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Concept
Bridgewater Canal
Summary
The Bridgewater Canal connects Runcorn, Manchester and Leigh, in North West England. It was commissioned by Francis Egerton, 3rd Duke of Bridgewater, to transport coal from his mines in Worsley to Manchester. It was opened in 1761 from Worsley to Manchester, and later extended from Manchester to Runcorn, and then from Worsley to Leigh.
The canal is connected to the Manchester Ship Canal via a lock at Cornbrook; to the Rochdale Canal in Manchester; to the Trent and Mersey Canal at Preston Brook, southeast of Runcorn; and to the Leeds and Liverpool Canal at Leigh. It once connected with the River Mersey at Runcorn but has since been cut off by a slip road to the Silver Jubilee Bridge. Following the re-routing of roads to the Silver Jubilee Bridge, the Runcorn Locks Restoration Society campaigns to reinstate the flight of locks.
The Bridgewater canal is described as the first great achievement of the canal age, although the Sankey Canal opened earlier. Bridgewater captured the public imagination because of its engineering feats; it required the construction of an aqueduct to cross the River Irwell, and a tunnel at Worsley. Its success helped inspire a period of intense canal building in Britain, known as Canal Mania. It later faced intense competition from the Liverpool and Manchester Railway and the Macclesfield Canal. Navigable throughout its history, it is one of the few canals in Britain not to have been nationalised, and remains privately owned. Pleasure craft now use the canal which forms part of the Cheshire Ring network of canals.
Francis Egerton, 3rd Duke of Bridgewater, owned some of the coal mines dug to supply North West England with fuel for the steam engines instrumental in powering England's Industrial Revolution. The duke transported his coal along the Mersey and Irwell Navigation and also by packhorse, but each method was inefficient and expensive; river transport was subject to the vagaries of river navigation, and the amount of coal packhorses could carry was limited by its relative weight.
Official source
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