Peak Forest Canal

History

The Peak Forest Canal was designed to carry limestone from the quarries of Derbyshire and dates from 1794. Samuel Oldknow, the cotton spinner who made Marple and Mellor a centre of industry, was the driving force behind its creation. It opened in 1800, although the flight of locks at Marple was not completed until 1804, and Benjamin Outram's stone Marple Aqueduct carries it over the River Goyt. It runs a little under 15 miles from Dukinfield Junction on the Ashton Canal to Bugsworth Basin, with a short spur to Whaley Bridge. Stone was brought down the hillsides to Bugsworth Basin on a plateway and taken on by boat to Manchester; by the end of the 19th century the basin was handling over 600 tons of limestone a day. Bugsworth Basin closed in 1926, and commercial traffic on the canal continued until 1959.

The Peak Forest, Ashton and Macclesfield canals were all in common ownership of the Manchester, Sheffield & Lincolnshire Railway before the canals were nationalised after the Second World War. After a period of dereliction in the 1960s, local volunteers began restoring the canal, and the length between Marple and Dukinfield reopened, with the Ashton Canal, in 1974. Bugsworth Basin was restored by the Bugsworth Basin Heritage Trust. In 2015 the Upper Peak Forest Canal and the Marple lock flight were awarded a Green Flag, the first canal in the country to receive one, and the Canal & River Trust now looks after the waterway.