Britain's Waterways - Wigan Pier & Skipton Castle

Leeds & Liverpool Canal
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Two short strolls on the Leeds and Liverpool Canal, one in Lancashire, one in Yorkshire. They each should only take about an hour, even for a family with a child’s buggy. They overlook water for much of the way and there are relatively
few steps or steep slopes. Longer walks are also suggested for those with more time and energy.

Leeds and Liverpool
Wigan Pier
Warehouses, waterside gardens and a 70 ton flywheel.

Two Georges (Formby and Orwell) are celebrated in a classic recreation of times gone by. Canal side buildings and the towpath form an island of calm in the centre of a one way traffic system. Single payment is inclusive of a trip on the water, but there is much to see free of charge.
Start the stroll by standing at the:
Waterbus Stop
The canal carried imports of raw cotton bales from Liverpool Docks and locally mined coal for the engine. All grades of yarn were exported by boat from this basin. The hoist stopped opposite the doors at each floor level.
From here look:
to the left for Trencherfield Gardens. Well equipped kids play area and walled garden with seats.
straight ahead for The Mill at the Pier.
Cotton warehouse adapted for jazz concerts, etc. Pier ticket holders occasionally get in free. Go around the engine house and ask in the Tourist Information Centre:
- on the right is the The Trencherfield Engine House Whistle from this 2500 horsepower original (1902) steam engine can be heard on the half-hour at the start of each demonstration run.
Here is the 70 ton / 27 foot flywheel. Thousands of spindles on the live floors of 't'mill' were powered front this single source. Cotton spinning is also explained on the hour on the ground floor as part of Wigan Pier’s all-in ticket. For those without tickets there is a towpath joining and but if

you have a ticket catch the waterbus to:-

The Way We Were
The Wigan Pier Theatre Company uses these displays to remind present generations of ‘The Way We Were’ - not always a happy life. Look for a victorian school room, a colliery disaster, the Boer War and (on the top floor) a complete pub transported from Hope Street and reconstructed by shopping centre developers. Walk west past full size canal artifacts displayed in the canal side gardens. lip the wide steps to:-

Seven Stars Bridge
The Pub sign makes the Plough of the seven stars. (cross the canal (but not the road), return to the towpath.

Wigan Pier is 200 yards along the southern bank of the canal. Colliery Waggons were pushed to the edge of the canal and coal tipped directly into waiting boats. Follow the towpath across the canal main line and turn left onto the metal bridge in front of:-

Gibson’s Terminal Warehouse
(1777, rebuilt 1984) now the Orwell Pub has twin loading bays that allowed goods to he hoisted directly from the boats to the upper floors. Alternatively, use the main canal towpath underneath Pottery Bridge to

Waterbus Stop (Note the two sets of rollers to stop towing ropes chafing the bridge.) The Orwell Pub and ‘Way We Were’ buildings were both warehouses and boats would have tied up directly under the overhanging ‘cats’: the timber walkways on the canal frontage are recent additions to allow easy access.

A longer walk to Whalley’s Basin
From Waterbus Stop and Lock 87 follow the towpath south (perhaps detour to the covered Dry Dock and British Waterways Depot opposite), cross the main road (Poolstock) and down to: Lock 86

Locks are counted from Leeds (82 miles). Only 5 locks to Liverpool (35 miles). Then go up the Wigan 21 towpath via:

Whalley’s Basin
Formerly a gathering spot at the end of the Ince Hall Colliery arm for boats awaiting orders. Now a bog home to wildlife.

A shorter walk would cross the new bridge over the Leigh Branch Junction. Along the towpath for a short way, cross the next footbridge overlooking the:
Wigan Power Station Site: Girobank
The coal fired Wigan Power Station (1948) was closed (1972) and replaced by this modern computer centre. Turn right, follow the lower path round. At the access road turn right to cross the canal again and (at the light controlled junction) cross Poolstock (Road). Through the pavement railings is the:
River Douglas
Rising in the north, passing underground through the town and forming the old navigation from Wigan to the Ribble until the canal bypassed it to Sollom and Tarleton.
Turn to the right along the pavement, cross the canal and left onto the towpath at and return to

Getting there:
Approach from M6 J26. Use A577/A49/ going east.
East along Wallgate, turn right into Queen Street and right again down Chapel Street. Parking at Trencherfield Mill. Join at
From either station exit into Wallgate, walk downhill under the railway viaduct. Join at

Landranger Map 108 Ref SD 57 05

Saltaire
The most splendid of a number of ‘new towns’ built by philanthropist mill owners to improve conditions for their workers. Stone built, it survives largely intact with houses, school, laundry, hospital, church but originally, no pubs. Others preceded it at Cromford (Richard Arkwright 1771), Styal (Samuel Greg 1784), New Lanark (Robert Owen 1800) and more locally, Copley (Edwin Ackroyd 1850). After Sir Titus Salt founded Saltaire (1850), Ackroyden (Edwin Ackroyd 1859) and Port Sunlight (Lever Bros. 1888) followed this more elaborate example. From M62 J26 use M606 /A6177/A650 northwards.

Granary Wharf: Leeds
The canal enters the Aire and Calder Navigation at River Lock and the nearby basin is now known as Granary Wharf. Attracting crowds on summer Sundays, there is a picnic area. shops. a craft market three days a week and a trip boat to the Royal Armouries and Tetley’s Brewery. From M62 1 J3 or Ml J47, go to the 'City Centre’.

Boat Trips
Leeds Inspiration 2000 Tel: 0113 242 3731
Shipley Apollo Tel: 01274 595914
Skipton Dalesman Tel: 01756 790829
Foulridge Marton Emperor Tel: 01282 844033
Wigan Kittywake Tel: 01942 323666

Tourist Information
Liverpool Tel: 0151 708 8854
Wigan Tel: 01942 825677
Blackburn Tel: 01254 53277
Skipton Tel: 01756 792809
Bradford Tel: 01274 753678
Leeds Tel: 0113 242 5242

After the nearby colliery stopped using this wharf with its tramway tippler, boats used it as Wigan Pier

©GEOprojects 1999

Skipton Castle
Royalist stronghold, cobbled streets, secret canal.

Stroll around this granite ‘Gateway to the Dales’ and into a deep ravine cut next to Eller Beck.

Start the stroll from:

Skipton Castle Forecourt
Dominated by the Norman-French motto of the Clifford family built into the balustrade over the main gate. Cross the grave yard of Holy Trinity Church safe from the roundabout traffic. down eleven steps into Mill Bridge Road and down the hill to the bridge over Eller Beck. Alternatively, follow the narrow pavement around the outside of the churchyard (no steps). Opposite is: -

High Corn Mill (At the foot of Chapel Hill).
Once took its power from the rapidly falling Beck. Old millstones are let into the courtyard floor. Go into the little, grassed open space and follow the white balustraded towpath snaking northwards away from the town. The beck on the left is higher than the canal cut on the right. The cut is.

Springs Branch or Lord Thanet’s Canal. Only a thousand yards long but acts both as a moat to the castle and, until 1946. allowed limestone boats to be loaded by a metal chute (still visible) from a tramway (no longer visible) delivering from quarries further up the hill.
Keep going uphill until a short path to the left leads through a gateway into the shared driveway serving a few splendid houses. Walk away from the gale to the top of Chapel Hill, down past the Chapel and

High Corn Mill to the B6265 to Grassington. Cross the road. A short way down Water Street is a:

Single Beam Footbridge which crosses over the beck onto the towpath! (A safer way is to join the towpath at the High Corn Mill.) From the slightly bumpy towpath look out for the sluices which controlled the flow of the beck to the, now defunct, mills further downstream. A small stream flowing energetically could power many machines.

To return to the start at

rejoin the road at the Coach Street narrow bridge and turn left into the cobbled Victoria Street, through the covered passage into Sheep Street and left again past the market stalls into the High Street to return to

Castle Forecourt.

A longer walk to Airville Park From Sheep Street pass back through the passage to Victoria Square shops, cross over the (one way) Coach Street and down to:-
Waterside Court and Canal Junction Where the Springs Branch joins the main line and 50 minute wide beam boat trips can be booked. Return to cross over the main road ‘A6069) and down a slope back (into the main Leeds and Liverpool Canal. Follow the towpath (for about 200 yards) past Brewery Swing Bridge.
If no boats are coming Gawflat Swing Bridge leads you up to Airville Park with its swimming pool, pitch and putt and children’s play area.

A second longer walk to Skipton Woods From Springs Branch follow the footpath further up the Eller Beck to the Round Dam into:
Skipton Woods close to the old Embsey Quarry and the new A59 bypass. Return is possible via Short Lee Lane and the B6265 Grassington Road to 2

Getting there:
Approach from A1(M) J47. Use A59 west.
Suggest east of High Street. Join at
Parking at Coach Street. Join at
From station exit cross road. Join at

Landranger Map 103 Ref SD 99 52