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OFFICIAL OPENING OF THE LANCASTER CANAL 22 NOV. 1797. Extract Waterwitch No. 39 Autumn 1977
The
first part of the Lancaster Canal to be opened to traffic was the section from Preston to Tewitfield - ironically this, with the addition of the Glasson arm, is all we have left at the present time. The company decided the opening of the canal should be done in style and their original notes on the proposed arrangements are re-produced below. In these notes reference is made to the "most respectable" persons in Lancaster. One wonders what the reaction of the "less respectable" persons would have been had they had sight of the notes at the time ! OPENING THE CANAL The Committee meet at the Office at 9.30 and to proceed from thence accompanied with colours and music to the canal bridge in the Fryerage where the boats will be placed ready to receive them in the following order. Committee Barge. Leeds & Liverpool Committee and the most respectable of the Land Owners The "Bee" to be fitted up for the particular friends of the committee and the most respectable persons in Lancaster. The "Ceres" - do Two of the trading boats belonging to the Canal Company and the "Elephant" to be fitted up for the Proprietors in General and to follow in order. The other trading boat (the best of the three) to be sent for Limestone and to be at Halton Basin the preceding evening. The "Ant" loaden with Coal and Cannel will be at Galgate the preceding evening) A few guns to be planted upon the rubbish heap on the Moor. A signal gun to be fired at half past nine. The music to be placed in the second boat (the "Bee") and a Salute of guns to be fired when the Committee take the Barge, the whole to move in order to the northward and as soon as the Committee Barge enters the Aqueduct a Salute of guns. If the day is favourable the Company may step out to take a view of the Aqueduct while the Boats are turning the order of returning to continue the same, except that the Limestone Boat must proceed next to the Committee Barge and the music get into that Boat from the Aqueduct, the procession returns southwards as far as convenient, say to Galgate where the Boat loaded with Coal meets them and leaving the boat loaded with limestone the Coal boat returns in its place and the same order is continued by the other boats. As soon as the Committee land at the Basins the Salute is repeated. The procession then (Continued on page 5)
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moves preceded by colours and music the Company's flag being carried the last, after which the Lancaster Canal & Leeds and Liverpool Canal Committee walk 4 in line after them the Engineers etc, proceeding down Penny Street, up Church Street over the Castle Hill to Market Street and adjourn to dine. Volunteers parade on Wednesday morning at 8.45a.m on 22nd November, 1797 Proceed to the Fryerage to meet the Canal Committee. When the Committee take their boat a Volley. The Light Infantry to take the Bow of the Boat. Second company in the midships, and the Grenadiers the stern with the Colours. 3 volleys at the New Bridge (Aqueduct), 3 volleys on meeting the coal boat, 1 volley on landing. Then to parade down Queen Street, Back Lane, Common Garden Street, Penny Street, Padding Lane, Church Street, Castle Hill and Market Street. To go round the Market Place and form at the front of the Town Hall, where the volunteers fire a feu de joie. Altogether the arrangements must have provided the citizens of Lancaster with a colourful spectacle, and no doubt the guests enjoyed the "cold collation" aboard the boats, thoughtfully provided by the committee. And in Kendal in 1820........... The following report in the local paper said: “The Kendal and Lancaster Canal opened for navigation yesterday. All business was suspended, the shops were closed, flags were hoisted, and the bells rung. A procession of packets from Kendal met a procession from Lancaster at Crooklands, and the combined procession of sixteen boats and packets proceeded to Kendal. The proceedings included a dinner at the Town Hall, to which 120 sat down. There was a very numerous list of toasts, some of which read rather strangely now. [c. 1865.] For instance, Mr. Mayor [John Pearson] gave 'A bottle at night and business in the morning', T. Wilson, Esq., gave ‘The Bonny Lasses of Westmorland’ ‘Old wine and young women’, and the concluding toast was 'Champagne to our real friends, and real pain to our sham friends’. A ball in the evening terminated the festivities of the day.” Local Chronology (a collection of excerpts from the local press). Kendal, 1865, p. 35.
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BUILDING THE LANCASTER CANAL Extract from Waterwitch Editions 28,29,30, 1975
On
27th April, 1916, John F. Curwen, F.S.A. ,- F.R.I.B.A., gave a paper to the Cumberland & Westmorland Antiquarian & Archaeological Society, at Carlisle, entitled "The Lancaster Canal." It was based on documents and records kept by the then owner of the canal, the London & North Western Railway company, at Castle Station, Lancaster, where the canal superintendent held his office. The records are now housed in the Public Record Office in London. Mr. Curwen' s paper was subsequently published in the Society's Transactions, Vol XVI 1 (new series), 1917-17 from which the following and subsequent extracts are taken.
The Lancaster Canal When London, the largest city in Europe, possessed no public docks upon her river, when heavily laden coaches lumbered along the thinly inhabitated suburbs of the West End to the outlying villages of Chelsea, Kensington, Marylebone and Bermondsey, when the roads of the country were reckoned the worst in Europe, over which it was impossible for wheeled traffic to travel at a greater speed than four miles per hour and when everything had to be carried by pack-horses - then the businessmen of Lancaster and Kendal were seeking for some easier method of conveying their merchandise and of obtaining their needs. With the exception of the main road from Lancaster and perhaps the cross road via Ambleside to Cockermouth, the lines of transit in this part of the country were little better than pack-horse tracks, which were abandoned for fresh ones when through depth of mud they became impassable. Even when in later years it was attempted to adapt them for wagon traffic, they were little improved; for stones were just thrown loosely into the larger holes, over which the wheels were supposed to jolt, only to find themselves buried the deeper in the mud beyond. We have a glimpse of the conditions of our main road south at this period (1768), given by Arthur Young in his "Tour", who "most seriously cautioned travellers who may accidentally purpose to travel this terrible country to avoid it as they would the devil, for a thousand to one but they break their necks or limbs by overthrows or breaking down . . . between “Proud Preston� and Wigan I actually measured ruts of four feet deep, floating with mud and passed three carts broken down in those eighteen miles of execrable memory. In winter he says "it would have cost no more money to make roads navigable, then to make them hard!" There can be no doubt that it was owing to the wretched condition of the roads, as also to the limited amount of burden that could be placed on a pack horse, that the conception of inland water carriage was due. The lesson had been learnt from the sea. It was much easier and actually cheaper to bring foreign goods to Lancaster, Milnthorpe or Whitehaven than to bring English goods by land from Wigan, Manchester, or Birmingham, Only some ten years before our promoters were at work the Duke of Bridgewater was engaged upon England's first modern canal. So behind were we in engineering skill that his Grace had to employ a workman of the poorest origin to survey and scheme cut the course. James Brindley, the wheelwright of (Continued on page 7)
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Sutton, near Macclesfield, could scarcely sign his name; he certainly could not write, and yet he was a man so endowed with common sense and ingenuity that he was already looked upon as a clever constructor of water mills. And so to James Brindley the seekers went, only to find, unfortunately, that his life's work was nearly done. It is recorded that he commenced the survey himself but owing to ill health, the task had to be relinquished to his pupil. I have recently been presented with a plan of this survey, inscribed "A plan of the intended Navigable Canal near Eccleston in the County Palatine of Lancaster to Kendal in Westmorland surveyed by Robert Whitworth, engraved by Thomas Jefferys, Geographer to His Majesty, 1772." From it we find that at first it was suggested to cut the line from Eccleston via Longton to Penwortham in order to cross the Ribble, and from thence trailing westward nearly as far as Kirkham, back again to Plumpton, and so along northward passing to the west of Garstang, Lancaster and Borwick, to a place called 'Tewitfield', a total distance of 551/2 miles. As this line-was attended with some difficulties, Whitworth was asked to try a higher line, which he did by taking a shorter bend westward and by locking up 24 feet at Sidgreave. From thence he took a course to Salwick Hall, eastward again to Hough and so along northward, passing to the east this time of Garstang and Lancaster and with a long hairpin bend nearly to Halton, onward to Tewitfield, a total distance of 55 1/2 miles which, as he observed "notwithstanding the 24 feet rise, is the easier and better line," Entering the hill country, Whitworth found it necessary to rise very suddenly, from the first rise line 86feet, or from the second line 62 feet. From the head a level course of 16 1/4 was taken via Holme, Farleton, Crooklands and the Hincaster Tunnel to Nether Bridge at Kendal on very much the same line as the Canal exists today. One cannot but pause with admiration at the cleaver way in which this survey was made, and that without the aid our modern scientific instruments. For one reason or another however, the Committee were not satisfied, and so sought further advice from different people hoping for an improvement on Whitworth's higher line. Several years later, when Samuel Gregson published a printed letter to the committee (30 1.1792), he reviewed the history of these long negotiations, stating how they had tried various plans for crossing the Lune, one of which was by taking a line as far up as Halton Scars, but that each surveyor had come to the conclusion that it was necessary to drop to the same level as Whitworth proposed; in like manner how various lines had been tried on either side of Preston to cross over the Ribble. The chief objection taken to the scheme, however, appears to have been that the course did not extend south enough to tap the coalfields around Wigan. During, this delay (1785) one enthusiast, whilst denouncing in a pamphlet the wretched condition of the roads in such words as "May we all scorn to plod through the dirt as long as we have done", writes "A lime stone and a coal country ought to have a communication with each other, as both those articles are necessary for the convenience of life, the demand for them will always subsist and pay more tonnage than every other article that may be navigated upon a canal. No definite advancement was made, however, until the 4th June, 1791, when some thirty merchants and traders of Lancaster addressed a letter to the Mayor, setting forth the advantages which their rival, the port of Liverpool, derived from inland navigation and how that it placed them in "so decided a superiority in the vend of their imports as greatly to (Continued on page 8)
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diminish the commerce of this town of Lancaster ... unless some means can be found to meet them in the market upon more equal term." The letter concludes with a request that the Mayor will convene a public meeting to consider the several surveys. There can be little doubt that young Rennie was selected engineer at this meeting. It is no small thing to realise that upon our Canal the promoters not only consulted and secured the services of Brindley but also of Rennie, a man who, in later days made his name famous when he carried the Rochdale and Todmorden Canal right over the backbone of England, and even more so when he erected the wondrous breakwater at Plymouth, Rennie's survey bears the following inscription “Plan of the proposed Lancaster Canal from Kirkby Kendal in the County of Westmorland and to Westhoughton in the County Palatine of Lancaster; Surveyed in the years 1791 and 1792 by John Rennie, Engineer. Engraved by W Faden, Geographer to the King 1792”. In this scheme the suggestion was accepted to tap the coalfields of Wigan, and thus make the canal of twice the value to the districts along its banks, The cutting was to form a level distance of 15 1/2- miles to a place called Clayton Green, thence to lock down 222 feet on to an embankment and aqueduct across the Ribble. From Preston it was suggested to follow the second line of Whitworth's plan as far as the Calder river where Rennie desired a branch round the north side of Greenhalgh Castle to the village of Garstang, and so, by an aqueduct over the river Wyre, northward to join the line again at Cabus Hook, and thence through a remarkable deep cutting at Ashton, near Lancaster, with slight variation to Tewitfield - a level distance of some 421/2 miles. Here there was to be a branch cut (21/2 miles) to the foot of Warton Crag for the sake of tapping the limestone of the district. In order to shorten the course through Westmorland, Rennie struck a line across the mosses rising by five locks at Dale House and Holmer Hall and from thence via Hilderstone, MossSide, to Hang Bridge. With four more locks he made direct to Hincaster, a distance of 9 miles and rising in all 65 feet. To approach the gunpowder works at Sedgwick it seemed still necessary to tunnel beneath Hincaster Hill, after which a level course of 5 miles completed the line as a canal. An additional mile was struck to the River Mint, opposite Mint House, as a feeder, a total length of 751/2 miles with a fall of 222 feet from the south and 65 feet from the north. It was intended to place a canal head at Kendal just south of Nether Bridge, but the enlightened Corporation of the time came forward and offered to build at their own expense the necessary warehouses and wharves, together with a stone bridge across the Kent, in place of the ancient Miller Bridge, if the company would continue the length more into the centre of the town. The scheme soon developed. A general meeting was held at the Town Hall, Lancaster, on the 7th February, 1792, at which it was resolved unanimously to form a subscription list for obtaining an Act of Parliament to carry it into execution, and for defraying all expenses necessary for completing the same. It is said that before the meeting terminated £247,000 had been promised, a sum which was increased to £370,500 before the end of the month, the town of Lancaster providing an overwhelming proportion. The first Act was obtained on the 25th June, 1772, as follows; "WHEREAS the making and maintaining of a Navigable Canal from the town of Kirkby Kendal, in the county of Westmorland to the township of Westhoughton, at a place called Westhoughton Chapel, in the County of Lancaster and also the making of two navigable cuts or branches, one from a place at or near Borwick Hall, to or near Croston by Chorley, to or near Duxbury, in the parish of Standish both in the said county of Lancaster j will not only be of considerable advantage to the lands and estates in the neighbourhood thereof, by making a communication from the inexhaustible quantities of limestone at the northern end thereof, of both which articles all the intermediate country is greatly in want, but also by uniting the Port of Lancaster with so large a tract of inland country. . . . wherefore for obtaining and perfecting the good effects and purposes aforesaid it may please your Majesty. . . etc." From Section 3 the Act makes it clear that it was not then the intention of “the Company of Proprietors of the Lancaster Canal Navigation” to join up with the Leeds and Liverpool Canal, which had not been built at this time, but rather to cross over it at Westhoughton. Section 7 grants permission to the Company to take a feeder from the river Mint at a certain place called Mints Feet, taking in at the most convenient place the Stockbridge Brook and to make the same to join the said intended canal, at a certain place at Kirkby Kendal aforesaid, called Yeanum. [Aynam]" “Provided always that not more than one half of the water of the said rivers be taken; and that the mill owners upon (Continued on page 9)
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their banks may draw, if necessary, water from the canal for the use and working of their mills so that the head of water in the said canal be not thereby reduced more than 2 feet, nor to a less depth than 5 feet.” Sections 62 and 64 grant the proprietors power to raise and contribute among themselves a competent sum of money to carry on so useful an undertaking provided that the said sum does not exceed £414, 000 to be divided into shares of £100 each, and that £60,000 thereof be applied solely to the Westmorland section. Permission was also given to borrow an additional sum not exceeding £200,000, With such powers no time was lost in getting to work and the first meeting of the proprietors was held on 3rd January 1792, when John Dilworth was elected Chairman of the company. In the following year a second act was obtained, granting permission to make another branch from Galgate to Glasson Dock, within the port of Lancaster, a distance of 21/2 miles. In 1794 trouble arose with the Leeds and Liverpool Canal Company who desired to make a deviation from their plan and by going southward to take in the Douglas Valley, circle round the south of Wigan, turning northward to run in a parallel line beside and above the Lancaster Canal to its prejudice and detriment. In their answer as opponents to the Leeds and Liverpool Bill the Lancaster Canal Company prepared a plan not only showing the deviation complained of, but - what is more interesting to us - an intended extension of their own line from Westhoughton to Worsley in order to form a junction with the Bridgewater Bridge building Canal. Three years after the first Act was obtained, on 30th August, 1795, the Company published their first detailed report in which we find the committee intended to confine their energies at first to two separate portions viz: one from the-limestone country at Tewitfield to Preston, and the other from the coal and cannel country in the neighbourhood of Bark Hill, near Wigan, to Clayton Green, 5 miles south of Preston; thus deferring the difficult sections caused by lockage from Tewitfield to Kendal, and from Clayton Green to the Ribble, with the necessary embankments and aqueduct across the river to Preston. Of the work in progress the committee report as follows: Section 1 From Tewitfield to Ellel Grange (17 miles) it is hoped to complete within two years. The aqueduct over the Keer is up to the spring of the arch; that over the Lune "the greatest piece of work of its kind in this Kingdom" is likewise up to the spring of the arches; the road aqueduct at Bulk is completed; the arch of the aqueduct of the Conder is turned; and a number of road and occupation bridges, culverts and other pieces of masonry are in great forwardness". Section 2 From Ellel Grange to the river Calder (10 miles) may be completed within 16 months. The Cocker aqueduct is of, small dimensions, and for the one over the Wyre - consisting of one arch of 54 feet span - the materials are preparing. Section 3 From the Calder to Myerscough Wood (3 miles) may be completed within 18 months. The materials for the aqueducts over the Calder and Brock are in great forwardness and the arches of three of the other bridges have been turned. From here nothing seems to have been done until we get to Limbrick Beck near Chorley, "from whence section 4 carries the line to Bark Hill (7 miles) which it is hoped will be completed shortly. The aqueduct of the Limbrick, Baganley and Lostock - as over the river Douglas consisting of one arch of 40 feet span are nearly finished." Truly a fair record for three years work at a cost of £149,920. How far Rennie himself was responsible for the carrying out of the work, it is not easy to determine, but (Continued on page 14)
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the Water Witch had completed the whole ascent. On this occasion a couple of ladies, with their gawky footboy, very narrowly escaped a serious ducking; being exclusives, they preferred remaining on board to accompanying the herd of passengers ashore, while the boat was mounting; during one of which feats the Water Witch herself had well nigh been smashed. Notwithstanding the skill of the postilion, who in ordinary cases no sooner managed to get his vessel clear of one lock, than he towed her forwards in a smart canter about a hundred yards along the intervening space to the next, the catastrophe aforesaid was with difficulty prevented. The Water Witch had entered the lock with considerable impetus; the horses, as usual, were speedily detached, and a rope was thrown ashore. The man on shore giving the rope a turn round a short post on the bank of the canal, then applied his strength to check the way of the boat, but by misadventure it slipped over the head of the post, the Water Witch meanwhile making headway, and dragging the man along the bank towards the head of the lock. He on shore, a sturdy little man, held on like a. bull dog, nevertheless, the boat overpowered him, and collision within a few seconds appeared inevitable; at this crisis another individual very sensibly threw his weight into the balance; yet both together handing upon the rope, and straining with all their might, notwithstanding their utmost exertions, were hardly able to restrain the vessel from striking with tremendous force against the inner gates of the lock. The above circumstances refer to the only point of management regarding these boats, as to which a little additional precaution seems necessary. While underway, and with an impetus upon them, they have no other means of stopping suddenly than the aforesaid mode of throwing a rope ashore; notwithstanding it happens not infrequently that barges are encountered unawares, either at the bendings of the canal, or on passing through bridges. On more occasions than one during the passage, the Water Witch ran bump on shore, with a momentum neither agreeable to the passengers nor profitable to her owners. (Taken from "A Home Tour Through the Manufacturing Districts of England in the Summer of 1835" by Sir George Head. First published 1836. Re-published 1968 by Frank Cass and Company. Available through Lancashire County Library Inter Lending Scheme. Ed.)
Notes from a meeting in 1834 on he operation of the Fast Boats..... AT a General Meeting of the Company of Proprietors of the Lancaster CANAL NAVIGATION held at the Canal Office, in Lancaster, on Tuesday fourth of February, 1834 WILLIAM DILLWORTH CREWDSON, Esquire, in the Chair. REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE. The Accounts for the year have been examined with the vouchers and found correct and abstracts are laid before you. The Tonnage duties have improved during each Quarter upon the amount of the former year— and the disbursements have been very considerably diminished. Mortgages to the amount of £5000 have been paid off, as directed by the last Annual Meeting and your Committee propose the further sum of £5000 to be paid off during the current year; and so that the sum of £1900, part of the surplus Fund advanced towards the completion of the Glasson Branch, now forming part of the debt, and for which Interest continues to lie charged, be extinguished. The Balance at the credit of the Tonnage Account on the 31st December last, was £17,424 16s. 11di from which your Committee recommend a Dividend of One Pound per Share, to be paid on the fifth day of April next, Your Committee have much satisfaction in reporting the complete success of the experiment with the quick sailing Passage Boat. Near the end of March last this Boat commenced sailing between Lancaster and (Continued on page 34)
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