Galloway's
Society for the Blind		 Bringing the Leeds & Liverpool Canal Back to Life - A Heritage Lottery Project
About the Project
Johnson's Hillock

Salterforth to
Greenberfield

About the Project - Leeds & Liverpool History

Canal technology developed over many centuries. The lock, with gates at either end of a chamber, was perfected in fifteenth century Italy, with the first true canals, with locks, aqueducts, tunnels and an independent water supply, being built in seventeenth century France. Britain was a bit of a backwater until the eighteenth century, but then the towns of Leeds and Liverpool became the centres for the development of new inland waterways that were to change the world.

Leeds was first with the Aire & Calder Navigation, opened in 1700, the first inland waterway to be built by merchants rather than the crown or landed gentry. Liverpool quickly followed suit, with local merchants building the Mersey & Irwell, Weaver and Douglas Navigations, all of which were in use by 1741. These new waterways marked the start of the industrial revolution; for the first time economic change was brought about by local people rather than government or aristocracy.

The Douglas Navigation was built to supply Liverpool with coal from the Wigan coalfield, and in 1772 was to become part of the Leeds & Liverpool Canal. The canal was initially promoted by woollen merchants in Bradford who wanted a better supply of limestone from Craven and a route for their products to the growing port of Liverpool. The canal was too big a project for them to finance alone, so they sought partners from other areas, especially Liverpool. The merchants in Liverpool were more concerned to have a good supply of coal as the town was perhaps the largest industrial centre in Lancashire at that time.

Each group suggested a route for the canal. The Yorkshire men proposed following the Aire Valley and then crossing into Lancashire at Foulridge, the canal then passing through Padiham, Whalley, Leyland and Parbold before crossing the West Lancashire lowlands to Liverpool. The Lancashire men suggested a different route through East Lancashire, passing Burnley, Blackburn, Chorley and Wigan before rejoining the Yorkshire men's route at Parbold. The two groups argued, and eventually it was decided to use the Yorkshire men's route, with construction starting at each end simultaneously. The Douglas navigation was purchased to give access to the Wigan coalfield, a branch canal from Parbold joining the old navigation at Gathurst.

Construction began in 1770, and by 1777 the canal was open from Leeds to Gargrave, and from Liverpool to Parbold, together with the link to the Douglas Navigation. Then money ran out and, apart from minor improvements, work ceased until 1790. Over that decade, East Lancashire had become a much more important industrial area, and in 1794 the route was altered to serve the growing towns of Burnley and Blackburn. Unfortunately, there was a problem between Johnsons Hillock and Wigan. The Lancaster Canal had obtained its Act in 1793, allowing it to build a canal on the best line through the Douglas valley from Chorley to Wigan. Because of this, the Leeds & Liverpool Canal proposed to use a different route from Johnsons Hillock, passing near Horwich and then down a flight of thirty locks from Aspull to Wigan.

By 1801 the southern section of the Lancaster Canal was open from Aspull, passing Johnsons Hillock and on to Walton Summit, from where a tramroad to Preston connected it with the canal's northern section from Preston to Lancaster. In the same year the Leeds & Liverpool Canal was extended from Burnley to Clayton-le-Moors, with Blackburn being reached in 1810. All that remained was to join Blackburn with Wigan to complete the through route across the Pennines. Money for canal construction was limited, and as a temporary measure the Leeds & Liverpool Canal suggested a junction with the Lancaster Canal at Johnsons Hillock, and then a flight of twenty-three locks down to Wigan from the Aspull end of that canal. This was agreed, much to the annoyance of the Manchester Bolton & Bury Canal who had hoped to build a branch to the Leeds & Liverpool Canal near Horwich.

The locks at Johnsons Hillock were built by the Lancaster Canal and, after they opened in 1816, they charged a special toll for boats using them. The locks between Aspull and Wigan, opened at the same time, were built by the Leeds & Liverpool Canal. At the junctions between the two canals, at the top locks at Aspull and Johnsons Hillock, an extra pair of gates were installed so that the waters of the two canals could be isolated if necessary. Canal companies were always careful to control their own water supply. Even today, the recesses for the gates are still there, thought the gates themselves became unnecessary in 1864 when the southern Lancaster Canal was leased by the Leeds & Liverpool Canal.

The Leeds & Liverpool Canal continued to operate successfully until the First World War, and was well able to compete with railways. However, after the war road traffic increased and traditional canalside industries declined, and by the end of the Second World War there was much less traffic on the canal. long with most other canals, the Leeds & Liverpool Canal was nationalised in 1948, and today it is still a public asset.

Freight continued to pass through Johnsons Hillock locks until the early 1960s. Coal for mills, wool for Yorkshire, and sugar from Tate & Lyle's in Liverpool were the main cargoes. There were even a few trial loads in the 1970s, when enthusiasts tried to resurrect traffic on the canal, but the hard winter of 1963/4 effectively brought an end to trade through Johnsons Hillock locks. The canal might have closed at that time, but it survived, its future secured by Barbara Castle when she was Minister of Transport in the early 1970s.

By then the number of pleasure boats was increasing, and Johnsons Hillock was seen as a pleasant mooring, with rural stretches of canal nearby, though not far from major centres of population. However, compared to the narrow canals of the midlands, the Leeds & Liverpool Canal is underused, and there is scope for many more boats to travel on its waters.

Today the Leeds & Liverpool Canal is maintained by British Waterways whose local office is in Wigan. They are responsible for around 3,600km of inland waterways which run from Ripon in the north to Basingstoke in the south, together with several canals in Scotland. The Leeds & Liverpool Canal is linked to the rest of the system in two places. At Leigh it joins the Bridgewater Canal which runs to Manchester and Runcorn, and at Leeds it joins the Aire & Calder Navigation which leads to the rivers Trent, Don and Ouse.

Most of the canals in the north of England are wide canals, capable of carrying boats fourteen feet in width, with lengths varying from 57.5 feet for the Calder & Hebble Navigation to 72 feet on the Rochdale Canal. A few waterways take larger craft, those on the Aire & Calder Navigation carrying cargoes of up to 700 tons. On the Leeds & Liverpool Canal boats up to 14.25 feet wide by 62 feet long can sail between Wigan and Leeds, with 72 feet long boats able to sail between Leigh, Wigan and Liverpool. The depth of the water was originally about five feet, but because of silting and people throwing rubbish into the canal, today the shallowest parts are about three feet deep.

The water feeding into the summit level comes from four reservoirs around Foulridge and another at Winterburn, up one of the valleys behind Gargrave. The Lancashire side of the canal is also supplied from reservoirs at Barrowford and Rishton. Several streams also feed the canal, and land drainage provides extra supplies. The level of water in the canal needs to be maintained quite carefully, so there are weirs which allow excess water to drain away around the locks, with other weirs allowing the excess to flow into streams and rivers flowing under the canal in culverts, a sort of tunnel made from wood, brick, stone or, today, concrete.