Up another 66 feet.

From Wigan the Leeds and Liverpool Canal rises to around 500 feet above sea level in a series of jumps as it negotiates the hilly East Lancashire. Wigan Upper Locks saw the largest increase in altitude, climbing just over 200 feet. Yesterday we came up Johnson’s Hillock Locks, adding another 66 feet. We’re now at around 360 feet, with another two flights of locks to get us to the summit level.

Not much point in mentioning the weather; we’re all enjoying this very warm spell, I think.

A fine sunset on Friday


After a day off at Botany Bay, during which I managed to prep and repaint the left side gunnel, we set off at around half-ten with around twenty minutes to the bottom of the flight. We’re still traveling with Whippet Express, sharing the workload at the locks, but thought we’d be separated here as a single boat went past just before we set off.

Passing Whippet Express, Rob just getting ready to leave.

We needn’t have worried about the boat ahead, he turned around below the locks, using the entrance to the disused and derelict Walton Summit Branch, and moored up.


The Walton Summit Branch leaves the main line just below the locks and headed north and west to Walton Summit, passing under Whittle Hills through a tunnel. Most of it is now lost, buried under the M61, but it was part of the southern section of the Lancaster Canal. In fact all of this pound, from above Wigan Locks, was built under the auspices of the Lancaster Canal, it carried on south-east to Westhoughton, and was ultimately intended to link up with the Bridgewater Canal somewhere east of Leigh. This southern section was supposed to join with the northern bit near Preston Railway Station after crossing the Ribble, but the aqueduct was never built due to shortage of funds. Instead a “temporary” tramway on a trestle bridge carried goods across the river. During construction of the Leeds and Liverpool this 10 mile pound was adopted by the later canal under an agreement with the Lancaster Canal management. The Walton Summit Branch was officially closed in 1880, after a steady decline in revenue, and is now a quarter mile weed-choked stub, all that remains of the original 3½ miles.

We made steady progress up the seven locks, with occasional help from towpath walkers enjoying the fine weather.

Mags was on the tiller for the first 3 or 4, but she was starting to tire so went in for a sit down.

Beautiful countryside…


These guys have the right idea!


Johnson’s Hillock Top Lock

Rob and Jane decided to stop here, a libation at the pub was much too tempting. We resisted and carried on 3 miles to moor at Riley Green. I thought the last mile was going to be tedious when we caught up with a fat boat, but he kindly waved us past.



Moored in the sun at Riley Green


We stayed here today, I had some jobs to catch up on, and “The Whippets” arrived mid-afternoon, ready to join up again for Blackburn Locks tomorrow. But unfortunately so did the local farmer with his muck-spreader and proceeded to distribute some evil smelling manure on the field just the other side of the hedge. Even Mags, not known for an over-active sense of smell, was a bit put off. We decided to move out of range, just a short few hundred yards, to where the air was fresher.

The bank is overgrown and we’re sat on the bottom but the air is so much sweeter…

Locks 7, miles 5

A long day on the longest day…

Summer Solstice yesterday for our trip up the Wigan Locks, and it looked at one point that we might have to use most of the 17 hours of daylight available! The locks are currently on restricted passage to save water, opening at 08:00 until 09:30 in the morning, so we were off at just before 8, with one lock to do before the bottom of the main flight of 21 locks.

Rob on Whippet Express heading up towards Henhurst Lock

We weren’t the first though. A wide beam led the convoy, followed by the first pair of narrowboats, then us sharing with the whippets, and finally another pair of “narrers”.

Under Henhurst Bridge to the first lock of the day

By the time we’d got the first couple of locks under our belts Rob and I had perfected the “breasted up entry into the lock chambers” technique. It’s a lot quicker to do this than to take the boats in individually.

Each of the locks has an inscribed stone on the offside just below the lower gates showing the lock number.

Twenty-one to go.

Quadrant gearing on the lower gates where there’s no room for full-length balance beams.
 

We’d been told by one of the lockies on duty that levels were low on the flight. We’d already scraped the barnacles off in the lower pound below L21, and the pound between 82 and 81 (Locks 18 and 17) was having water put in from further up the flight.

Waiting for water

The leading boat is ahead, in Lock 83 are Ellie May and Eeyore, and we’re in the pound below. We had about 45 minutes wait until there was sufficient water in the pounds ahead to proceed.

Up around Lock 80 we met the first pair of boats coming down, They’ve made better time than us…
One of the pair coming down was Paneke, and we were hailed by Jane and Roger. Good to see you, albeit briefly. Hope you had a good run down the rest of the flight.

The tower on the right looks part of the local scenery, but is in fact very recent and disguises a mobile phone mast.

Jane, being somewhat vertically challenged, had trouble with the high-mounted paddle gear on some of the top gates. So I lent her a stool…

The rest of the locks went mainly without incident, we just got caught on the cill around Lock 70, but our helpful volunteer, Steve, dropped some water through, just enough to get us in the lock without draining the pound above.

In Lock 73


The higher we got the more helpers there were around. The lockies had rung around, asking volunteers if they were available. Several answered the call.




Another low pound, but passable




Just one more to go as we pass the Kirkless Hall Inn

That’s it, pulling out of the top lock


We entered Lock 86 (22) at 08:20, and left Lock 65 (1) at 14:11. Nearly 6 hours, not a record by any stretch of the imagination.

Rob and Jane set off on the long pound above, while we pulled in to top up the water tank before following on. The canal runs along the ridge above Wigan, now over 200 feet higher than where we started out this morning.

We caught up with them near Haigh Hall, moored opposite the golf course.

After getting sorted out we had Rob and Jane in for a glass of wine, which turned into a bottle or three!, Well, we’d earned it, hadn’t we?

This morning dawned bright and sunny another good day for cruising.

Coot (cute??) chick across the canal this morning.

Views looking west.


There are good moorings at Red Rock, just north of the bridge…

…but I wouldn’t count on getting a pint at the pub.

A capped colliery shaft in a field alongside the canal is a reminder of the area’s industrial past.

It’s quiet up here, the long lock flight at Wigan puts some boaters off from coming this far. But the clear water encourages weed growth which gets wrapped around the prop.

A quick squirt of reverse shifts it, though.

White Bear Marina through Bridge 69


Up from the marina there’s a long line of permanent moorings.

Porpoise looks in need of some serious TLC
A clear case of inadequate surface preparation…

We re-entered Lancashire between Addlington and Chorley.
Since Appley Bridge we’d been in the Metropolitan Borough of Wigan.

Bridge 74a carries the Manchester to Preston line, and is currently in the process of being electrificated. (just made that up…)



The programme should have been completed by December 2016, then December 2017, then January 2018. Looks like it’s been put back again, unless someone’s been nicking cables…



The canal skirts around to the east of Chorley, then ducks under the M61.

Party boat Boatel at Botany Bay boatyard

Just ahead is the Botany Bay Outlet Village, housed in the old British Leyland Truck and Bus parts factory. It started life as a cotton mill, and currently houses 5 floors of “retail delight”. There’s plans for further development on the site…

We pulled in here, and were joined a little later by the whippets who had stopped at White Bear Marina for a pump-out.
A day off tomorrow, probably. 

Locks 22, miles 3¾ yesterday, another 7¾ today.

Up to Wigan

Yesterday we moved the short distance up to Parbold, getting moored just through Parbold Bridge. It’s a bit lighter here than under the trees to the west of the bridge.

Fine decorative brickwork on this row of cottages

A hasty shot of a moorhen chick, with a parent to the right in the reeds.
There doesn’t seem to be many about this year, or maybe it’s just the area we’re in.

The banks along here are stone-built, leaning back at an angle for support. Every so often there’s a short section that leans back even further, leaving a shallow slope for clumsy boat-horses to climb back out on…


Moored at Parbold after an hour or so.


The “Whippets”, Rob and Jane, arrived later in the afternoon as we’d arranged, and we agreed to get off today despite the rather damp forecast. So at 10:30 we were on the move, after I‘d given the local beggars breakfast.


Nearly out of frame, this kestrel living up to it’s alternative name of “windhover” as it looks for prey in the field alongside.

There was a good breeze for it to hover in, too.

There was a pair of kingfishers hunting along the canal and I tried to get a picture of at least one of them, but the best I managed was a blurry shot from about 25 yards away. Not worth reproducing here.

The first lock of the day was Appley, very deep as it replaced two shallower chambers, now derelict alongside.

The lower chamber of the derelict Appley Locks on the left, the newer, deeper one just around the corner.
And it’s just started to rain… Not heavy but fine drizzle, blown on the breeze.

Told you it was deep…


The other side of Appley Bridge village is a swing bridge, the only one of three that is still in use.

Rob and Jane led off from the lock, it was easier for them to do the bridge as Mags was sitting this one out. She’s not too good today, but she’s saving herself for the Wigan flight tomorrow.

Whippet Express coming through Finch Mill Swing Bridge

The other two bridges, Ranicars and Fisher’s, are both fixed in the open position, and aren’t likely to be closed any time soon. It’s a nice spot for mooring along here, too.

Near Ranicar’s Swing Bridge


The locks come steadily along here as we follow the valley of the Douglas as it heads towards Wigan.
The next is Dean Locks, once again with a derelict chamber alongside the active one. It’d be easy to make a mistake and go for the overgrown one on the left, not knowing that the proper one is in front of the cottage.


It’d be an idyllic spot if not for the M6 running overhead…

Through Crooke


Just the other side of Crooke Bridge are moored a pair of restored Leeds and Liverpool short boats, Viktoria and Ambush.

Both these boats, built in 1934 and 1935 respectively, were used to carry grain to Ainscough’s Mill in Burscough.

Viktoria is an unpowered butty, hence the large rudder blade.

Derelict chamber alongside Ell Meadow Lock
I don’t know why these locks were duplicated. I thought at first that they’d been replaced because they were the same length as those east of Wigan, 60 feet. These west of Wigan will take a full length 72 foot pair of narrowboats. But pacing them off shows that they are of the longer length. So maybe they were built to speed up traffic on this busy section?

Pagefield Lock


Into Wigan, with the infamous Wigan Pier on the right, Trencherfield Mill ahead and The Orwell just out of sight to the left.



We pulled in after going up Wigan Bottom Lock, number 23 of the flight. So now we’ve only got 22 to do tomorrow… Early start.

Locks 5, miles 7