Just what you find on the way to Lymm ……..

I won’t be alone in collecting old canal warehouses.

The warehouse, 2021

They were during the 18th and early 19th century at the cutting edge of design, and were later copied by the first railway companies as the template for warehouse design.

They were created to solve the need to tranship goods from canal to road, and road to canal, and consisted of entrances on both sides from which produce could be brought into the warehouse and stored for onward shipment. 

These entrances were known as loop-holes and were supplemented by large arches at water level which allowed boats to enter the building.

The warehouse, coal year, wharf, 1900 

So I was more than pleased that on Andy’s adventure to Lymm, he took a slight detour and ended y past Warrington Lane and took the pictures of the warehouse which sits beside the Duke’s canal.

The site has changed very little in the last 150 years, and if I had access to maps from the late 18th and early 19th centuries I am sure they would show the same.

And that pretty much is that, other than to say I will go looking for any plans for the redevelopment of the warehouse.

Location, on the Bridgewater Canal,

Picture; the warehouse, 2021, from the collection of Andy Robertson, and the site in 1900, from theOS map of Cheshire, 1900courtesy of Digital Archives Association, https://digitalarchives.co.uk/

Warehouses and things …… along the Duke’s Canal ……… no. 3 the mystery

This is another of those industrial buildings Andy stumbled across on his walk along the Bridgewater Canal.

And like the others, I thought it was promising.

Despite it’s modern roof and squat appearance, it had all the signs of being a canal warehouse with age.

The original arched entrance and loading hatch were still there, although sometime in the past they had been bricked up.

It shows up on the 1907 OS map of Cheshire as “Canal Storage”, and there looks to be a building on the same spot in 1875, but beyond that I am at present stumped.

I have nor earlier maps of Cheshire, and my canal maps dating from the 1830s are not detailed enough to show individual warehouses.

So for now it’s a mystery.  It might date back to the construction of the canal or soon afterwards.

But someone will know, so I shall just wait and see.

And for those interested to look it up, it is in a builder's yard behind the Old Packet House on Navigation Road.

The post script.

I said someone would no and sure enough research has been done.  John Anthony located other warehouses close by, commenting "here had been fairly extensive canal wharves, mainly for coal, but also in close proximity to a brass foundry and a sawmill. To the north was the LNWR goods yard at Broadheath station, a farm and a school. It is possible these two canal stores had been used for non-coal products and materials, for example, raw cotton and finished goods that needed protection from the elements (and undesirables), and transhipment to / from local forms of transport".

While Derek Watts, turned up the 1835 tithe map which shows our warehouse.

So a job well done, and a thnak you

Location; Altrincham

Picture; that warehouse, 2020, from the collection of Andy Robertson, and detail from the 1907 OS map of Cheshire, courtesy of Digital Archives http://www.digitalarchives.co.uk/ 

Warehouses and things …… along the Duke’s Canal ……… no.1 ..... Altrincham

Now I have long been fascinated by the canal warehouse.

It was in its time a revolutionary design which allowed goods to be shipped through the warehouse from either the canal side to the roadside or from road to canal.

And was later copied by the Liverpool and Manchester Railway for their warehouses.

Over the years I have wandered around the ones in Manchester, from the Dale Street Basin down to Castlefield.

But never quite made it to Altrincham, where Andy found this one, commenting “I stumbled across this by accident. It is a canal warehouse opposite the coal wharf in Broadheath, Altltrincham. It has an opening for a branch of the Bridgewater Canal. It was built in 1833 and is listed. I am hoping I can get a photo of it facing the canal”.

It looks very forlorn, is dwarfed by its modern neighbours and is waiting for a friend to give it a new purpose.

From the canal side you can see the large arched entrance which allowed goods to be taken directly into the building to be unloaded, while on the road side there are the characteristic loop holes used to load and unload material.

Some of those in town have made imaginative use of those arches and loop holes by adding glass and making them a feature.

I hope something equally imaginative happens to this one.

Leaving me just to mention Mr. Bradshaw’s superb collection of canal maps which were made in the 1830s, before he sought fame and wealth with his railway guides, and Joseph Priestly’s  wonderful “Historical Account of the Navigable Rivers, Canals, and Railways Throughout Great Britain” which he published in 1831.

And Mr. Priestly’s book is a veritable goldmine of facts about the canal network, mixing the history of each waterway with a description of the routes and the tonnage charges.

So for the Bridgewater the account includes, that “The primary object of ‘The Father of British Inland Navigation’, as the Buke of Bridgewater has been justly styled , was to open his valuable collieries at Worsley, and to supply the town of Manchester with coal, at a much cheaper rate than could be done by the imperfect navigation of the Mersey and Irwell. 

The original  line to Hempstone takes a south-westerly course from Longford Bridge, crossing the Mersey by aqueduct; by the town of Altrincham  and Dunham Massey."*

Sadly, the account doesn’t mention individual warehouses .. but I suppose that would be asking too much.

Still someone will know more about Andy’s warehouse, and in the fullness of time offer up the story.

For now, that is it, other than to say this is the first of an occasional series on the warehouses and things, along the Duke’s Canal.

Location; Altrincham

Pictures; http://www.digitalarchives.co.uk/ 

*“Historical Account of the Navigable Rivers, Canals, and Railways Throughout Great Britain”, Joseph Priestly, 1831