Tree blocks canal west of Wigan

The Leeds and Liverpool Canal has been blocked by a large fallen tree near Bridge 46 at Gathurst, to the west of Wigan. The tree has also blocked the towpath.

The Canal and River Trust are hoping that contractors can clear the blockage during the weekend. An update will be issued on Monday 11th February.

Winding can be found below Dean Lock (Lock 90) to the west, or at Crooke or above Ell Meadow lock (lock 89) to the east.


Gathurst Bridge, Leeds and Liverpool Canal.

Rochdale Open Day Scrapped

The Canal & River Trust has announced that the Open Day planned for this Sunday at Lock 44, Sladen Lock, on the Rochdale Canal, has been cancelled.

This is for safety reasons due to the forecast weather conditions. Snow, freezing temperatures and icy conditions could potentially make it unsafe for people walking around and inside a drained lock.

The Canal & River Trust was expecting large numbers of the public to visit the Open Day on Sunday, so it seemed the sensible decision was to cancel the event. The works at Lock 44 are due to be completed next week so the event cannot be rescheduled.

An Open Day at Dowley Gap Locks and Aqueduct, near Bingley, also planned for Sunday, has been re-arranged for 17th February.


Sladen Lock, 44

Weather delays Dowley Gap Open Day

The recent bad weather has slowed down progress on the work being carried out at Dowley Gap Locks and Aqueduct.

This means that the Open Day planned for this Sunday, has had to be postponed.

The Open Day has now been re-scheduled for Sunday 17th February. It will run from 10.00 am to 4.00 pm, with last entry to the site being at 3.15 pm.

The 240-year-old aqueduct will be drained for leak reduction work, which will enable visitors to walk along a 50 metre section of the aqueduct bed.

The public will also have access to the nearby 2-rise locks, which will be drained to enable new gates to be fitted and masonry repairs to be carried out.

Iain Weston of the Canal & River Trust said: "Over 7000 attended our Bingley Five Rise event last year and for those who weren't able to make that, we're giving them another chance to see some of our remarkable structures. For those that did come, we're offering them something different and unique by being able to open up the aqueduct to the public for the very first time."

Dowley Gap Aqueduct and Locks are one mile east of Bingley, accessed via Main Street towards Leeds, left at Beckfoot School onto Wagon Lane and Dowley Gap Lane, or take the more direct walking route along the canal towpath. See Google Map.


Dowley Gap Aqueduct


Photo: Canal & River Trust

Unlocking artwork on the canal

As part of this winter's maintenance programme, Lock 9e of the Huddersfield Narrow Canal at Milnsbridge is having its gates replaced. However, there will be something different about the new gates - they will include poetry!

As part of an exciting partnership between the Canal & River Trust and Arts Council England, poetry by Jo Bell has been carved into the lock gate's balance beam by the artist Peter Coates. This is part of the Locklines project which will see poetry from Jo Bell, Ian McMillan and Roy Fisher appear at various locks, including Leeds and Liverpool Canal Lock 30 at Gargrave.

Apart from Lock 9e, four other lock gate replacements and two repairs will be taking place this winter. That means that in the last three years gates on more than half of the 74 locks on the Huddersfield Narrow Canal have been replaced or repaired. The funding for the poetry project has come from the Arts Council and not from C&RT's maintenance budget!

Photo: Canal & River Trust

Snow on the Huddersfield Narrow

No, this is nothing to do with the current bout of wintry weather! Anyone who saw the first programme in TV historian Dan Snow's new series "Locomotion - Dan Snow's History of Railways" may have seen that a section of the programme was filmed on a canal.

The filming was done on the Huddersfield Narrow Canal at Diggle featuring the horse-drawn boat Maria, with members of the Horseboating Society as eye candy.

The episode cam be watched here on BBC iPlayer until 5th February. The canal section begins about 10 minutes into the programme.

Dan at the tiller of Maria. [Image: BBC]

Makeover for Cooper Bridge Weir

Cooper Bridge weir on the River Calder near Mirfield is currently undergoing a multi-million pound reconstruction project as part of the Canal & River Trust’s annual waterway maintenance programme.

The weir maintains levels to allow navigation along the Calder and Hebble Navigation and onto the Huddersfield Broad Canal. It is undergoing a £2m overhaul to install a new 40 metre weir and new fish pass.

Following a major failure of the weir in 2009, this section of waterway has been forced to close on two occasions as emergency temporary repairs were undertaken which led to the navigations being closed.

Project Manager Linda Milton said: "This is the largest project happening anywhere on the waterway system during this maintenance period and is really important for these navigations. The weir is a completely new structure with a heavily reinforced base around four metres below the crest level. The remaining structure is constructed with fibre mesh concrete with steel sheet piles up and downstream tying into a sloping concrete apron to the upstream and a stepped concrete apron to the downstream. The weir also includes a bywash facility for fish migrating downstream. The main fish pass is a Larinier type and also incorporates an elver pass.

"The river cannot be closed fully and so extensive temporary works in the way of steel sheet piles have had to be driven into the river bed to form two cofferdams so the works can be carried out in two halves across the river; some of the piles are 13m in length. This enables the works to be constructed in the dry and at the same time maintain the river flow. However, due to all the heavy rainfall in 2012 this has proven a real challenge and several major floods to the river have caused delays as levels have been so high they have flooded the cofferdams out.

"The aim has been to install a new durable, robust, low maintenance structure that safeguards the navigations. Because of the nature of this river system, there is a high probability that these failures would have kept occurring so it’s important we’ve taken this action to avoid any further disruption to the three navigable waterways which rely on this weir."

Work is due to be completed by the end of January.


Cooper Bridge Weir [Photo: Canal & River Trust]

Changes to Pennine Waterways email notifications

Those of you who receive notifications by email of news updates on Pennine Waterways website please read the following:

For several years a free email notification service has been provided by Feed My Inbox. Unfortunately that service will cease from 10th January.

Luckily a very similar service is provided by Blogtrottr.

If you would like to continue (or indeed to start) receiving email notifications of news items on this website, then simply go to Pennine Waterways' "Keep Up" page and then enter your email address in the box provided.

You will receive an automated email reply. Click on the link in that email to activate your notifications.

The "Keep Up" page also tells you about other ways of keeping up with the news.

Pollution shuts part of Leeds and Liverpool

A pollution incident has closed part of the Leeds and Liverpool Canal between Wigan and Burscough. The canal is polluted at Appley Bridge, near Bridge 42.

In order to avoid spreading the pollutant and to enable cleaning-up to take place, it has been necessary to close the canal to navigation in this area.

The Canal and River Trust is trying to resolve the issue as quickly as possible. An update will be issued tomorrow, 18th December.


Appley Bridge

Croxton re-opens

The Canal and River Trust has announced that repair work at Croxton Embankment on the Trent and Mersey Canal has been completed five weeks ahead of schedule and the 12 miles of canal between Middlewich and Dutton has been re-opened to navigation.

This affects part of the Cheshire Ring. However, the Trent and Mersey Canal remains shut at Dutton Hollow, south of Preston Brook Tunnel, where the more serious breach will take much longer to repair.


Croxton embankment. Photo: Canal and River Trust

Heavy rain affects Yorkshire waterways

Heavy rain sweeping across the country yesterday has raised water levels on the river navigations of Yorkshire.

Flood gates have been closed along the Aire and Calder Navigation and the Calder and Hebble Navigation.

The "Don Doors" - the guillotine gates at each end of the Don Aqueduct on the New Junction Canal, had been closed but were re-opened earlier today.

Further heavy rainfall has been forecast to fall on Saturday onto already saturated ground. It is therefore possible that flood gates will remain closed over the weekend or that any flood gates that are re-opened may be closed again.

Anyone requiring information about the latest situation should contact the Canal and River Trust on 0303 0404040.

Update 26th November:
The "Don Doors" on the New Junction Canal have been closed again today due to extremely high water levels.
The flood locks on the Calder & Hebble Navigation will remain closed today.
The flood locks on the Aire & Calder Navigation will remain closed today.

Update 27th November:
The "Don Doors" on the New Junction Canal will remain closed today.
The flood locks on the Calder & Hebble Navigation will remain closed today.
The flood locks on the Aire & Calder Navigation will remain closed today.

Update 30th November:
The "Don Doors" on the New Junction Canal have been opened today. The Canal and River Trust has started to re-open flood locks on the Aire & Calder Navigation.


Greenwood Flood Lock on the Calder and Hebble Navigation

Winter Stoppages updated

The summary of this Winter's stoppages in the Pennines area has been updated.

Please go to this page to view the updated stoppages summary.

All the scheduled navigation stoppages affecting canals in the area covered by the Pennine Waterways website are contained on a single page. Where changes are made to these scheduled stoppages, the page is amended, with a red comment drawing attention to the alteration.

I will do my best to keep this page up to date and accurate but I may not receive every notification of changes so, if you are travelling by canal during the Winter stoppage season, please only use this as a guide and check the Waterscape site or contact local Canal and River Trust offices to check that the canals you need will be open.

Breach south of Preston Brook

A breach has closed the Trent and Mersey Canal between Preston Brook Tunnel and Barnton Tunnel. Although this is just outside the area covered by Pennine Waterways website it could affect some boaters currently on the Bridgewater Canal or in the Manchester area.

The breach is understood to be a short distance south of Dutton Lock. The Canal and River Trust have issued a stoppage notice in which they describe the event as "erosion" rather than a breach!

A video of the scene of the breach has been posted here on YouTube by Little Leigh Village website. Facebook users can see photos on Little Leigh Village's Facebook page.

A shorter video clip can be seen here on YouTube.

The breach will affect boaters navigating the Cheshire Ring. The alternative route is through Manchester and via the Ashton, Peak Forest and Macclesfield Canals. Any boaters stuck north of the breach who genuinely need to leave their boat somewhere should contact Claymoore Boats at Preston Brook, who may be able to offer you a haven. If you are north of the breach on a hire boat based south of the breach it is likely that your hire company will arrange for you to take your boat to Claymoore Boats.

The photo below comes from the Little Leigh Village's Facebook page. [Little Leigh Village website]

Update Wednesday 26th September:
The Trent and Mersey Canal has now been closed to navigation between Preston Brook Runnel and Middlewich Big Lock. The Canal and River Trust says that the canal has suffered a breach at Dutton Hollow, near Preston Brook and also that significant damage has been done to a supporting embankment at Croxton Flash near Middlewich.


Breach on Trent and Mersey. Photo: Little Leigh Village's Facebook page

Floods close Yorkshire waterways

Many of Yorkshire's navigations are currently closed due to flooding caused by heavy rain.

Flood locks have been closed on the Calder and Hebble Navigation and the Aire and Calder Navigation. The "Don Doors" - the guillotine gates each side of the Don Aqueduct on the New Junction Canal - are also closed.

These stopppages are likely to remain in place for the rest of today.

Any enquiries about these stoppages should be made to the Canal and River Trust on 0303 0404040.

Update Wednesday 26th September, 9.00 am:
The flood lock gates on the Aire & Calder and the Calder & Hebble will remain closed today. The "Don Doors" on the New Junction Canal also remain closed.

Update Thursday 27th September:
The "Don Doors" on the New Junction Canal should by now have been re-opened but all the flood locks on the Aire & Calder will remain closed today. No information has been received about the Calder & Hebble.

Update Friday 28th September:
Water levels remain high on both the Calder & Hebble and the Aire & Calder Navigations so the flood locks are still shut.

Canal and River Trust staff will be monitoring the levels over the weekend and when they reduce to a safe level they will start to open the flood locks.

Update Tuesday 2nd October:
All flood locks on the Calder & Hebble Navigation have now been re-opened.


Don Aqueduct, New Junction Canal

Leeds and Liverpool blocked by fallen tree

The Leeds and Liverpool Canal has been closed to navigation west of Blackburn after high winds brought down a large tree.

The tree is blocking the canal between Fenniscowles Bridge (93b) and Stanworth Bridge (93). Winding is available west of Stanworth Bridge or at Eanam Wharf in Blackburn.

The Canal and River Trust will issue an update tomorrow (25th September). Any enquiries about this stoppage should be made to the Canal and River Trust on 03030 404040.

Update Tuesday 25th September, 4.30 pm:
The canal is still closed to navigation at this point.

Update Wednsday 26th September, 11.00 am:
The canal has now re-opened at this location.


The Leeds and Liverpool canal west of Fenniscowles