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Rochdale Canal
The castellated railway viaduct of the Manchester and Leeds Railway just south of Todmorden
Status	Open
Navigation Authority	British Waterways

Rochdale Canal

legend Link to Calder & Hebble Locks 1-2 Sowerby Bridge Tuel Lane Tunnel Lock 3-4 Tuel Lane Tower Hill Nr Mount Street Hollins Mill Lane Rossgrove Lane Tenterfields Victoria Terrace Luddenden Foot Station Road Rockcliffe West Lock 5 Brearley Lower Lock 6 Brearley Upper Brearley Lane Moderna Way A646 Midgley Road Westfield Terrace Lock7 Broadbottom A646 Lock 8 Mayroyd Mill Station Road, Hebden Bridge Lock 9 Hebden Aqueduct Hebble End Lock 10 Lock 11 Stubbing Brink Caldervale Line Lock 12 Pennine way Lock 13 Burnt Acres Lane Stoodley Glen Lock 14 Stoodley Lane Shaw Wood Road Lock 15 Lock 16 Haugh Road Woodhouse Road Lock 17 Key Syke Lane Stack Hills Road Lock 18 A6033 Todmorden Lock 19 Dobroyd Road Lock 20 Lock 21 Caldervale Line Lock 22 Lock 23 A681 Bacup Road Lock 24 Caldervale Line A6033 Lock 25 Lock 26 Alma Road Lock 27 Hollins Road Saint Peter's Gate Locks 28-30 Lock 31 Deanroyd Road Lock 32 Bottomley Road Lock 33 Locks 34-35 Lock 36 Lock 37 Chelburn River Roch Locks 38-40 Timbercliffe Locks 41-44 Sladen Lock 45 Lightowlers Lane Locks 46-47 A58 Halifax Road Ealees Road Lock 48 B6275 Heald Lane Brown Lodge Smithy Bridge Road Little Clegg Road Clegg Hall Road Belfield Mill Lane Belfield Lane A640 Milnrow Road Oldham Loop Burnside Road A664 Kingsway Moss Bridge Road Rochdale Wharf Lock 49 Caldervale Railway Line Bedford Street Mills arm Lock 50 Durham Street A671 Rochdale Branch Junction Milkstone Road Dicken Green Lane Sandbrook Park A664 Edinburgh Way Gorrels Way Heywood Wharf Bow Street Green Lane Lock 51 Canal Street A664 Castleton Hope Street Lock 52 Caldervale Railway Line Montrose Street Old (blocked) route M62 Heywood Branch Junction New Lock 53 Earl Street Old (blocked) route Lock 54 Lock 55 A664 Slattocks Locks 56-58 Whitegates Road Caldervale Railway Line Locks 59-60 Boarshaw Lane Scowcroft Lock 61 Caldervale Railway Line Chadderton Fold Coney Green Lock 62 Walk Mill Lock 63 Irk Aqueduct A669 Mills Hill Bridge Laurel Avenue Green Hill Kay Lane Lock 64 Drummer Hill Branch Grimshaw Lane Lift Bridge The Causeway A671 M60 and Semple Way A6104 Hollinwood Avenue Parkfield Road North Oldham Loop railway Lock 65 George Street A62 Oldham Road Sisson St/Failsworth new Bridge Ashton Road West Lock 66 Ridgefield Street Lock 67 Poplar Street Lock 68 Dob Brook Close Footbridge Droylsden Road Old Church Street Mitchell Street Footbridge Newton Heath Locks 70-73 10 Acres Lane Locks 74-75 Grimshaw Lane Lock 76 Huddersfield Line Railway Anthony Lock 77 Hulme Hall Lane A6010 Lock 78 Varley Street Locks 79-81 Whalley Street Butler Street Rodney Street Footbridge Redhill Bridge Lock 82 A665 Great Ancoats Street Nr Tariff Street Brownsfield Lock 83 Tariff Street Brewer Street Footbridge Junction with Ashton Canal Dale Street Lock 84 Dale Street Piccadilly Lock 85 Aytoun Street Manchester Metrolink Minshull Street Chorlton Street Lock 86 Chorlton Street Sackville Street Nr Canal Street Lock 87 Princess Street Lock 88 Oxford Street Junction with M&Sj canal Tib Lock 89 Albion Street Albion Mills Lock 90 Tunnel Lock 91 A56 Deansgate Link to Bridgewater Arm Liverpool-Manchester railway Castlefield Duke's Lock 92 Castle Street Link to Bridgewater Canal

The Rochdale Canal is a navigable "broad" canal in northern England, part of the connected system of the canals of Great Britain. The "Rochdale" in its name refers to the town of Rochdale, Greater Manchester, through which the canal passes.

The Rochdale is a Broad canal because its bridges and locks are wide enough to allow vessels of 14ft width. The canal runs for 32 miles (51 km) across the Pennines from the Bridgewater Canal at Castlefield Basin in Manchester to join the Calder and Hebble Navigation at Sowerby Bridge in West Yorkshire.

As originally built, the canal had 92 locks. Whilst the traditional lock numbering has been retained on all restored locks, and on all the relocated locks, the canal now has only 91 locks. The former locks 3 and 4 have been replaced with a single deep lock (Tuel Lane Lock), which is numbered as 3/4.

History

A Lock on the Rochdale Canal with water flowing over the gate due to the lack of a side channel

The Rochdale Canal was conceived in 1776, when a group of 48 eminent men from Rochdale raised £237 and commissioned James Brindley to conduct a survey of possible routes between Sowerby Bridge and Manchester.^[1] He proposed a route similar to that built, and another more expensive route via Bury.^[2] Further progress was not made until 1791, when John Rennie was asked to make a new survey in June, and two months later to make surveys for branches to Rochdale, Oldham and to some limeworks near Todmorden. The first attempt to obtain an Act of Parliament was made in 1792, but was opposed by millers, concerned about water supply,^[2] and it was not until 4 April 1794 that an act was obtained which created the Rochdale Canal Company and authorised the construction of the canal.^[3] Further acts of parliament were obtained in 1800, 1804 and 1806, the main purpose of which was to raise additional finance.^[3]

The canal was opened up in stages, as it was completed, with the Rochdale Branch being the first in 1798, further sections in 1799, and the bottom nine locks opening in 1800, so that boats from the Ashton Canal could reach Manchester.^[4] Officially, the canal opened in 1804, but construction work continued for another three years. ^[2] A 1.5 mile (2.4km) branch from Heywood to Castleton was opened in 1834.^[4]

Because of its width, it was more successful than the Huddersfield Narrow Canal and became the main highway of commerce between Lancashire & Yorkshire. Cotton, wool, coal, limestone, timber, salt and general merchandise were transported.^[3] In 1890 the canal company had 2,000 barges and traffic reached 700,000 tons/year, the equivalent of 50 barges a day^[5], in spite of competition from the Manchester and Leeds Railway (1841). Cutting tolls, the canal managed to retain trade and remain profitable, but by the start of the 20th century it was in financial trouble. Its reservoirs were sold to the Oldham and Rochdale Joint Water Board in 1923.^[1] Apart from a short profitable section in Manchester linking the Bridgewater and Ashton Canals), most of the length was closed in 1952 when an act of parliament was obtained to ban public navigation^[1] (the last complete journey having taken place in 1937) and by the mid 1960s the remainder was almost unusable. Construction of the M62 motorway in the late 1960s took no account of the canal, cutting it in two.^[1]

Restoration

With the growth in leisure boating, a campaign was mounted for its re-opening. The first section to be restored was the nine locks between the junction with the Ashton Canal and the Bridgewater Canal, as a result of the Ashton Canal reopening in 1974. ^[6] The Rochdale Canal Society was formed, and worked hard both to protect the line of the canal and to begin the process of refurbishing it, concentrating on the section from Todmorden to Sowerby Bridge. Nearly 16 miles (25.7km) was opened in this way, with the section from Todmorden to Hebden Bridge opening in 1983, and the entire eastern section up to the summit opened by 1990. The reopened section was still isolated from the canal network.^[7]

The next success was a re-fashioned link with the Calder and Hebble Canal (which had never closed) at Sowerby Bridge, which joined the restored section to the national network in 1996, and involves one of the candidates for the deepest lock on the British canal system (Tuel Lane Lock at nearly 20ft).^[2] In 2000, the canal, which had never been nationalised, passed from the control of the Rochdale Canal Company to the Waterways Trust,^[7] and an £23.8 million investment package was announced, with funding coming from the Millennium Commission, English Partnerships, and the councils of Oldham and Rochdale.^[8] As restoration proceeded, boats could travel further and further west, and the restoration of the sections through Failsworth and Ancoats were a significant part of the re-development of the north Manchester districts. On 1 July 2002, the restored sections joined up with the never-closed section in Manchester, thus re-opening the canal to navigation along its entire length.^[7]

Today

The Rochdale is significant for leisure boating in that it is one of the three canals which cross the Pennines and thus join north-western canals with the waterways of the North East, as well as opening the possibilities of touring various Pennine Rings (the Huddersfield Narrow Canal had reopened the year before, and the Leeds and Liverpool Canal had never closed).

A great attraction of the Rochdale Canal for the leisure boater lies in the fact that (unlike the Leeds and Liverpool and the Huddersfield Narrow) it climbs high over the Pennine moors rather than tunnelling through them, and the boater is surrounded by scenery which is correspondingly more spectacular (with the "penalty" of having to work more locks).^[9]

The Rochdale is at the heart of several important leisure boating routes

• In Manchester, the Rochdale Canal connects the Ashton Canal to the Bridgewater Canal, and is thus a short link in the Cheshire Ring, a one- (or better, two-) week canal ring which has been popular for 30 years.
• The Ashton Canal connects to the western end of the Huddersfield Narrow Canal, making the Rochdale Canal part of the South Pennine Ring.
• The Bridgewater Canal connects to the western end of the Leeds and Liverpool Canal, making the Rochdale Canal part of the North Pennine Ring.
• The Ashton and the Bridgewater connect the Rochdale to all the canals on the west side of England, including the Lancaster Canal, Trent and Mersey Canal and Macclesfield Canal.

East from Manchester, it crosses the Pennines via the hill towns and villages of Littleborough, Summit, Todmorden, Hebden Bridge, Mytholmroyd, and Luddendenfoot (where Bramwell Brontë was a railway booking clerk). Finally, at Sowerby Bridge, its connection with the Calder and Hebble gives boats access to all the north-eastern waterways including the Aire and Calder Navigation, the Sheffield and South Yorkshire Navigation, and the rivers Ouse and Trent (and, for boaters who wish to do a "ring", the eastern ends of the Huddersfield Narrow and Leeds/Liverpool canals).

The Rochdale has had many problems since reopening (often related to a shortage of water, because the canal's reservoirs had been sold off when the canal closed). In April 2005 the canal bank was breached between lock 60 and lock 63^[10], near the River Irk. Thousands of gallons of water surged down the river towards the nearby town of Middleton, echoing the great Middleton canal tragedy of 1927^[11]. The canal re-opened in Summer 2006, but had problems throughout the season.

The high frequency of navigation restrictions (and the need to book passage through Tuel Lane lock, and across the summit pound) means that anyone planning to use the canal should consult the British Waterways website.^[12]

See also

• Canals of the United Kingdom
• History of the British canal system

External links

• Rochdale Canal
• British Waterways Leisure Site
• News item about Farmer responsible for vandalised sections

References

• Pearson's Canal Companion: Pennine waters ISBN 0-9545383-4-X

Coordinates: 53°42′35″N 1°54′31″W / 53.7097°N 1.9087°W / 53.7097; -1.9087

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