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During
the late 18th century the industrial demand for transport between Manchester,
Preston, Lancaster and
Kendal, gave rise to proposals to build a broad beam canal from Westhoughton,
east of Wigan, and Kendal. A chap named John Rennie produced a survey
which included several aqueducts but with only eight locks near the Kendal end
at Tewitfield. Based on this survey, construction began
in 1792.
It
took only 7 years to open the canal between Preston
and Tewitfield and included a large aqueduct over the
River Lune north of Lancaster. At the same time
the southern section between Chorley and Clayton was opened. This caused
a five mile gap across Preston and the river
Ribble.
To temporarily solve this a tramway was built to complete the
connection, albeit not a viable solution. The tramway only survived until
1857 and since then the two sections of canal have been separated and therefore
the main Lancaster Canal has been isolated from the national canal
network. In 1819 the north section from Tewitfield was extended to kendal and a short spur built
to connect the canal to Glasson Docks.
The Glasson Arm, as it is known, has
six locks to enable the canal to achieve sea level at Glasson Docks. This
meant the Lancaster canal, from Preston had only
eight locks over the whole length from Preston to
Kendal and only six locks to allow access to the sea. This giving a
length of just over 41 miles of lock free canal. In it;s hay day, the
canal was host to express passenger boats, known as "fly" boats,
averaging a speed of around 10mph from Preston to
Kendal. The south end of the original canal was leased to the Leeds &
Liverpool Canal Company. In 1885 the rest, the north end, was sold to the
London & North Western Railway. Due to the M6 motorway
being built in 1968 the canal north of Tewitfield was
abandoned and the canal shortened, thus removing the eight locks from
navigation.
Until 1849, originally a daily service, a waterbus ran between
Kendal & Preston, the journey took, what would be
today, a staggering 14 hours. In 1833 to compete with stage coaches this
was reduced to 7 hours 15 minutes. This service was very successful and
carried 14,000 passengers in the first six months of operation. |
