Looking for the lost Aqueduct Street … and finding Paradise Walk and a canal

I have finally done Paradise Walk.

Following the steps to Paradise, 2025

It’s a rather uninviting set of steps leading from Store Street up an alley which twists a bit and comes out on Ducie Street.

For about half its length part of the walk is bounded by the wall of the Ashton Canal aqueduct which crosses Store Street.

It was Sean Kelly who alerted me to its presence a few years ago, with “Could I suggest Paradise Walk, off Ducie Street, Andrew? It’s a sort of short cut and I suspect a lot of history......”, adding “it's been well poshed up, relatively, since around 2000. Wonder whether the Central Library archives have a photo”.

Aqueduct Street, 1894

And straight away I did a bit of research, wrote a few stories for the blog but never did the walk.*

Central Library’s archive had nothing on Paradise Walk but a succession of OS maps through the 19th century into the 20th show its route, but not as a walk but as Aqueduct Street, replete with 25 houses.

They were there by 1849 and still show up in 1951, but had gone just two decades later, and some time after that had been shifted slightly to the east and reduced to a narrow path.

Still even as such it’s a little bit of our past and one of those walks which are fun to do.

Perhaps a bit claustrophobic, and spoilt by spray paint messages pretending to be art. 

And having done the walk it is possible to access the towpath beside the canal along the aqueduct with fine views of Store Street below.

Location; Paradise Walk, Store Street and a canal

Travelling Paradise Walk, 2025

Pictures; the steps of Aqueduct Street, 2025, from the collection of Andrew Simpson and Store Street, 1894, from the OS map of South Lancashire, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://digitalarchives.co.uk/

*Paradise Walk, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/Paradise%20Walk