EXPLORING OUR LOCAL WATERWAYS BY BICYCLE: Part 2

By Nicholas Coleman

For a second alternative route back from Runcorn take some steps down from the footway alongside the slip road from the Widnes - Runcorn bridge on to the Bridgewater Canal towpath. This has recently been upgraded to a designated cycle route (No 82, the Bridgewater Way) with the surface improved, and can be followed to Walton Hall (8 miles) thence to Chester Road (A56) and across the Chester Road Swing Bridge (A5060) to where the Trans Pennine Trail crosses the road. Follow the TPT signs to the left and you're soon back to where the Moore nature reserve track meets the TPT by the railway bridges and then back to Sankey Bridges.

For a different view, travelling eastwards along the Trans Pennine Trail from Sankey Bridges, the route marking is excellent. The first section repeats the end of the last route in reverse order, crossing the River Mersey over the bridge to the landfill site (from the top of the bridge note the old Warrington transporter bridge structure in the distance on your left) and taking the track to the two railway bridges and passing beneath them. The Trail follows a short length of disused canal lined with poplars, the Walton Locks Branch of the Mersey & Irwell Navigation, as it was known, and climbs up some steps to Chester Road, crossing the road via the traffic light controlled crossing to the left and continuing along the signposted track to a large basin on the Manchester Ship Canal, Warrington Wharf. The slowly decaying locks at the end of the disused canal which once linked the Ship Canal to the River Mersey can be observed here. Goods were transferred via this link and taken into central Warrington.

The TPT then goes alongside the Ship Canal to Northwich Road Swing Bridge (A49), crosses the road and takes the right fork in Black Bear Park, once the site of Twenty Steps Lock, continuing alongside the Ship Canal for just over a mile to Knutsford Road Swing Bridge (A5061). The track going straight on through Black Bear Park follows the route of a filled in section of a branch of the Runcorn to Latchford canal, 14 miles long, which once provided another link from the Ship Canal to the Mersey, this time coming out near Howley where the outline of Manor Lock between river and canal is clearly visible at the side of Victoria Park. This was known as Latchford lock prior to the construction of the Manchester Ship Canal and was fitted with flood prevention gates to counteract river flooding. A display board states this link was last used in the 1960s to take Argentinean hides to tanneries at Howley and was infilled in the 1980s.

Back to the TPT again one crosses the Ship Canal via Knutsford Road Swing Bridge (traffic congestion here - take care!) turning left immediately at the end of the swing bridge and following the road under the rather impressive high level bridge of the disused Warrington to Altrincham railway. There's an interesting dilemma here. What, I wonder, will be the ultimate fate of this and other similar structures around the country? Who owns it (Railtrack?): too expensive to maintain yet too expensive to demolish, a task surely as complex as building it in the first place without flattening the adjacent houses and new flats close by which of course weren't there when it was built. No doubt it will be left to future generations to sort out but it's yet another monument to the skill of our past generations of engineers.

Under the railway bridge one soon reaches the Latchford Ship Canal locks which can be crossed and explored via a designated footway. The TPT turns right just after the locks and ascends a track to the former railway which becomes the TPT, passing by Lymm (left) and through the Cheshire countryside, as far as Altrincham. The surface of the trail deteriorated badly on leaving the outer limits of Warrington and entering the jurisdiction of Trafford at the crossing of the River Bollin. At the end of September however the Trafford section was being resurfaced but I haven't seen the result yet. About a mile from the Bollin one can leave the TPT and take the road to the right for about a mile or so to the National Trust's Dunham Massey Hall and Deer Park, passing beneath a bridge carrying the (dripping) Bridgewater Canal going left to Manchester and Leigh or right to Runcorn, close by the park entrance, an alternative return route. The Trans Pennine Trail itself terminates at Hull (but I haven't quite made it that far yet!).

I suppose the only conclusion from all this is what a wealth of waterways (and railways) we once had around here, many with traces still existing. Perhaps Tesco's wine barges will lead to further uses of our neglected waterways for the purposes for which they were intended. Lastly, looking through the interesting book "Curiosities of Merseyside" (Robert Nicholls, The History Press) I was interested to see a page devoted to "Britain's first purpose-built canal", with a photograph of the new double locks, a brief history of the waterway and a mention of SCARS.

To see the routes of these tracks and trails in further detail I would suggest 21-2 inch to a mile Landranger Maps. Unfortunately two are required to cover the areas in question: No 275 (Liverpool, St Helens, Widnes & Runcorn) and No 276 (Bolton, Wigan & Warrington).

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