tarboat's photos with the keyword: footbridge

A view of the swingbridge remains from the footbridge over the Macclesfield Canal in Lyme Handley, south of Poynton. The construction of a footbridge as well as a swing bridge in this rural location is a bit of a mystery. The Macclesfield Canal was never so busy that the walker would have been waiting for very long before the bridge was swung back to allow them to continue on their way. The field beyond the hedge is filled with coal workings and there is a shaft off to the left alongside the canal, so there would probably have been a certain amount of coal traffic across the swingbridge in the early years of the canal, but this would have petered out by the end of the 1830s. The swingbridge remained in use until 1971 when it was summarily removed by British Waterways.

Having seen Eagle142's recent image of this spot, I thought it would be fun to post this postcard view from just over 100 years ago. The card was posted in 1906 and it is interesting to see that it is captioned "Fool's Nook" even at that time when the pub was the Royal Oak.

For walkers this is an important crossing of the Dane. The footbridge at Gig Hall gives access into Staffordshire and onto the banks of the canal feeder that leads to Rudyard Lake. A well known Flickrite provides scale. ;-)