Manchester, Bolton & Bury Canal

Manchester Bolton & Bury Canal
The Grade II Listed steam crane at Mount Sion, on the Bury arm
Specifications
Maximum boat length	68 ft 0 in (20.73 m)
Maximum boat beam	14 ft 2 in (4.32 m) (originally 7 ft 0 in or 2.13 m) (Widened from 1794)
Locks	16 (originally 12 and later 17) (5 added for Irwell extension making 17 total, as of 2008 a single deep lock has replaced locks 1&2)
Maximum height above sea level	247 ft (75 m)
Status	Under restoration
Navigation authority	Canal and River Trust
History
Original owner	Manchester Bolton & Bury Canal Company
Principal engineer	Matthew Fletcher
Other engineer(s)	Hugh Henshall, Charles Roberts, John Nightingale
Date of act	1791
Date of first use	1797
Date completed	1808; 209 years ago (1808)
Date closed	1924, 1941, 1961
Geography
Start point	River Irwell, Salford (originally Oldfield Road, Salford)
End point	Bury and Bolton
Branch(es)	Fletcher's Canal

The Manchester Bolton & Bury Canal is a disused canal in Greater Manchester, England, built to link Bolton and Bury with Manchester. The canal, when fully opened, was 15 miles 1 furlong (24.3 km) long. It was accessed via a junction with the River Irwell in Salford. Seventeen locks were required to climb to the summit as it passed through Pendleton, heading northwest to Prestolee before it split northwest to Bolton and northeast to Bury. Between Bolton and Bury the canal was level and required no locks. Six aqueducts were built to allow the canal to cross the rivers Irwell and Tonge and several minor roads.

The canal was commissioned in 1791 by local landowners and businessmen and built between 1791 and 1808, during the Golden Age of canal building, at a cost of £127,700 (£8.93 million today). Originally designed for narrow gauge boats, during its construction the canal was altered into a broad gauge canal to allow an ultimately unrealised connection with the Leeds and Liverpool Canal. The canal company later converted into a railway company and built a railway line close to the canal's path, which required modifications to the Salford arm of the canal.

Most of the freight carried was coal from local collieries but, as the mines reached the end of their working lives sections of the canal fell into disuse and disrepair and it was officially abandoned in 1961. In 1987 a society was formed with the aim of restoring the canal for leisure use and, in 2006, restoration began in the area around the junction with the River Irwell in Salford. The canal is currently navigable as far as Oldfield Road, Salford.