Tonic required. Send in your photos of what is nice on the waterways now.

[PeterScott]

On this day in 1979

 

Wool Road Transhipment Warehouse HNC  (nowadays it's the restoration society's HQ)

Compare  10Apr2001  22Apr2010  19Jul2011  12Mar2022

 

 

Edited Friday at 22:50 by PeterScott

[PeterScott]

On this day in 1979

 

 

 

 

Paddock Foot Lock No 5E 

 

and Colne aqueduct  HNC

Edited 13 hours ago by PeterScott

[PeterScott]

On this day in 1979

 

 

Titanic Mill, Linthwaite at Low Westwood Lock No 16E

[DandV]

Thanks Peter for a lovely photo essay of the HNC prior to restoration.

[Stroudwater1]

Great pictures! It’s an amazing achievement that the whole canal was restored but 22 years later. I remember walking up to the bottom two “locks” from the Ashton in the early 80s. There seemed so little chance it would ever get done. It was a really bad mess. 
 

It may help anyone who moans about the HNC to consider that, look at these pictures and be thankful. 
 

Meanwhile yesterday 

 

 

 

Saul junction and marina G&S. Stern end  of Banstead 

Edited yesterday at 03:28 by Stroudwater1

[Naughty Cal]

On this day 2018

Bardney Lock

 

 

 

 

 

Last night 2023

Shardlow 

 

 

 

[PeterScott]

12 hours ago, DandV said:

Thanks Peter for a lovely photo essay of the HNC prior to restoration.

10 hours ago, Stroudwater1 said:

Great pictures! It’s an amazing achievement that the whole canal was restored but 22 years later. I remember walking up to the bottom two “locks” from the Ashton in the early 80s. There seemed so little chance it would ever get done. It was a really bad mess. It may help anyone who moans about the HNC to consider that, look at these pictures and be thankful. 

Yes thanks, another HNCpic from yesterday in 1979 ...

 

 

Building-on-line at Stalybridge HNC

 

 

 

Pipes crossing the canal: somewhere between Scout Tunnel and Stalybridge - and afaict no longer there ...

Edited 14 hours ago by PeterScott

[PeterScott]

Yesterday 1979

 

 

Marsden maintenance yard

 

 

 

 

Maintenance boat in Standedge Tunnel  Marsden end

 

 

 

 

Above Standedge tunnel

Edited 12 hours ago by PeterScott

[PeterScott]

I clearly recall yesterday-in-1979. We were living in Kingston-on-Thames at the time and staying with family in Leeds for the Bank Holiday weekend, we had a spare day and fine weather for an otherwise-unplanned outing. Canal addiction being what it is, we briefly contemplated finding the remains of the Dearn and Dove Canal, and then settled on a backpack with waterproofs and sandwiches, to set off for Huddersfield Narrow where we walked to the beginning of the continuous towingpath (having explored up to Lock 3 on a boattrip to Aspley Basin the year before).

 

It rained as we walked across Standedge Tunnel, which was helpful, and there was a rainbow while crossing the relative minnow of Scout Tunnel.

 

Twenty-odd miles from our start, HNC had replaced the Llangollen and PeakForest in my list of spectacular must-do canals, and sore feet argued against going further than the sunken boat on the Dukinfield pound, in favour of beer at the pub at Stalybridge Station and a train to Huddersfield.

 

The NiceMrGoogle has a briefly annotated version of the pictures, in the order of being taken here.

 

 

 

HNC was always The  Impossible Restoration (#2)  (#3)  (#4) "without the foresight, persistence and organisation of a small number of volunteers who campaigned for and led the restoration from the very beginning, restoration would have [remained] impossible"

 

And as to  mildly moaning about the current state of the canal: the current navigation arrangements for Standedge Tunnel here say

"A limited number of passages have been released to allow customers to book ahead for the year. ... we have availability on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays  From the 3rd April [there are] 2 passages each way [on M,W,F]." The canal has been 'open' for over twenty years under BW/C&RT management and now allows six (return) navigation trips each week, and with winter closures etc that's a maximum of about 180/year. If that's a navigation service, then to (mis)quote Ian Hislop, I'm a banana. If the first twenty years doesn't bring a properly open-and-navigable canal, then when? _sigh_

Edited 12 hours ago by PeterScott

[Tim Lewis]

Pleasant evening in Limehouse Nadin 

[PeterScott]

On this day in 1991

 

 

 

Fradley Junction beer

T&M/Coventry