One of the prettiest canal villages is Lymm on the Bridgewater canal. I’m sure this house must have been photographed more times than the narrowboats that cruise past it. We were lucky to get moored in over the bank holiday weekend.
The village is easy to stroll around and very picturesque, is it any wonder it regularly wins best village in bloom prizes
And I’d give them a prize for the best dressed Christmas tree as well. Not surprised it’s an all year round tree
As usual we debated which one of us deserved to be put into the stocks, but I reminded Eric that there’s a good butchers in Lymm and I’d bought steak for tea
We decided to walk a little further out of Lymm on this visit, heading north towards the Manchester Ship Canal. Our route took us past the Slitting Mill. This is where iron bars were cut into sheets for use making nails, one of Lymms many varied industries during the industrial revolution.
It’s not really very interesting to look at from the footpath, but the Lymm heritage site has some interesting photos of its excavation
https://thelymmarchive.co.uk/archive/trades-and-industry/slitting-mill?
As we carried on along the footpath, sniffing and sneezing as the hay-fever took hold
Until we came to the big canal. Looking west we could just about see the Thelwall Viaduct carrying the M6 over the MSC and the river Mersey
The Ship canal was opened in 1895 making Manchester the third busiest port in Britain, despite being 40 miles inland. In its heyday, the canal carried up to 18million long tons of commercial cargo, but with the increasing size of container vessels the ecconomic viability of it dropped that to less than 7 million long tons by 2009. Peel Holdings who own it have plans to reinstate its use as an atlantic gateway in a major effort to reduce road congestion. The plan is to increase the number of containers shipped from 8000 in 2010 to 100,000 in 2030. Narrowboats and leisure craft are not encouraged but can use the ship canal for a hefty fee and some stringent regulations which include a strict no mooring policy Maximum length 600′ x beam 65′. Perhaps we could hitch a ride inside one of the containers, or perhaps we should just stick to the “proper” canals
Peel holdings also own the Bridgewater canal, and are responsible for repairing the breach just beyond Lymm. We had hoped to see the temporary coffer dam and see the progress being made, but it was quite a hike and last winding hole was just beyond Lymm, so we winded and re-moored on the 14 day mooring where Eric took advantage of the hard edge to touch up the gunwale paint. (Which hadn’t been part of the PaintShed’s remit)
Before we set off back the way we’d come
