The Manchester, Bolton and Bury Canal is a disused canal in Greater Manchester, England, built to link Bolton and Bury with Manchester. The canal, when fully opened, was long. It was accessed via a junction with the River Irwell in Salford. Seventeen locks were required to climb to the summit as it passed through Pendleton, heading northwest to Prestolee before it split northwest to Bolton and northeast to Bury. Between Bolton and Bury the canal was level and required no locks. Six aqueducts were built to allow the canal to cross the rivers Irwell and Tonge and several minor roads.
The canal was commissioned in 1791 by local landowners and businessmen and built between 1791 and 1808, during the Golden Age of canal building, at a cost of £127,700 (£ today).Two Acts of Parliament allowed the company to raise £47,000, and £80,000 respectively Originally designed for narrow gauge boats, during its construction the canal was altered into a broad gauge canal to allow an ultimately unrealised connection with the Leeds and Liverpool Canal. The canal company later converted into a railway company and built a railway line close to the canal's path, which required modifications to the Salford arm of the canal.
Most of the freight carried was coal from local collieries but, as the mines reached the end of their working lives sections of the canal fell into disuse and disrepair and it was officially abandoned in 1961. In 1987 a society was formed with the aim of restoring the canal for leisure use and, in 2006, restoration began in the area around the junction with the River Irwell in Salford. The canal is currently navigable as far as Oldfield Road, Salford.
History Proposal The local geology of the Irwell Valley, which included steep sided valleys with fast flowing rivers subject to rapid flooding and dry seasons, confined local river transport to the Mersey and Irwell Navigation, west of Manchester. Financial unrest and British involvement in the American Revolutionary War restricted local transport investment to road improvements.
With the arrival of more favourable conditions, including the end of the war, a proposal for a canal to link the towns of Manchester, Bolton and Bury was mooted. Matthew Fletcher had in 1789 been employed as a technical advisor and had surveyed the route of the proposed canal, but the first public notice came from Manchester on 4 September 1790. The initial proposal probably came from a group in Bolton, with the support of the Mersey and Irwell Navigation Company. A meeting was "intended to be holden at the House of Mr Shawe, the Bull's Head in Manchester aforesaid, on Monday, the twentieth day of this instant, September, at eleven o'clock in the forenoon", where "Surveys, Plans, Levels, Estimates and Proposals" would be presented. A further meeting on 16 September, held in Bolton, appointed a committee of six Boltonians chaired by Lord Grey de Wilton to attend at Manchester. A series of resolutions at this meeting followed a discussion of the route, and authorised the necessary actions to bring the plan into fruition, which included the petitioning of Parliament for the required bill. Hugh Henshall was asked to survey the proposed route of the canal.
For local industries along the route of the proposed canal, whose operations relied on water from local rivers and brooks which the canal might also use, its construction was a controversial idea. At a meeting in Bolton on 4 October 1790, it was resolved that "proper clauses be inserted in the bill to prevent injury to owners of mills". A meeting in Bury at the Eagle & Child public house on 29 September 1790 secured an agreement that "the utility of this scheme nevertheless cannot with propriety be ascertained until such time as it has been certified, from whence and in what proportion the proprietors of the intended navigation expect to draw their resources of water". At another meeting in Bury, on 13 October 1790, Hugh Henshall gave a written report on the canal, and stated that his plan would not require water from the river in times of drought, but that floods and rivulets would supply his reservoirs. He suggested that mill owners could be protected by a suitable clause in the bill, and such a clause was duly obtained by Robert Peel. Businesses in Bolton were concerned with the location of the canal terminus, and proposed the construction of a tunnel to allow the terminus to be built closer to the town centre. Ralph Fletcher, spokesman for those concerned, reported on this proposal to the committee, although no tunnel was built.
Subscribers and funding A document entitled "A list of subscribers to the intended Bolton Bury and Manchester Canal Navigation", now kept in the Greater Manchester County Record Office, Greater Manchester County Records Office, ref. E4/78/419 lists notable subscribers including the Earl of Derby, Lord Grey de Wilton, Matthew Fletcher, and Robert Peel. The 95 investments ranged from £100 to £3,000, and many were made by proxy. The total sum of investments was £47,700; £5 per £100 share was initially paid, with an additional £10 call made by 10 August 1791. Similar share calls were made at regular intervals over the following years. The first dividend of 4% was paid in July 1812, with regular payments following thereafter.
Work begins Following a parliamentary survey of the route by Charles McNiven, the bill received royal assent on 13 May 1791 and became an act of Parliament, the Manchester, Bolton and Bury Canal Act 1791 (31 Geo. 3. c. 68), for the construction of the canal, by which "the proprietors were empowered to purchase land for a breadth of 26 yards on level ground, and wider where required for cuttings or embankments." The act allowed the company to raise £47,000, with shares of £100. The intention was that at Prestolee the route would divide into two branches (arms), with one branch towards Bolton and the other to Bury, but it would not, however, join the River Irwell. The proprietors were entitled to take water from any brooks within of the canal, or within of the canal summits at Bolton and Bury.
At a meeting in Manchester on 30 June 1791, at the house of Alexander Patten, a committee was formed with the following members: Greater Manchester County Records Office, ref. E4/4/18b/2
Lord Grey de Wilton, Heaton House, Lancashire Sir John Edensor Heathcote, Longton, Newcastle, Staffordshire Thomas Butterworth Bayley esq. — Hope, Salford Robert Andrews esq — Rivington James Wareing, Gentleman, Knowsley Matthew Fletcher (Mine owner, Clifton) Peter Wright, Gentleman, Manchester William Marsden, Merchant, Manchester Charles McNiven, Gentleman, Manchester Hugh Henshall, Longpost, Staffordshire John Pilkington, Merchant, Manchester
The meeting secured a resolution that "Matthew Fletcher and Mr McNiven shall dispatch or procure 100 wheelbarrows and as many planks as they shall think necessary for the use and accommodation of the canal navigation". Further meetings took place from 26 to 29 July. Matthew Fletcher was ordered to meet with land owners to discuss the purchase of any land along the route of the canal, and with this in mind, on 30 July 1791 John Seddon of Sandy Lane was ordered to survey the line of the canal beginning within the estate of John Edenson Heathcote, and ending at the southern extremity of the Reverend Dauntesey's estate. Fletcher and Henshall were ordered to contact people and companies in the building trade to discuss construction.
At a meeting on 16 August 1791, "several persons" attended, and made offers for the contract to build the canal. A Mr John Seddon of Little Hulton, a labourer, agreed to a contract on Matthew Fletcher's terms, for a "certain part of the canal". Five other persons were rejected, their proposals not receiving the "approbation" of the committee.
With news of the planned Rochdale Canal link into Manchester,The construction of the Rochdale Canal did not reach Manchester until 1804. the company proposed to extend the canal from Bury through Littleborough, and to connect with the Rochdale Canal at Sladen. The new route, known as the Bury and Sladen Canal, was intended as a rival scheme to the proposed Rochdale link into Manchester. A survey was also carried out on a proposed extension from Sladen to Sowerby Bridge. The company also considered links to the Leeds and Liverpool Canal and the Mersey and Irwell Navigation. These plans would have substantially increased the trans-Pennine traffic using the company's canal, and caused a potential loss of traffic and revenue on the nearby Bridgewater Canal. With this in mind, the owner of the Bridgewater Canal, the Duke of Bridgewater, agreed to allow the Rochdale Canal Company to connect to his canal at Manchester. Despite the persistence of the canal company, the Rochdale Canal plan won the day and in 1797 the company abandoned the Bury and Sladen Canal plan.
After several years of construction, on 9 January 1794 an agreement was reached with the Leeds and Liverpool Canal Company to create a link from the Bolton arm of the canal to the Leeds and Liverpool Canal at Red Moss, near Horwich. This agreement required significant design changes to allow the canal to carry the wider boats used on the broad gauge Leeds and Liverpool Canal, which included a change to broad locks. Benjamin Outram was employed to inspect the works, and reported on the cost of this conversion as being £26,924. Although the necessary changes were implemented, the route of the Leeds and Liverpool Canal was altered and the link was not built. In the same year the Haslingden Canal link to the Leeds and Liverpool Canal was proposed, from the Bury arm of the canal. Although authorised by Haslingden Canal Act 1794 (34 Geo. 3. c. 77), it too was never built. The canal company remained hopeful of a link between the two canals, but all hope of this was lost when on 21 June 1819 the Leeds and Liverpool Canal Branch and Railway Act 1819 (59 Geo. 3. c. cv) was enacted to create a link between the Leigh extension of the Bridgewater Canal, and the Leeds and Liverpool Canal.
A report entitled "A Statement of the Situation of the Works of the Manchester, Bolton and Bury Canal, on the Eighteenth of December, 1795." gives details of the progress of the works, including details of bridges, cuttings, raised bankings and aqueducts. Greater Manchester County Records Office, ref. E4/4/18b/21 Much of the document details the work required to convert the canal to broad gauge. A length between Oldfield Lane in Salford and Giants Seat Locks in Outwood was navigable with of water. The remaining work included strengthening work to the banks, an increase of water depth to , and the gravelling of half of the towpath. Between Giants Seat locks and Ringley Bridge two locks had been erected, with a small section of canal to be broadened before becoming navigable. From Ringley Bridge to Prestolee Aqueduct one lock had been erected. Nob End Locks were still under construction but mostly complete, although the basin at the bottom had not yet been dug. The stretch to Bolton had at this time been widened, with several bridges requiring further work, incomplete embankments, construction of a weir, and gravelling of the towpath. On the Bury arm, almost the entire length had been dug, and walls to support the canal along the bank of the Irwell had been built. Some widening of previously narrow sections had yet to be undertaken, none of the towpath had been gravelled, and no fences had been erected along the towpath.