No locks - Bridgewater Canal to Trent & Mersey (again)
Yes. No locks for more than 40 miles. That's unheard of. This is the leg from the Waters Meeting junction near Manchester all the way more or less along the southern side of the Mersey to the junction with the start of the Trent & Mersey Canal at Preston Brook. Bridgewater Canal history A little bit about the history of the canal: the Bridgewater canal, whose first part was opened in 1761, is actually the oldest canal in the whole system. It was built on the initiative of the Earl of Bridgewater to transport coal from his mines at Worsley to Manchester and eventually to the Mersey near Runcorn. James Brindley, the canal pioneer who built a lot of the earliest canals and also the already mentioned (and travelled) Trent & Mersey Canal in the vicinity, also played a crucial part in the design here. In fact the Trent & Mersey connected to the Bridgewater Canal for the last stretch to actually reach the Mersey. In 1776 the connection between Manchester and the