Putting the lock into lockdown
HOW perverse life can be at times, I thought as my walking companion Peter Gibbs and I looked out over the Huddersfield Narrow Canal basin. We were about to set out on the 20-mile walk along this delightful waterway, which once served huge former red brick woollen mills with towering chimneys. Now, it’s dotted with poignant reminders of Britain’s Industrial Revolution.
But no, just stepping outside was not going to be possible – because there was a tunnel a couple of hundred yards away without any towpath. This would mean a detour through city streets.
It wouldn’t be the first time we’d got lost while trying to find a canal in the midst of a metropolis.
Luckily help was at hand on this occasion when we soon spotted a blue cycle route and towpath sign.
The Huddersfield Narrow Canal, straddling the Pennines, which took thousands of pick and shovelwielding labourers 17 long years to build and opened in 1811, winds its way amid rugged hills and through wooded countryside along the Colne river valley.
It has two unique claims to fame in that, at 645 feet above sea level, it is the highest in Britain, while its Standedge Tunnel – more than three miles in length – is the longest and deepest in the land.
It took 27 years of campaigning and restoration by the Huddersfield Canal Society before this magnificent waterway was fully re-opened to navigation back in 2001 and became one of only three Pennine crossings, the others being the Rochdale and Leeds & Liverpool canals.
As winter, with few narrowboats on the water, is a busy season for maintenance, we came upon three separate teams working on behalf of Britain’s Canal and River Trust busy, cutting back trees, repairing a lock paddle and even shoring up a bank by injecting a special compound.
Approaching flask-of-coffee time and on reaching a lock, we came upon the former ‘Titanic’ woollen mill, so named by locals because it began production in 1910 – just after the sinking of the famous liner.
Like many other industrial edifices, it has been given a new lease of life by being converted into apartments but back in its heyday it held the world record for producing a suit from wool to wearer in just two hours and ten minutes!
Not long afterwards, the canal ran right through the heart of the picturesque and bustling west Yorkshire village of Linthwaite, where we were almost enticed into a waterfront café for another coffee and perhaps a piece of cake. These were the carefree days before coronavirus.
By lunchtime we had ascended 45 locks to the canal’s highest point in the village of Marsden, and spent a comfortable hour in the busy
Riverhead Brewery Tap, enjoying lunch in the unseasonably warm sunshine.
We were now close to the Standedge Tunnel but, being winter, there were no boats on which to hitch a ride and, as it was going to be getting dark in a couple of hours, there was no time to follow a path over the top. There are times when it’s fine to cheat a little. We called a taxi. A short and misty ride over the Pennines brought us to our overnight pub stop, close to the canal in the curiously named village of Diggle which apparently derived from the Saxon name ‘Deggle’ (meaning valley).
We were back on the canal early in the morning for our ten-mile walk to journey’s end near the busy towns of Stalybridge and Ashtonunder-Lyne, where this waterway links up with the Ashton Canal to Manchester and the Peak
Forest Canal towards Macclesfield.
Now, the locks were descending into the Tame Valley.
It wasn’t long before we came upon the welcoming Lime Kiln Café, close to a magnificent Victorian railway viaduct, carrying the Manchester line, and it was here that we met local Jane Stuart, who’d always wanted to run a café and made her dream come true seven years ago.
There followed an interesting morning’s walk along the Tame Valley through the villages of Upper Mill, Greenfield and Mossley with glimpses of gradually descending Pennine ridges on either side.
We might have missed the mighty Standedge Tunnel, which takes two hours to cruise through, but a small treat was now in store.
For we suddenly found ourselves approaching the 200 yard-long Scout Tunnel, making a fitting finalé to our latest canal adventure.
Just like the coronavirus crisis, there is light at the end of the tunnel if you persevere.