Reaching the Summit of the Leeds and Liverpool

 I did start this year saying that I would post on this blog as and when we passed a junction of canals. This time the trigger is reaching the summit at 487 feet above sea level of the Leeds and Liverpool. If I didn't post now then I would have too many photos to put on at one go and that might be toooooo boring. So here goes. The last posting covered the climbing of the Wigan locks, so that is where we start:

After a night at Adlington where we spent a chatty afternoon with Dave and Jan on Yes Dear, we moved on through Chorley. This mill is known as Botany Bay Mill. It is said that the name comes from the Australian Penal Colony, the suggestion being that the navvies who built the canal were as welcome in the neighbourhood as the convicts in Australia. This mill has been a retail outlet but is not open now.

Soon after Chorley we came to the bottom of the flight of 7 locks at Johnson's Hillock. The bottom lock is on the right. Strangely the stretch of canal from the top of the Wigan flight to here was built as part of the Lancaster Canal. To the left under the footbridge is the Walton Summit branch which was originally intended to reach Preston where it should have crossed the River Ribble on an aqueduct and then headed north. The aqueduct was never built and this stretch of canal was incorporated in the Leeds and Liverpool.

We came up these locks with another boat called Pilgrim and you can see Leo here following Pilgrim into the fourth lock. More of PIlgrim and its owners, Chris and Chris, later.

We moored near the top of the flight on Sunday in time for a pub lunch in the Top Lock pub. So it was Monday before we climbed the 6 locks at Blackburn. Here Leo is waiting its turn below the bottom lock while two other boats went first.

Leo in this picture is in the third lock at Blackburn and curiously the sun has come out.

This is Eanam Wharf at Blackburn. The unloading area for narrowboats is under the projecting roof. We liked the dragon trying to get out of the building.

Here's the dragon's head.

This old mill is now used by Granada TV.

From Blackburn onwards the M65 was our constant companion. Here approaching Church we crossed the motorway on an aqueduct.

This milestone and memorial at Church records the half way point on the canal between Liverpool and Leeds being sixty-three and five-eighths miles from each.

There are three swing bridges around here. This is the one at Church which was in a much better state than last time we came this way. You need an anti-vandal key to release the locking leg and then a windlass to wind it up. Once that is done it is a question of woman power to push open the bridge. This one needed a spot of Ian assistance to close it after Leo had passed through.

This is a floating dry dock. We've seen a few of these and you can see that it has a narrowboat in it. You drive the narrowboat into it when it is partly sunk and then pump air into chambers that lift the dock and allow the water to flow out so that the narrowboat is left dry to work on its hull.

The canal crosses a valley at Burnley on a huge embankment which is dead straight for nearly a mile. Sorry about the spot on the picture but it was raining quite hard and the view was dismal.

The embankment is about 60 feet high and a wonder of the waterways. Here you can see roofs below us.

And towards the east end the canal crosses a main road on an aqueduct.

We've seen a few of these lately. It is a horse ramp to help in getting out of the canal any horses that have fallen in. When a horse was towing a boat round a bend there was a danger that rather than the boat moving forward the horse would be pulled backwards into the water. So it was helpful to have an easy way to get the horse out again.

It must be said that Burnley and Nelson are not very pretty! Here is one of several large mills from cotton days.

Finally on Thursday we came up the last six locks at Barrowford to reach the summit level of the canal at 487 feet above sea level. The picture shows Leo in the top lock with the lock house on the right. Sadly our friends on Pilgrim had an accident in one of the Barrowford Locks. The boat caught on a projection on the lock wall, tipped sideways and partly filled with water. Their engine has failed and half the boat was wet through. We left them today at a marina sorting things out with a repairer and their insurer.

We stayed a couple of nights at Barrowford and liked the town and the open country moorings. The picture is of the Heritage Centre in what appears to be a fine Elizabethan building.

And here is the packhorse bridge which we crossed several times. The bridge crosses the river called the Pendle Water.

One reason for staying an extra day in Barrowford was to walk to and climb Pendle Hill. The hill is about 5 miles from our mooring so we walked there and caught the bus most of the way back. This is the land of the Pendle Witches from the early 1600s and the statue (that's the one on the viewer's left) is of Alice Nutter, one of the witches hanged following trial in Lancaster. Note Helen is matching the hands.

We followed the Pendle Water most of the way to the hill and in Alice Nutter's home village of Roughlee is this impressive waterfall.

Two Muscovy Ducks sitting on a wall were not perturbed by our passing close by.

We left our streamside path at the village of Barley and began the climb in earnest. A flight of steep steps leads diagonally across the fell.

The top is 1,831 feet above sea level and here is the view looking broadly east towards where Leo is moored.

Pendle Hill is a great viewpoint and as well as these Yorkshire Peaks which I've labelled we could see Simon's Seat above Wharfedale. In optimum conditions you can see the Lake District peaks and on a previous ascent we could see Helvellyn.

A fold in the ground on the way down was home to a forest of foxgloves.

We like the mooring at the top of the Barrowford locks but this morning we tore ourselves away and set off out of Lancashire heading for our home county of Yorkshire. A mile from the mooring we had to go through the Foulridge Tunnel and in the photo we are waiting for the lights to change to green to allow us through. The tunnel is not wide enough for boats to pass so the traffic lights allow boats through in the other direction at the hour and in our direction at the half hour. The tunnel is just under a mile long so that it is time enough. The tunnel is famous for a cow called Daisy who, in 1912, swam through it. We put our lifejackets on to make sure we didn't!

The tunnel seems a good place to break this narrative. From here our way lies down towards Leeds but we intend to take our time over the journey as we much prefer the east side of this canal. But then, we do fly the White Rose from our stern.