tarboat's photos with the keyword: bridgewater canal

Former Thomas Clayton tanker narrowboat Spey makes the turn onto the Leigh branch of the Bridgewater Canal at Worsley. More satellite dishes than GCHQ on the right keeping the locals entertained.

The tarboat is just passing onto the Barton Tank (Barton swing aqueduct) over the Manchester Ship Canal as it heads towards Worsley and Leigh. It looks as if the steelwork could do with some painting.

Former Thomas Clayton tanker narrowboat Spey makes the turn at Worsley as it heads towards Leigh on the Bridgewater Canal.

The lighthouse at Monton Turn on the Bridgewater Canal was completed in 2005 by local boatowner Phil Austin. He told the local paper that he planned to use it as a weekend retreat!

The construction of the Manchester Ship Canal saw a number of accidents and mishaps and May 29th 1893 saw the very public failure of the approach to the new Barton swing aqueduct . Bosdin Leech described the incident in his history of the Ship Canal. At the end of the approaches were dams, separating the new work from the old course of the canal. Everything was complete, and it only remained to make an aperture in both dams, and fill the new length with water. Amidst the cheering of the people the apertures were made, but when the trough was half full, an alarming accident occurred. Through some fault of construction a considerable portion of the bed of the approach on the Barton side collapsed, and a large body of water rushing through the hole forced its way through three of the arches, which carried the wall and inundated, or washed away the structures below. Fortunately the water found its way into the Ship Canal, and thus limited the damage. The accident postponed the completion of the canal, inasmuch as the old waterway had to be used during repairs and thereby delayed the pulling down of Brindley's aqueduct, which had to be removed before the section could be opened. Repairs were quickly effected and the new aqueduct commenced to be filled on June 14th. The first barge to cross over was the Ann, of Lymm, which passed through on the 2ist August with a cargo of vitriol, for Hapton, near Accrington.

Spey goes to Astley Green - a study by Tarboat junior using his phone camera.

Mrs Leah Tolley on the butty Keppel, at Preston Brook. The motor boat on the outside is the Mountbatten. These boats were worked by Mrs Tolley and her husband Jack for several years until the demise of canal carrying on the northern Trent and Mersey Canal in 1970/71 when the Anderton Canal Carrying Company boats were laid up at Preston Brook and operations transferred to road vehicles whilst the warehousing side of the business continued. The Tolleys moved the boats to Barnton where they continued to live on them until British Waterways repossessed Keppel and Mountbatten was sold to Ivor Batchelor. This is an early photo from the Tarboat collection and was taken using a small camera that I had borrowed from a friend. I walked from Preston Brook to Anderton on a gloomy February day and all the photos were badly underexposed due to my inexperience and the limitations of the camera and film. This is the only one I have so far been able to salvage from the mess.