EXPLORING OUR LOCAL WATERWAYS BY BICYCLE
By Nicholas Coleman

No, not some new invention for cycling on water, but having taken up a bike again two or three years ago after a gap of some 35 years, I have found the tracks, trails and towpaths around our waterways provide some excellent easy off-road cycling routes as well as an ideal way of exploring our industrial heritage and local wildlife refuges.

Living at Newton-le-Willows I'm well placed to access "our" canal towpath, well old enough to recall as a lad watching the barges of raw West Indian sugar cane being unloaded at the Sankey Sugar Works and recalling how polluted the "stinking brook" (Sankey) used to be. Setting off towards Sankey Bridges, where the towpath to Spike Island becomes a part of the Trans Pennine Trail (TPT) National Cycle Network (Route No 62), I often stop off by Bewsey Old Hall in spring and summer to admire their wildflower meadow with its pink and purple orchids before proceeding to the end of the canal.

Digressing on the way, I was intrigued to read in "Canal Cuttings" the comments about the sandstone blocks engraved as a memorial to Prince Albert, lying in the grass on the River Mersey Bank close by the lock between the river and canal at Fiddler's Ferry. They had puzzled me for sometime: mounting block, "traveller's rest" or part of a building perhaps, but how and why did they end up there? A mystery still to be solved I think. I also, incidentally, watched a diver being lowered into the lock during the summer and was told there were problems in operating the lock gates into the river due to silting up of the channel.

At Spike Island one has several options; return to Sankey Bridges via a couple of alternative routes or go further along the TPT (TransPennine Trail)  alongside the Mersey.

In all cases follow the TPT signs towards the Widnes - Runcorn bridge and just before the appropriately enough named Mersey public house one can see the docking point for the gondola of the transporter bridge on the left. All that's left today are the metal plaques embedded in the wall celebrating the original opening in 1905 and the relaunch "following alterations thereto" in 1913, the ceremonies being conducted by Sir John Brunner of the Brunner-Mond Company which had its origins here and later became ICI (visit the Catalyst Museum opposite Spike Island for the full story).

To follow the TPT one passes under the present road and rail bridges alongside the River Mersey, ascending an incline with excellent views over the estuary from the top, but followed by a series of steps down if one wants to proceed along the riverside to Pickering's Pasture Local Nature Reserve, a mass of yellow cowslips in the spring. Beyond the reserve the Trail leaves the riverbank proceeding to Hale Village and Spike, finally terminating at Southport with a branch off into central Liverpool (Route No 56).

For the alternatives back to Sankey Bridges, cross the Widnes to Runcorn bridge (take the footway - don't risk life and limb cycling with the traffic) and look down on the left towards the Runcorn Old Quay Swing Bridge which is your next port of call to bring you back over the Manchester Ship Canal to Wigg Island Country Park where it's difficult to imagine this was once the site of an ICI chemical works. Pass the new circular visitor centre with its wind turbine (call in and have a look if it's open) and follow the track through the park with the Mersey on your left until the track descends to a still extant section of the old Runcorn to Latchford canal which became defunct with the construction of the Manchester Ship Canal. The water at the end is often orange-brown, presumably from iron oxide contamination, but the swans, ducks, coots and moorhens seem to survive. A new tower hide has just been erected here to give views over the Mersey mudflats, exposed at low tide, with their large flocks of wintering birds (the area is now classed as an estuary site of international importance and is one of the ten most important estuarial areas in Britain). Make the most of it now as I can't say I'm enthused by the thought of the new road bridge planned to cross the island, Ship Canal, river and Sankey Canal.

Leaving Wigg Island Park, continue on the track alongside the Ship Canal for just over three miles as far as Moore Lane Swing Bridge. At one point there are some old moorings and I noticed this summer that the mass of overgrown vegetation and brambles around the cast iron bollards had been cleared and removed: is there a plan to use them again?

At the crossroads by Moore Lane Swing Bridge our journey continues straight across but take a diversion to the left through the woodlands of Moore Nature Reserve where there's a hide looking out over one of the meres whilst a little further on the road crosses another section of the Runcorn to Latchford canal. Here established trees are growing from the bed of the long gone waterway but the banks can be followed with a permissive footpath (no bikes unfortunately) and the original stonework where there was once presumably a bridge of some kind can be clearly identified.

On from the crossroads with the nature reserve on one's left is Acton Grange warehousing site on the right. Now used only for road transport this was once the "Haydock Coal Wharf and Lay-Bye", so-called as it belonged to Richard Evans & Company who exported coal here from the mines they owned at Haydock, Colborne and Bryn. The National Coal Board took over the site following the nationalisation of the coal industry after the Second World War and latterly ships would arrive from Scandinavia bringing wooden pit props. Transport to and from the wharf was, of course, by rail in those days. The railway link is long gone but further along some rails are still embedded in the road. One can't see what's happened to the wharf but the Coal Board had it rebuilt in the 1950s.

I have a vague recollection of visiting there as a child one Saturday morning with my father, who was going to inspect the work, and climbing down a long ladder behind the piled shuttering holding back the water to what was presumably the bed of the canal (who said anything about Health & Safety!). Wasn't there something sensible though in shipping bulk cargoes by canal and rail?

Progressing onwards, the track veers away from the Ship Canal and now has a railway atop an embankment on the right. Don't follow the road to the left, which goes to a landfill site, but keep straight on. At an unmarked gate on the left is a short track leading to an open-topped hide giving excellent views over two lagoons with herons, waterfowl, the turquoise flash of a kingfisher if one is lucky and. perhaps a buzzard mewing overhead. I'm also told bitterns may be glimpsed in winter if not hiding in the reedbeds and last autumn I saw and heard a raven grunting nearby.

The track ends at an old factory access road where the River Mersey makes a reappearance and is crossed by two railway bridges to the right. Turn left along this road then follow the TPT signs up a track which leads to another crossing of the looping Mersey before arriving back at Sankey Bridges.

Another section of the Runcorn-Latchford canal can be followed on foot over a stile alongside a gate on the left, just before the Moore track meets the road. The reeds here give way to a shallow watercourse surrounded by woodland and, on a glorious autumn day with sunlight shining through the hawthorns weighed down with red berries, it was a lovely peaceful spot.

The second part of Nicholas' article will appear in the next issue of CUTTINGS.

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