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A Brief History of the Rochdale Canal The Rochdale Canal, completed in 1804, is 33 miles long and has 92 locks which take it up 600 feet to cross the Pennines. It was the first canal to link Yorkshire and Lancashire and was a major engineering and economic success of its day. The canal runs from Sowerby Bridge, where it leaves the Calder and Hebble Navigation, through Hebden Bridge and Todmorden and crosses the Pennine summit north of Littleborough. From there is descends again to Rochdale and continues on through Oldham to central Manchester, where it had links to the Bridgewater canal, the River Irwell and later the Manchester Ship Canal. The Rochdale Canal was busy with commercial traffic until the First World War but improving road and rail transport eventually took business away from the Canal, the last through cargo was carried along the canal in 1937. Trading ceased finally in 1958, and since the canal closed sections were partially filled in and locks turned into weirs. The canal, which was never nationalised, was transferred to the control of British Waterways/The Waterways Trust in 2000. Full restoration is now complete, with the canal cleared, locks refurbished and a new tunnel and lock built at Tuel Lane, Sowerby Bridge (to replace two locks which had been filled in) and the canal was finally reopened for navigation in June 2002. |