A towpath journey: Macclesfield Canal
Snake bridges and silk
RELICS of the textile industry and the historic silk trail, Hovis bread and an unspoilt green landscape wash together in the peaceful waters of the Macclesfield Canal.
This canal is renowned for its aesthetically pleasing swirling bridges with perfectly spiralled brickwork. These so-called ‘snake bridges’ once enabled the horses towing canal boats to swap sides on the towpath, without needing to be uncoupled from the boat.
As part of a 2000-mile network of man-made inland waterways scrambling all across the country, the Macclesfield Canal was one of the last canals to be built in the UK, opening in 1831. It heads eastwards across Cheshire from just north of Kidsgrove to Marple Junction where it meets the Peak Forest Canal, surrounded by views towards the Goyt Valley and wistful mountain peaks.
This canal of mills and meadows is just over 26 miles long, and forms part of the Cheshire Ring, 97 miles long, both a popular boating route and towpath walk.
Marple Junction is where the Macclesfield Canal and Peak Forest Canal meet. One of the most impressive lock keeper’s ‘cottages’ on the canals sits on the junction. It was built by Samuel Oldknow, a local industrialist and promoter of the Peak Forest Canal, and it is popularly believed that its first owner was the manager of the boat-building yard next door.
Heading southwards past the outskirts of Marple and the large restored Goyt Mill near bridge 3, greenery magnificently takes charge, with steady uninterrupted calm along the Macclesfield Canal’s first 16 lock-free miles. A cutting takes the canal through High Lane, then along an embankment and via an aqueduct over the railway below. The canal widens at the village of Higher Poynton, which is almost invisible from the canal and most easily accessed from bridge 15 next to a boatyard and chandlery.
Open countryside surrounds the canal until it passes through Bollington on an embankment overlooking the town and the views beyond. The huge Clarence Mill was reputedly one of the finest cotton mills in Europe in the 1800s, but after years of hardship finally closed in 1970. A footbridge (bridge 26A) was completed in 2009, enabling a visit to Bollington Discovery Centre and a canalside cafe. Another mill, Adelphi Mill, used to produce silk and cotton but has long been closed and now converted into smart contemporary offices.
The towpath crosses sides at Clarke Lane Bridge (no.29), one of the canal’s famous ‘snake’ bridges, curling up and round across the canal. Heading south into open fields, hills and trees, the canal is again isolated and peaceful, and the towpath is refreshingly tufty, less trampled by the touristy-shoes of more busy towpaths. Houses and their gardens line the canal as it reaches Macclesfield, namesake of this canal.
The world-famous ‘Silk Road’ runs all the way from China to Macclesfield. China began producing silk fabrics in 3500BC, but the practice didn’t reach England until the 18th century. High production costs in London drove silk merchants to seek lower prices in provincial towns such as Macclesfield, where hand-loom weaving in garret houses was gradually being replaced by weaving in large mills. At the height of the silk trade, Macclesfield had become the world’s greatest producer of finished silk, with 120 mills and dye houses. Silk is still produced there, albeit on a much smaller scale.
The main town is mostly below the canal to the west as the canal passes the imposing Hovis Mill, the original flour mill which was home to Hovis breadmaking now converted into plush apartments (your mind may trick you into hearing Dvorak and watching sepia images of a knobbly-kneed boy on his bike delivering bread from the famous adverts).
Just outside Macclesfield, there’s a commemorative plaque on a cottage wall near Gurnett Aqueduct – the great canal builder and civil engineer James Brindley once trained here as an apprentice stone mason from 1733 to 1740.
The magnificent milestones along the canal, unusually large for canal milestones, are made from Kerridge stone. They would have once informed working boat crews how many miles they had travelled, but during the Second World War they were buried to stop potential enemy invaders from finding their way around. After the war, many were lost until canal enthusiasts in the 1980s found and restored the majority of them to their modest glory.
The canal also bears many distinctive hallmarks of Thomas Telford’s engineering style, following as straight a course as possible, with long cuttings and embankments. Twelve of its 13 locks are grouped together in one flight at Bosley Locks. As the canal passes through Congleton, there are another couple of the ‘snake’ bridges – bridges 76 and 77.
Cruising onwards, this peaceful canal pampers with space to relax. A short walk from bridge 86, Little Moreton Hall is a National Trust timber-framed manor house dating back to the 1500s. It’s a stunning building riddled with history. And a few bridges further on, the Macclesfield Canal ends at Hardings Wood Junction, where it meets the Trent & Mersey Canal.
There is much more to the Macclesfield Canal than its quirky bridges – its heritage is rife, and beautifully understated. It ploughs a route through glorious countryside, and when you stumble on its treasures, the rewards are genuine.