Sankey Canal

The Sankey Canal in North West England, initially known as the Sankey Brook Navigation and later the St Helens Canal, is a former industrial canal, which when opened in 1757 was England's first of the Industrial revolution, and the first modern canal.

The canal eventually connected St Helens to the River Mersey at Spike Island in Widnes. Originally it followed the valley of the Sankey Brook from the Mersey through Warrington to Parr following which extensions were constructed at the Mersey end to Fiddlers Ferry and then to Widnes, while at the northern end it was extended to Sutton.

The canal was abandoned between 1931 and 1963 but has been the object of ongoing restoration attempts since 1980.

History

The Sankey Canal was built principally to transport coal from Haydock Collieries and Parr to the growing chemical industries of Liverpool, although iron ore and corn were important cargoes.

First act of Parliament

The act of Parliament authorising the construction of the navigation, the (28 Geo. 2. c. 8), was passed on 20 March 1755.

The canal was open and carrying coal by 1757; carriage of all goods was charged at a flat rate of 10d (ten old pence – £0.04, equivalent to £ when adjusted for inflation) per ton.

The line of this extension was surveyed by John Eyes, who acted as principal witness to see the bill through Parliament.

An early trial of steam power took place

Francis Giles was appointed engineer for this extension, which opened in 1833. In 1825 Giles, who was a pupil of John Rennie and involved in many canal projects of the period, had proposed a link from the Sankey, via an aqueduct across the Mersey, to the Bridgewater Canal and the Mersey and Irwell Navigation, but this was never implemented.

Operation

thumb|The current end point of the canal in St Helens

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The Sankey Canal was built for Mersey Flats, the common sailing craft of the local rivers; they were used on the Mersey, Irwell and Weaver and along the Lancashire and North Wales coasts. To allow for the masts of the flats, swing bridges were constructed where roads crossed the canal. When the railways were built, they too had to cross in similar fashion. The exception was near the newly built town in Newton-Le-Willows that was to become Earlestown, where George Stephenson erected the Sankey Viaduct for the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, leaving headroom for the flats' sails.

The canal's immediate commercial success, followed soon after by that of the Bridgewater Canal, led to a mania of canal building, and for further extension schemes to be proposed for the Sankey Canal. Francis Giles' proposal to link the canal to the Bridgwater Canal was not implemented, and neither was a plan to link the canal to the Leeds and Liverpool Canal near Leigh, to the North-East. Apart from the early extension to Fiddlers Ferry, which provided better access to the River Mersey, and the 1775 extension to St Helens, the only major change came with the extension to Widnes in the 1830s. Built primarily to take coal from Haydock and Parr down to the Mersey and so on to the saltfields of Cheshire and Liverpool, the final traffic on the Sankey Canal was very different, and in the opposite direction, consisting of raw sugar for the Sankey Sugar Works at Earlestown, Newton-le-Willows, from Liverpool.

In 1877, it was reportedly the case that, due to the pollution of a local Leblanc alkali works, "The mud deposited in the Sankey Brook, near St Helens, has been found to contain no less than 2.26 percent of arsenic ... The water of the Sankey Brook is so acid that iron fittings cannot safely be used in the barges and lock gates."

In 2004, St Michael's Golf Course, a municipal golf course in nearby Widnes built atop 30 hectares of land from old chemical waste tips was closed due to high levels of arsenic found in the soil. Reportedly, by 1891, of nearby Widnes and Ditton Marshes were buried under an average depth of of toxic galligu from alkali operations near the Sankey Canal. The galligu detritus was estimated at 10 million tonnes in total weight.

In 1845 the St Helens and Runcorn Gap Railway Company and the then more prosperous Sankey Canal Company merged to form the St Helens Canal and Railway Company.

There are plans to restore the canal, and perhaps to extend it northwards to join the main canal system via the Leeds and Liverpool Canal. The total cost of this would be in excess of £100m and it is therefore a long-term project. There are, however, plans to dig out an infilled section in the centre of St Helens as part of the town's Eastside development. A feasibility study for this work was funded by a grant from the Single Regeneration Budget Fund, while at the other end of the canal, the Widnes Waterfront plan, published by Halton Council, and the new Mersey crossing between Widnes and Runcorn were expected to lead to further restoration at Widnes. One major obstacle is that the canal is severed by the A57 dual carriageway in Warrington.

Following the closure of the Fiddlers Ferry power station which previously pumped water into the canal, the water level at Spike Island has begun to drop. The locks to the River Mersey are currently unable to be opened for fear of losing more water.

Structures

thumb|right|200px|The [[Sankey Viaduct]]

The Sankey Viaduct railway viaduct over the Sankey Canal in Newton-le-Willows, known locally as the "Nine Arches" was completed in 1830. It is still in use and carries the intercity Liverpool to Manchester (via Rainhill and St Helens Junction) railway. It actually comprises nine sandstone arches, with a 60-foot (18.3m) minimum clearance above the canal, which was required to allow the masts of the Mersey flats to clear. Designated Grade I listed building in 1966, it has been described as being "the earliest major railway viaduct in the world".

A staircase lock was built on the Sankey Canal and a second staircase was built later when the Ravenhead Branch was constructed in 1775. They are known respectively as the Old Double Lock and the New Double Lock. The latter was restored by St. Helens Borough Council in 1992, although it has no navigable waterway either above or below it.

History

First act of Parliament

Operation

Structures

See also

Notes

References

Bibliography

External links