The Rochdale Canal

Monday 27^th May

Last time we cruised the Rochdale canal we swore we would not do it again, jet here we were moored below lock 83 in Ducie Street basin full of apprehension of the days ahead. We had called CRT to see if we could get a volunteer to help us up the 19 large locks, but unfortunately, due to the bank holiday none were forthcoming.

A hire boat headed for Sowerby Bridge had passed us the night before and I had mentioned to them that we were on our way up in the morning, they agreed to travel up with us and once we were through the first lock they were waiting to join us.

They had a crew of four on board so three available to do the locks, this made life much easier and we made good progress, with two operating the lock the boats were in and two ahead setting the next lock.

CRT  advice not to moor until after lock 64 at the Rose of Lancaster pub as the canal passes through some of the poorer areas of Manchester, we had no problem, all the locals we came across were more interested in watching our climb up the locks rather than cause us any problems. More of a problem was the amount of rubbish in the canal necessitating in a couple of trips down the weed hatch to clear the propeller.

Swans old spinning mill near Rochdale

Our arrival at the moorings was greeted by a strong aroma of vinegar from the Sarsons vinegar and pickle factory close by. Last time we moored up here we tied up close by to the pub, however this time the moorings were in poor condition with collapsed wash walls and shallow water. I later learned that the proper moorings had moved to either side of the aqueduct a little further on.

Tricky Moorings

After a fine meal in a very busy Rose of Lancaster we retired ready to resume our climb towards the summit the following morning. Again we were joined by the boat we had travelled with the day before and again made good progress towards our stop over at Littleborough, a further 17 locks and 9 miles away.

The trip through Rochdale is a bit grim in places with all sorts of obstacles in the water, care has to be taken along this stretch to avoid continuous tangles around the prop.

A historic boat rally had taken place in Hebden Bridge during the bank holiday and due to the size of these boats they had no option but to come back over the summit to travel back down to Manchester. We met the first of these as we passed through Rochdale and it was good to see boats using this neglected waterway.

Passing under the M62, the towpath is to the left of the bridge and
is removable for widebeam boats

Leaving Rochdale we arrived at lock 50, locking up the advance crew returned to tell us there was a boat stuck in lock 49 ahead of us, further investigation showed that they had filled the lock but were unable to open the top gates due to a bad leak in the tailgates, this looked very much like a blown cill and water was pouring out faster than it could get in. The crew on the boat in the lock had called CRT and they soon arrived as did another of the historic boats. The CRT team concluded that the cill had indeed blown and that a stoppage would be required to repair the problem. Fortunately there was enough of us around to force open the gates to get the boat up and the historic boat down.

I returned to the boat only to find that our partner boat had broken down, we towed them up to the lock and, thankfully, there were enough bodies to get us through. We continued our trip up to Littleborough, leaving the hire boat behind to wait for an engineer.

It was with great relief to arrive at the moorings, having used the facilities we moved back across the canal to tie up. We decided we would have a rest day here so settled down on some very pleasant moorings close to the town.

Old hall near Littleborough

Looking across to the Pennines

Littleborough is a charming little town and doesn’t feel as if time has yet caught up with it, nestled away amongst the hills, with charming little streets and shops. I took a walk to look at Hollingworth Lake above the town, the lake area was once the playground of the local community and has the air of a seaside town with amusements, chip shops, pubs and cafes. There are good views towards the M62 motorway as it climbs its way up the Pennines on a large viaduct.

The beach at Hollingworth Lake

Littleborough Bridge

Returning to the boat we prepared ourselves for the day ahead to climb the last 13 locks to the summit.

Thursday morning brought heavy rain as we set off, the first few of the locks were problem free but as we arrived at the last four or five locks the usual problems occurred due to a lack of water.

The problem had been compounded by the half dozen or so of historic boats coming down the day before, we had to let water down from the pounds above each lock carefully rationing the supply, as we passed through. The rain teemed down but had little effect on the water levels, however, we finally arrived at the waiting pound below the summit level. The pound before was so low that I had to use the pole to push the boat off the many mud banks we ran aground on.

Waiting to go over the summit was the boat we had met in the damaged lock, they were waiting for the water level in the summit pound to recover before proceeding, so we went to investigate and agreed that we should be ok to set off. The friendly couple on the boat NB Matilda had set off from Mercia Marina and it transpired that we had been moored on the same pontoon during our time there in the winter.

We set off together to cross the summit, always a relief as dropping down the other side seems easier, we dropped through 3 locks to moor near Walsden close to the eastern portal of the Summit railway tunnel. It was here, during the nineties that a train of tankers had caught fire inside the tunnel, it took weeks to extinguish the flames, and the flames could be seen coming out of the air shafts across the moorland.

Crossing the summit pound

The hills surrounding the summit pound

We decided to continue our descent into Todmorden the following morning, NB Matilda decided to have a day exploring the area so we entered the locks on our own. As we were dropping the first lock a chap appeared to inform us that there were two boats behind us, they seemed to be in a hurry and were soon snapping at our heels even though they had to refill each lock. A few locks above the town the caught up with us and were letting so much water down the head gates were overflowing making it very difficult to open the tailgates. We had to get the assistance of a couple of ladies out walking to get the gates open, at which point I asked the following boats to wait at least on lock behind so we could get through.

Flooding locks due to boats descending behind us

We arrived in Todmordon but the moorings here are poor with damaged banks and shallow water, we finally found a spot on the outskirts of the town.

Saturday morning brought better weather and we cruised the 5 locks and 3 miles to moor at Stubbings Wharf just above Hebden Bridge.

This stretch of canal had suffered badly during the 2015 floods, the river had risen so much that it came over the bank and into the canal causing a torrent to flow down the waterway, the south bank is very steep here and the rains had caused the land to slip into the canal blocking and destroying a 100 m or so of the canal. It took months for the damage to be repaired.

The repaired section following the landslip

At lock 13 we met Vicky’s friend Lou, who lives on her boat close by, she helped us through the last couple of locks and joined us as we arrived at the moorings right outside the pub. She joined us for lunch before we went to visit her moorings. The little community here put a lot of effort into keeping their moorings tidy and have created a lovely area alongside the towpath.

The next morning we headed through the three locks down to Hebden Bridge, arriving at the second lock we waited for a boat to come up the lock, this was a hire boat with female crew who had been out for the weekend. They had been told that they could turn the boat round in the pound between the two locks, this would have been easy had there been enough water. We helped them round and then down the next two locks into town, they kindly gave us a bottle of wine in return for our help.

We moored up waving goodbye to the Manchester ladies as they had to get back to base, we elected to stay in Hebden for a couple of nights and were soon joined by NB Matilda.

That afternoon Toby and Marge called to see us and we went to sample some of the local brews.

Anna, Nick and Nat joined us on Monday and we returned for another good lunch back up at Stubbings, followed by a walk around the town, the weather was much improved and we had an enjoyable day.

Hebden Bridge

The following morning we set off for Sowerby Bridge, 5 miles and 4 locks downstream, the trip was mainly dry but heavy rain was forecast, thankfully this didn’t arrive until after we had moored up above Tuel Lane lock.

This lock is the deepest on the system, some 19 feet, it was built to replace two locks that had originally carried the canal through the town centre. After the canal was closed in the fifties the town was subsequently developed and the canal was built over, restoration necessitated in the construction of the deep lock and a tunnel under the main road.

Sowerby Bridge tunnel

The lock is manned Friday to Monday but passage has to be booked outside of these times, we had booked through for Wednesday morning.

That morning the lockkeeper arrived on time and penned us through first thing, we dropped down the last two remaining locks onto the Calder Hebble below.

We met up with Chris and Karen Payne, who live locally, that evening and enjoyed catching up over a few pints.

Sowerby Bridge is another charming little Pennine town and we spent the day walking up the hills overlooking the valley, the views from the top are stunning and are worth the climb.

Old Hall above Sowerby Bridge

Views across the valley above Sowerby Bridge

The Calder Hebble Canal

Sowerby Bridge was a transhipment town and the large warehouses around are testament to this. The Rochdale was built for 70 ft boats whilst the earlier CH was built for boats around 10ft shorter.

We set off on Thursday morning to be joined later by NB Matilda at the 3 locks at Salterhebble, these locks require the use of a hand spike to operate the paddles, quite difficult at times, requiring an implement resembling a pick axe handle.

Hand Spike mechanism

The first of these locks is quite short and tricky to negotiate, not helped by the bad leaks of the headgates.

Salterhebble Guillotine lock

We passed through the remaining two locks of the flight, sharing with another shorter boat who joined us through the locks lower down, we carried on down to Brighouse where we planned to spend the next few nights. We tied up on the moorings behind the large Sainsbury’s.

We passed through Elland where significant damage had occurred during the 2015 floods, the bridge over the canal had to be completely rebuilt and a lot of work was also required to restore the town basin.

Elland bridge repaired after the floods

More flood restoration

On Friday morning we were chatting to a couple of the local CRT staff who advised that we would be better mooring round the corner close to the basin, Duncan and Jude called down to see us and helped us move the boat round to the wharf outside the old Sagar Marine works, now a lively pub and restaurant.

We went out to lunch in the pub now part of the climbing centre in the old flour mills, the company, food and beer were all good.

Duncan and Jude left us in the afternoon and by this time the rain had arrived again, the waterway joins the river Calder below Brighouse so this began to cause us some concern as the river can rise quickly here and is often closed in wet weather. We began to consider whether would have to leave the boat in Brighouse as we had planned all kinds of appointments now we were back in the area.

Friday and Saturday nights are music nights at the old Sagar building and we enjoyed entertainment both nights, Saturday we went to watch a very talented reggae band, giving a reggae lean to some great covers.

The old flour mills, now a climbing centre
the dots on the side of the tower are the climbing steps

Luckily the river didn’t rise too far and had dropped by the following morning, we had another visit from Toby and Marge before we were joined by Chris and Carole Clarke and there two granddaughters. They stayed with us for a trip down to Mirfield, during which the rain arrived again, we enjoyed their company and Chris kindly helped Lucia do the heavy river locks.

The rain eased as we arrived at Mirfield and having said our goodbyes we settled down for a quite night.

Monday brought more rain but the river remained open and we were able to make our way down to Dewsbury basin where we had arranged to leave the boat for a couple of weeks.

The trip across the Pennines was less eventful than last time we did it, but the Rochdale has a feeling of neglect about it, unfortunately it has a bad reputation resulting in fewer boats, but with a bit more attention from CRT particularly around the summit more boats would be encouraged and hopefully improve the route.

The next chapter in our journey takes us down to Wakefield, the Aire and Calder and onto the Trent heading towards Boston and hopefully another bucket list trip across the Wash.

The Calder Hebble above Brighouse