The Infamous Rochdale Nine

 As promised, here is our account of travelling down the 9 locks of the Rochdale Canal that take boats down through the centre of Manchester from the Piccadilly area at the top to Deansgate and Castlefield at the bottom. These locks carry a bit of a reputation as two of them lie underneath modern high-rise buildings where in the gloom druggies and prostitutes are said to do their business. The canal also passes parallel to Canal Street which is now the centre of the gay community in the city. This is the first time we have taken Leo this way and there are not that many places left where Leo hasn't been. So here is the story of our 'first' for 2024:

On Tuesday night we stayed in Piccadilly village so it was on Wednesday morning that we went to the very end of the Ashton Canal where it meets a 'T' junction with the Rochdale. To the right lies an ascent over the Pennines. To the left lie the 9 locks. The picture shows the first lock, number 84 with Leo entering. Note that we are now in broad lock land as 2 narrowboats would fit side by side in these locks.

Once down lock 84 you are in a cavernous space below buildings for the next two locks. The pillars in front of Leo support the tall buildings above. Fluorescent lights allow boaters to see what they are doing.

Here Leo is in lock 85. The towpath, which is not continuous through the 9 locks, carries on down a ramp on the left.

Helen took this photo of Leo coming in to Lock 85. Best not to ask what is floating on the water!

After the two 'underground' locks we came to lock 87 which is in the open air and right alongside Canal Street. Note how the wall is carved out to allow boaters to operate the lock gate.

Sometimes there is just not enough space for the lock beam, so here an ingenious alternative solution uses a chain linkage powered through a gear box by your windlass to pull the gate open or closed. The steep steps beyond the apparatus lead down to a landing where the lock crew (aka Helen) has to get back onboard as there is no towpath to the next lock.

A narrow channel between modern buildings and an old warehouse lead on to lock 88.

And here Leo is in lock 88 before Helen opened the downstream paddles to let the water out. Another subterranean section leads out of this lock under the white building.

Nearly there! Leo is shown coming out of lock 91 which is shallower than most of them. The diagonal staircase leads up to Deansgate Tram stop.

The bottom lock no 92 has a traditional lock keeper's cottage which looks out of place among all the high rise modern buildings. Ian is using our alternative to a bow thruster, namely brawn to push Leo to the other side of the lock.

Below the locks there are opportunities to moor in basins to left and right. Because a festival was to take place to the right, we went left into Castlefield Basin shown in the picture where we found a mooring. Handily you can walk across from Lock 92 to see if there are spaces.

Fortunately you can turn a boat at the end of the basin, so here Leo is safely moored facing to go out after a couple of days exploring some of the city sights.

One that we did want to see was an old railway viaduct now owned by the National Trust and planted with both wild and cultivated plants. It was pretty hot on the day we arrived but there were some trees for shade in the garden in the sky and the NT building at the end is air conditioned.

We haven't previously found any attractive streets of old buildings in Manchester but this is St John Street which brought back memories of Bath.

And here is the John Rylands Library building, a wonderfully exuberant Victorian Gothic monument to the philanthropy of Rylands and his cuban wife Enriqueta. Rylands made his money in cotton. Manchester is sometimes referred to as 'Cottonopolis'.

On Thursday we walked along the Bridgewater Canal to Salford Quays. As we left the Bridgewater we came upon this intriguing crane hook suspended from nowhere. Behind is a warehouse built in 1932 for incoming cotton arriving by rail rather than canal.

At Salford Quays, we particularly wanted to visit the Imperial War Museum North which opened in July 2022. We were frankly disappointed. It is a very individual peculiar shaped modern building but inside there was no natural light, bizarrely sloping floors and leaning walls which made us both feel a bit dizzy at times. There was lots of space inside but remarkably few exhibits. One that did affect us was this steel window from one of the Twin Towers and the accompanying recorded accounts from some survivors. But overall probably best avoided, though it is free! We much preferred the Lowry (also free!) on the other side of the Manchester Ship Canal.

We walked over the Millenium Lift Bridge and this view was taken from the bridge looking towards Liverpool. The BBC Salford building is on the right.

We are now on the Bridgewater Canal and we'll tell you more about that another time. It has one significant advantage after several days doing lots of locks - it doesn't have any!