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How many Inland Canal Ports Were There?


Heartland

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2 hours ago, David Mack said:

No doubt the M&I terminus handled some goods carried onward by canal once the other canals in Manchester were built, but to my mind the term "Port of Manchester" refers specifically to the docks and wharves at the Manchester end of the Manchester Ship Canal.

The idea of a place being a port can change over time, and the attached notice from the Blackburn Mail in 1810, after the L&LC had opened to Blackburn, does suggest that the publishers thought Blackburn was now a port, and they recorded arrivals in much the same way as the papers in Liverpool did with arrivals there. The problem is that any discussion over historical identity must consider change over time. On another tack, should a port just be for international shipping, or is coastal shipping important? It the latter is the case, does that include the Cuckoo boats off the Chesterfield, which worked regularly onto tidal waters.

1810 Blackburn 220.jpg

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The question was confined to inland ports, and so places on the coast line were conventional ports.

 

Pluto has a good example of goods to Blackburn, it would be of interest to decide the vessel type. Apart from the usual Leeds and Liverpool craft, could any of them be coastal vessels such as sloops?

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19 hours ago, Heartland said:

The question was confined to inland ports, and so places on the coast line were conventional ports.

 

Pluto has a good example of goods to Blackburn, it would be of interest to decide the vessel type. Apart from the usual Leeds and Liverpool craft, could any of them be coastal vessels such as sloops?

But what is 'on the coast line'? For instance, is Howley Quay on the Mersey & Irwell Navigation a port? The river is tidal there, but the location is well inland. It is almost impossible to be specific using a general term like 'port'.

 

On sailing boats using the L&LC, they were just suitably sized local sailing boats, so keels, and perhaps sloops later, in Yorkshire, and flats in Lancashire, though, apart from dimensions suitable for the locks, it is difficult to describe them exactly. Some would be decked, others open, depending upon their usage. It is likely that they were often de-rigged when on the canal, leaving their sailing tackle at a suitable location.

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20 hours ago, Heartland said:

The question was confined to inland ports, and so places on the coast line were conventional ports.

 

You really need to decide what a port is though - or rather we do collectively? My instinct would suggest Paulton basin on the coal canal was not a port, but why not? Single user? (Not true - multiple collieries and at least one foundry used it). Not available for general carriage? Possibly but there was no demand for such, and a "cargo" of monks disembarked there once? What is a port?

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1 hour ago, magpie patrick said:

 

You really need to decide what a port is though - or rather we do collectively? My instinct would suggest Paulton basin on the coal canal was not a port, but why not? Single user? (Not true - multiple collieries and at least one foundry used it). Not available for general carriage? Possibly but there was no demand for such, and a "cargo" of monks disembarked there once? What is a port?

Quite. Just about every village on or near a canal and just about every main road bridge had some sort of wharf where incoming goods would be landed for use by the local populace and in local industry, and from where local products of agriculture, industry and mining were sent to wider markets (local, national and in some cases international). Many of these wharves would also have handled goods carried on horseback or by horse and cart to/from places further afield which didn't have a waterway connection. What essentially is the difference between a 'wharf' and a 'port'?  And if the distinction is based on the amount of transhipment activity, rather than handling of goods of local origin or for local use, how do you determine tha amount of transhipment activity, and what is the threshold when a 'wharf' becomes a 'port'?

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A useful discussion and perhaps the term Wharf, Quay and Port need to be defined further. Such as what was the function of each, the types of traffic and the interchange of traffic there. A port tents to conjure up the belief that traffic was varied. 

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