £12,467, of which 51 per cent came from the South End and tramway. Shareholders received a dividend of half a percent in 1803, and one percent from 1805 onwards.[17] Toll income for 1820, with the link to Kendal newly opened, rose to £25,289, with just over half coming from the North End, and in 1825 was £27,069, with the North End contributing 52 per cent. Goods carried included grain, timber, potatoes and slate, while the canal was also used to export coal bound for Ulverston, North Wales and Ireland. The Glasson branch allowed small ships to use the canal without transhipment, and the number doing so rose from 64 in 1830, to 185 in 1840.[18]

In the 1830s, the Canal Company realised it would have to adapt to the threat of railways. They forced the North Union Railway to build a bridge where it crossed the line of the canal to Westhoughton by extending the canal beyond Wigan locks for a short distance, although the idea of a canal to Westhoughton had long since been abandoned. The Bolton and Preston Railway wanted to use the line of the Lancaster Canal Tramway to reach Preston, and so they leased the line for £8,000 per year from 1837. However, they reached agreement with the North Union Railway in 1838 to use their line into Preston, but the Canal Company were not prepared to take back the tramway.[19] In order to compete with a potential railway north of Preston, they ran packet boats providing an express passenger service between Preston and Lancaster, which took just three hours, and later extended the service to Kendal,[20] with passengers walking up or down the flight of locks at Tewitfield and embarking on a second boat. The seven-hour journey time halved the best speeds of stage coaches; because of the comfort of the journey, passengers stayed loyal to the packet boats even after the advent of railway competition in the 1840s.

The pumping station at Preston was sold in 1836, as experience had shown that the water supply from Killington reservoir was adequate for the whole canal. Part of Whittle Hill tunnel on the South End section was converted to a cutting after roof collapses in 1827 and 1836.[21] In the early 1840s, attempts were made to sell the canal to a railway company, but as neither the North Union Railway nor the Bolton and Preston Railway were interested, they leased the Lancaster and Preston Junction Railway from 1 September 1842.[22] Seven years of complicated haggling ensued, with claims and counter-claims made by the canal and by various railway companies, until in 1849, the Lancaster and Preston Junction Railway became part of the Lancaster and Carlisle Railway. Acting as arbitrator, Robert Stephenson awarded the canal £55,552, and their claims to the railway ceased on 1 August 1849. During the seven years, the canal had made a profit of £67,391, which enabled them to pay off all their mortgages, award the proprietors a bonus of £1 17s 6d (£1 87.5p) per share and allocate £6,700 to a contingency fund.[23]

An agreement was reached with the Lancaster and Carlisle Railway in 1850, whereby the railway carried passengers and general merchandise to Kendal, but the canal carried coal and heavy goods. The canal continued to carry goods between Glasson and Preston,[24] and the relationship between the canal and railway carried on somewhat uneasily until 1858, when a dispute occurred, and the railway started to block the coal traffic from Kendal to the Lake District.[25] The London and North Western Railway leased the Lancaster and Carlisle Railway from 1859, and the proprietors sought to lease the canal to the London and North Western Railway in 1860. After a Bill to authorise the arrangement was defeated in the House of Lords in 1863, it was reintroduced the following year, and became an Act of Parliament on 29 July 1864. The canal company then received £12,665.87 per year for the lease of the northern end of the canal, which allowed them to continue paying dividends and to make investments. The South End was leased to the Leeds and Liverpool Canal for £7,075 per year, and the tramway was closed from Preston to Bamber Bridge.[26] Traffic on the remainder of the tramway had ceased by 1879, and it was closed. Eventually, the railway company offered to buy the canal, and this was formalised by an Act of Parliament obtained on 16 July 1885, although they actually took over the canal on 1 July.[27]

Under railway ownership, the canal was well-maintained, particularly because it carried coal from Preston to Kendal Gas Works, which had been built in 1824 on land bought from the canal company. This traffic amounted to between 6,500 and 7,500 long tons (6,600 and 7,600 t) each year, and there was no railway access to the gas works. The canal had always suffered problems with leakage due to limestone fissures in the bed, and in 1939 the London, Midland and Scottish Railway, who by then owned the canal, obtained an Act to close the first 0.5-mile (0.8 km) section at Kendal. By 1941–42, the section north of the gas works was unused and was closed because of leakage. The railway then attempted to close the whole canal in 1944, along with several others in their ownership, but opposition in the House of Lords resulted in the Lancaster Canal being removed from the scope of the Act. Coal traffic to the gas works was transferred to road vehicles in 1944, and the canal carried its final commercial traffic in 1947.[28]

Bridge 1 of the Glasson branch, next to the junction with Lancaster Canal

Following the nationalisation of the railways and canals and the formation of the British Transport Commission as a result of the Transport Act 1947, the Docks and Inland Waterways Executive (DIWE) were responsible for the newly nationalised canals.[29] In late 1952, the DIWE formed plans to sell off some 600 miles (970 km) of canals which were no longer commercially viable, including the Lancaster Canal, to county and local authorities.[30] These plans were published by the British Transport Commission in April 1955, as part of a report entitled Canals and Inland Waterways. By then the Lancaster Canal was part of 771 miles (1,241 km) of waterways that formed group III, earmarked for disposal. Following its publication, the Inland Waterways Association organised a series of protest meetings, with the Lancaster Canal Boat Club being formed after the one held in Lancaster.[31] The annual British Transport Commission bill was expected to contain details of what would happen to these waterways, but when it was published on 28 November 1955, the bill only contained proposals to abandon the derelict Nottingham and Walsall canals. The Inland Waterways Association detected a softening in official attitudes towards revival of the canal network.[32]

Nevertheless, parts of the canal were abandoned, using discretionary powers contained in the Transport Act 1953, which allowed the DIWE to close unused or little-used canals. Around 5.75 miles (9.25 km) of canal from Stainton Crossing Bridge to Kendal were drained because of leakage through fissures in the underlying limestone, and the last 2 miles (3.2 km) in Kendal were filled in. Although the land was sold to landowners, the towpath was retained as a public footpath, and many of the bridges remain in place. At the Preston end, around 0.75 miles (1.21 km) of canal from Aqueduct Street southwards were gradually drained and partly filled in. Above Tewitfield locks, a 100-yard (91 m) section at Burton-in-Kendal was drained because of problems with leakage, and replaced by a pipe, so that the water supply to the lower canal was maintained, but navigation north of Tewitfield ceased. The gates of the Tewitfield locks were removed, and replaced by concrete cills, to act as weirs.[33]

From January 1963, responsibility for the canal passed to the newly formed British Waterways Board.[33] The Association for the Restoration of the Lancaster Canal was formed in December 1963, to campaign for retention of the canal. It later became the Lancaster Canal Trust.[34] When the Ministry of Transport were developing plans for the M6 motorway north of Preston, they were not prepared to fund bridges where the route crossed the canal, and published plans to abandon the canal north of Tewitfield in mid 1965.[35] There was a local campaign for bridges to be built, so that restoration would be possible in the future, but the canal was culverted at the three locations where the motorway crossed it,[36] and at three more sites, where other roads were re-routed as part of the construction.[33] The channel below Stainton could still be used by small boats, as it delivered water from Killington Reservoir to the lower canal, and also fed a pipeline which ran from the canal near Garstang to a chemical works near Fleetwood.[36]

The Kendal to Preston section now terminates at Ashton basin, but previously continued to the centre of Preston where there are a number of streets and pubs whose names give clues: Wharfe Street, Kendal Street, the Lamb and Packet (the lamb being the crest of Preston), the Fighting Cocks (formerly the Boatmans). Most of the ground formerly occupied by the canal basin is now part of the University of Central Lancashire site. A Trust was formed in 2003 to extend the canal back to a new marina at Maudland, but as no progress was made, the university plan to landscape the area, in a way that will not preclude restoration of the canal in the future.[37]

The canal between Walton Summit and the Leeds and Liverpool link at Johnson's Hillock was last used for commercial traffic in 1932, although a party in canoes managed to navigate the branch as late as 1969 with only two portages[38] This section was closed in the 1960s, as a result of the M61 motorway proposal which would have required three bridges over the canal. The Ministry of Transport and British Waterways Board decided that the cost of constructing the bridges was not justified, particularly as the canal was in poor condition, and promoted a bill in Parliament for closure of the canal.[39] As a result, much is now buried under the M61 motorway, and in the Clayton-le-Woods area housing estates were built on the route in the 1990s. The remainder of the southern end, between Johnson's Hillock and Wigan Top Lock, is now considered to be part of the Leeds and Liverpool Canal and remains well used by leisure traffic.