Linking the Sankey - The Rival's Route -
by Dave Smallshaw

In CANAL CUTTINGS Volume 5.4, Dave Smallshaw, an IWA representative on SCARS' Executive, described his walk along one of the Western routes proposed for linking the restored Sankey to the main system. Here he describes one of the Eastern routes.

Given that the most famous rivalry in the sport of Rugby League Football is the clash of the proud towns of St Helens and Wigan (or Wigan and St Helens!), and that I was born within earshot of Wigan's old Central Park ground, it was with some trepidation that I took the train to the Saints' town's central station on the morning after they had been unceremoniously shown the exit from the championship tournament. The purpose - to explore one of the possible canal links between the Sankey and the Leeds and Liverpool Canal which would provide a waterway link between the two rivals.

The bustling town was putting a brave face on things as I boarded the 31 service bus for Newton Common, where the suggested link would begin within a stone's throw from our new monthly meeting place and a few hundred yards from Newton Common Lock.

You need to alight at the stop just after Penkford Bridge, on Common Road. From the bus stop cross the road, go downhill, and turn into Wharf Road where, a few hundred yards on your right hand side, you will find the site of Newton Common Lock. The site of the lock and its keeper's cottage have been cleared and excavated by SCARS working parties over the last few years. From here you can see the historic site where the first British industrial canal is crossed by the first passenger railway system. We head in the opposite direction, to go back under the lowered road bridge which took the canal under the road the bus brought you along.

Continue north. The plans envisage that the link would leave the canal to the right after the housing development and climb up the slope in a series of locks, and it immediately becomes clear that this will entail quite a bit of engineering work. Our walking route is, however, straight along the route of the old towpath until a brick and stone shelter and a Sankey Valley Park sign is encountered. Just before this, a small stile in the right hand hedge leads us into a duck-boarded pathway and on into woodland.

The goes through a short stream-side valley, gradually rising, until it meets a gravel road where our way is right and up the slope until the wide expanse of Newton Common stretches out ahead. The view from here gives a good indication as to the lie of the land the new waterway would cross, and the rise from the Sankey will need to be positioned between the housing on the horizon and the ancient mound in the field to the right. The road turns left and slopes upwards until it meets with another path by a fine brick farmhouse where we turn right towards the housing community which boasts a few shops, a school and a local, the Swan Inn.

The canal will need to skirt the housing here and cross the ridge of the high land between it and the old colliery site to its proposed northern bank. Rumours abound that this may well be the site of a bold redevelopment site known as the "Kew Gardens of the North" but no one is giving details yet!

To get to the 'Gardens site' you continue past the pub and up to the main road (Crow Lane East) and turn left; turn left to the school, and then right just before the school buildings, which brings you into a housing estate; bear left and right through the housing until you come to the open ground which fringes this development. There are two gaps in the railings which lead to the open ground and the lower leads to a path that runs parallel with the large slag heap - your way marker here is a rusted burnt out car, I'm afraid! - where we join Vista Road, which links Haydock to Earlestown.

At the road, go left along the pavement, past a new road junction giving access to the landfill site, to the entrance of a scrap merchant's premises. Here, cross the road and, via a gap in the hedge, head along a field path which leads us back on ourselves to cross the new access road.

The path bends to the left and eventually meets up with some housing until after fifty yards or so it skirts a field and comes out on the A49, Newton Road. The path meets the road by a new, ill-fitting commercial development which dominates the landscape hereabouts.

At the A49, a look back will give you a good idea as to the land elevation. It is evident that the canal's route would have its summit at the 'Gardens Site' and will then descend to a crossing point where it needs to negotiate both the A49 and the M6, which lurks through the trees here.

Just to the north of the commercial development there is an underpass to the M6 which could be used by the canal. The track(which is not a public right of way) at present leads to a small cottage which lies tucked up against the motorway and also to farm land. The tunnel was constructed for access to the large Haydock Park Farm but, this is now derelict.

The canal would then wend its way across farm lands by wooded areas and existing streams, gradually bearing north until it crossed the A580 by the edges of Golborne and just south east of the racecourse. Unfortunately there is no way through for the walker who has to brave the traffic and its fumes and our way lies up along the A49 to the massive Haydock roundabout where we have a near mile slog along the East Lancashire Road. On the left is Haydock Park Racecourse, and on the right you can see the land on which the canal would pass. As you walk this length, it is clear that the land once again begins to rise from a point below the farm.

Cross the A580 at the first crossing you encounter. This is where the canal will need to bury itself under the road obstruction in what will be a major engineering project. On the other side of the road, Park Road bears right, but at the side of a large much sat-on tree trunk we take the well maintained and refreshingly quiet Sandy Lane which takes us between the housing fringes of Golborne and the racecourse. The canal's course can be split here, with a variant going West around the racecourse entrance and utilising the defunct railway which ran behind the grandstand. The other follows the edge of the housing to our right where it would join up with a local stream and cross under an enhanced Harvey Lane Bridge into open land again. The walker will need to take a slightly different route. Sandy Lane steadily rises and crosses the actual racecourse at its end where the path turns right into the housing of Harvey Lane.

To reach the point where the stream emerges from housing to make the open air again we need to turn left at Helen Lane. The stream passes under the road after a short distance and then travels along a small valley until it crosses under a railway embankment in the distance. This is the probable route the canal will take but we must continue along the road which dives under the old railway line and arrives at a T junction, by which time the canal will have rejoined our route from its valley diversion. We have now reached a second summit on our route.

This area of Edge Green is around the watershed between the two rival towns. The accents now have more of a Wigan flavour, and this is amplified by the friendly banter in the local pub at the junction, The Angel. This basic pub sells excellent cask beers and offers food, and has sympathies with "The Saints" among the bar personnel which at the time of the visit was being mischievously undermined by some of the local clientele!

The waterway would need to cross under the B5207 Ashton to Golborne road here and commence its final descent from here to its rendezvous with the Leeds and Liverpool Canal. The West Pennine moors and the masts of Winter Hill are now evident overlooking this vastly changed landscape. The area below was once a mass of coal mining activity but nature and man have reclaimed the land for farming and leisure.

The course of the new canal would follow Riding Lane which leaves the B5207 just up from the pub and gently dips down through farmland with residual industrial units on its right hand and it is on this side that the waterway would descend. A short way down this lane lies another building of interest, the Harrow Inn. This large pub, built to grand proportions in 1904 and probably a rebuilding of an earlier pub, must have surveyed a scene of great industrial activity at the time and is now left in fields alone in a quasi rural setting. Survive though it has, but was unfortunately closed for renovations on my visit. It apparently offers the range of real ales and food and appears popular according to people I talked with.

The waterway would continue its way along dipping countryside to the right and meet up with the final road crossing, this time the A58 just south of the hamlet of Bryn Gates. The walker has to continue along the pleasant Riding lane until it meets the major road at the bottom of the hill. In a few yards to the East, the site of the crossing is reached by Vinder Wood public amenity area. The waterway would then skirt the backs of the ribbon development which is the village of Bamfurlong, but our way is along the main road, past the popular Bryn Hall pub, until a footpath branches off just opposite the local school. The path emerges from the housing into open land where it would follow the route of the projected waterway link until the path terminates among a plethora of abandoned washing machines and the like which are littered along the footpath joining from the right. The waterway link would be just a hundred or so yards further on from the path we have just travelled along, where the tree lined Leeds and Liverpool Leigh Branch makes its way towards Wigan. Our only way to that is to turn right and, following the path as it twists its way through new sheltered accommodation, then join the main road. At this point a left turn is required over the railway bridge and then walk on for a hundred yards or so until the canal bridge is reached.

From here the choice is yours - you can either walk the three miles or so along the canal towpath to Wigan Pier or catch a bus onward to Wigan bus station at the crossing a little way past the canal bridge. Alternatively - for any downcast rugby fan - there's always the bus the other way - back to St Helens!.

Chairman's Note: This is my favoured route. It joins the Leeds and Liverpool just at the edge of my Parish in Ince. If I were to indulge in really wishful thinking, however, I would go for building this link and the one previously walked by Dave Smallshaw - through my home-town of Kirkby!

Index for this issue     Index of all Canal Cuttings issues      Home Page

Site design and content © 2002 - 2005 Sankey Canal Restoration Society
Site design by Phil D.Long