Climbing the Wigan Locks

 Arguably this is the hardest day on the canal system with 21 deep and wide locks to climb 214 feet to above the town (or is it city?) of Wigan. It is also not generally thought safe to moor close to town, so we set off from our mooring well outside Wigan on Friday at 7.20 am and reached the top of the flight where we moored at around 3.30 pm. Here is the story:

Our last posting finished with us joining the Leigh branch of the Leeds and Liverpool Canal at Leigh. Having done some shopping in Leigh and had lunch we carried on passing Pennington Flash - a large lake caused by mining subsidence - and soon came to Plank Lane Lift Bridge shown here. Helen got off to work the bridge which operates electrically with our trusty BW key. It is quite a busy road so we held up lots of traffic while we and another boat came through.

We moored on Thursday night just past an old lock at the Dover which used to be a pub but is now sadly a ruin. We retired early knowing we would start cruising much earlier than usual the following day (Friday 5th). We rose at 6 am and set off about 7.20 with 3 miles to cover before we reached Wigan and the locks. The picture shows Scotsman's Flash, another lake caused by mining subsidence. This one is often used for sailing, but it was a bit early for sailors.

Before we reached the bottom of the Wigan flight of 21 locks we had to climb the two Poolstock Locks on the way into Wigan. In the picture we are between the two locks passing a prominent church.

Here we are at Wigan Junction. Ahead the canal drops down a few locks in the direction of Liverpool whereas we turned right towards lock 85, the bottom one of the main flight.

Here in the trees is the junction sign. We had come from Leigh and Manchester and were heading to Blackburn and Leeds over the Pennines. Straight on leads to Burscough and Liverpool.

Here are Ian and Leo in the bottom lock. We had hoped to pair up with another narrowboat which makes life a lot easier, but no-one came, though we persuaded the pair in front of us to raise a bottom paddle when they left each lock to make our way easier.

Here Leo is waiting for lock 82 to be emptied to allow us to continue. Helen is on the left at the lock opening paddles to empty the lock.

Some of the locks are festooned with weed so that they look more like the turf locks we met last year on the Kennet and Avon. We saw some CRT chaps at Atherstone on the Coventry Canal scraping off a much lesser growth of weed. Is this a sign of how the northern canals are more neglected?

Here Leo is much further up crossing from Lock 71 to Lock 70. If you enlarge the photo you can see a distant church spire way down in the town of Wigan.

Today the locks are numbered from 65 at the top to 85 at the bottom. This, as the plaque says, is lock 67. In the stonework above the plaque you can see that the locks were once numbered the other way round from 1 at the top to 21 at the bottom. The inscribed message in the stonework is that this is lock no 3.

Down near the lower water level in these locks you can see these strange patches. I think they are freshwater sponges which is a good indication of clean water as sponges are filter feeders.

Up near the top of the flight above lock 67 we passed this well decorated house. The artwork is extraordinary.

Here we are passing from lock 67 to 66.

At Lock 66 there is a pub alongside. A tempting prospect, but you are near the end by this point. However the landlady in a long smart red dress did help Ian close the lock gate.

And finally the end is in sight with lock 65, the top lock, just under this bridge.

Here Leo is in the top lock no 65 ready to leave the Wigan flight. A long hard day to reach this point so we moored just around the corner and enjoyed a well earned rest.

Look at the rope wear on this iron bollard.  We felt just as worn!

It now truly feels that we are on the Leeds and Liverpool with countryside views now that we are far above the town. We have three smaller flights of locks ahead as we climb the Pennines to about 450 feet above sea level at the summit. It feels good to be back here and, for us, this will be increasingly near home.