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Owing to a lack of water, following a dry summer, a section of this major trans-Pennine canal was closed in September 2005, and it was reopened on the 12 October 2005. Low rainfall during the summer meant that the canal at Gargrave Locks (Holmes Bridge), Banknewton Locks and Greenberfield Locks, all in Yorkshire, had to be closed.

British Waterways say that they will be keeping a watchful eye on the situation. Restrictions will apply at Gargrave Locks and Banknewton Locks, in Yorkshire, and on the Lancashire side of the summit pound at Barrowford Locks.

Canal boats will be seen on Liverpool’s famous waterfront after plans for a waterway linking the city’s South Docks to England’s canal system were given the green light.

The announcement of £7.5m grant from Objective One funding means that work on the £17m scheme can go ahead. The 1.4-mile link will connect the South Docks across Pier Head to the Leeds and Liverpool Canal and it is anticipated that work will begin early in 2006.

The Leeds and Liverpool Canal originally commenced at Pall Mall, close to Exchange Railway Station, where the Canal Company’s wharfs and warehouses were situated. Following a decline in trade on the canal in Liverpool the first ¼ mile was filled in so the canal presently starts near Chisenhale Street Bridge. A little distance to the north of this bridge the short Stanley Dock Cut Branch connects the canal, through four locks, to Stanley Dock and from there through Collingwood and Salisbury Docks to the tidal river Mersey.

This 9,500-capacity venue, including a 1,350-seat conference centre, is expected to cost £146m to construct and take two years two complete.

Architects are set to unveil the first images of the interior of the venue, which will cover a total of 34.6 acres (14 hectares) on the waterfront adjoining the southern end of Albert Dock.

Plans have been announced for a three-day music festival to be held at the legendary Spike Island on the Mersey Estuary at Widnes.

The festival, which will be held over the late May Bank Holiday in 2006, is expected to attract 80,000 people. A spokesman said that the first day will be a free family day, the second will be dedicated to rock music and the third to pop.

Spike Island, now a Country Park, is situated on the north side of the Mersey Estuary at Runcorn Gap and the St Helens Canal runs through it to drop down into the river. Formerly there were two locks here, side by side, but only one of these has been kept in use.

Adjoining Spike Island is the ‘Catalyst’ a science centre solely devoted to chemistry and how the products of chemistry are used in everyday life. The centre is on Mersey Road, Widnes, Cheshire, WA8 0DF.

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The mill has been in existence since at least 1500. A major fire around 1890 destroyed the two upper floors leaving only the existing brickwork, and it is not known how long the rebuilding took to complete but it is thought that the reduced amount of water usage during this period contributed towards the silting up of the mill pond.

The original power to drive the mill came from an overshot waterwheel situated below the ground floor. This wheel was 12ft (3.6m) in diameter by 7ft 2½in (2.2m) wide, with 56 curved wrought iron buckets transferring the power of the water and driving a large pit wheel with its wooden teeth, which in turn transferring power through the shafting to all of the machinery. The remains of this wheel are thought to date from 1840.

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Extracts by Don Baines

A proposal to build an information and seating area in the shape of a Wych Barge in Vines Park, Droitwich, beside the Droitwich Barge Canal has been selected to receive £50,000 National Lottery funding on ITV’s People’s Millions lottery programme.

The information point is intended to help explain the history of the barge and its importance to the town, and the seating area to provide a focal point near the original town terminus of the Barge Canal, and its join with the much later Droitwich Junction Canal.

The Wych Barge was unique to Droitwich as it was made to suit the size of the canals in the town. There are none left in existence.

Work to build the first and most important section of the Manchester, Bolton & Bury Canal is underway in Salford. Funding for the £4.2 million restoration of the first phase at Middlewood has been granted from European Objective Two Funding, the Northwest Regional Development Agency and Salford City Council.

The 500-metre stretch will reconnect the waterway with the river Irwell through the £600 million Middlewood Locks commercial development site, which will include housing, hotels, restaurants, bars and leisure facilities.

The 15¼-mile long Manchester, Bolton & Bury Canal is one of the last major waterways in Greater Manchester to require restoration. Work started on the first phase in October 2005 with the Middlewood section due to be navigable by the end of 2006.

Work will include the construction of a new canal channel, three locks, two basins and a footbridge. A tunnel was incorporated into the design of the Manchester and Salford inner ring road to accommodate the future restoration. Campaigners see this as the first crucial step in the full restoration of the Canal

The Manchester, Bolton & Bury Canal is a key element in the regeneration of the Irwell and Croal Valleys, linked to other initiatives within the wider corridor. At a celebration held at the Lowry in Salford on 21st October, those attending had the opportunity to visit the site and then demonstrating the partnership nature of the project there were presentations from representatives of British Waterways, Manchester Bolton & Bury Canal Society, the private developer, Salford City Council and North West Development Agency.

Work has already started on the planning for the next section in Salford. At the event credit was given to the Manchester Bolton & Bury Canal Society for their work and perseverance over the years. Also present at the event were the mayors of Bolton and Bury.

BW’s waterside pub partnership has received outline planning permission for a pub and restaurant at BW’s newly opened mooring basin at Auchinstarry, which is situated near Kilsyth on the summit of the Forth & Clyde Canal. The basin cost £1.2 million to construct and reflects increased use of the restored waterway.

British Waterways announced an additional £3 million in funding from the Scottish Executive at its sixth annual meeting in Scotland, in September. Work on the major redevelopment of the canal basins at Port Dundas, at the terminus of the Glasgow Arm of the canal is progressing well.

The first season of operation of Spalding Water Taxi, on the river Welland in Lincolnshire, drew to a close on 30th October. The service, running between Spalding town centre and Springfield Outlets Shopping and Festival Gardens began in July, and has proved far more successful that the most optimistic projections, carrying over 10,000 passengers in the first two months of operation.

The service, arranged by South Holland District Council with local businesses and European support, may prove an inspiration and provide useful evidence of potential success for other local authorities and organisations considering a water-taxi service on their local waterway. The service in Spalding is due to resume at Easter 2006.

The Stage 2 bid for Heritage Lottery Funding to cover restoration of six miles of the Stroudwater Navigation and Thames & Severn Canal from Stonehouse to Brimscombe Port suffered a temporary setback when final studies suggested that costs could increase by as much as £10 million. The bid should have been submitted by the end of August but the Heritage Lottery Fund agreed a two-month extension whilst costs and funding were reviewed.

The review showed that since the Stage 1 application to the Fund was made, construction costs in general had risen far faster than the retail price index. This factor alone added £1.25 million to the project cost. In addition, dealing with and managing predicted flood flows in the main river section of the restoration is now expected to add a further £1 million. The review did, however, identify some areas where costings had been unduly pessimistic.

The net result is that there is likely to be an increase in costs of restoring the canals, but not of the magnitude suggested by the final studies. The plan is to fund this increase partly by asking British Waterways, the South West Regional Development and Heritage Lottery Fund to make additional contributions and partly from a combination of Section 106 payments from adjacent land development and by fundraising.

British Waterways, as lead partner, submitted the Stage 2 applications to both the Heritage Lottery Fund and the South West Regional Development Agency on 17th October. The Cotswold Canals Partnership members expect to hear whether the bid has been successful by the end of January 2006.

A ‘Project Atlas’ has been produced that summarises the restoration project. This will shortly be available from www.britishwaterways.co.uk/cotswolds 

Cotswold Canals Trust is reviewing where it should focus restoration work at the western end of the Stroudwater Navigation. The current assumption is that British Waterways will carry out the restoration of the canals from Stonehouse to Brimscombe Port with minimal volunteer input in so far as physical restoration is concerned.

However, the section of the Stroudwater Navigation from Stonehouse to Saul Junction is vital to connect the isolated section that is the subject of the Lottery bid to the rest of the inland waterways system via the Gloucester & Sharpness Canal and river Severn. A priority is to reach agreement with relatively few private landowners long the line of canal. This would enable a number of projects to be considered including the rebuilding of Walk Bridge (the first obstruction of navigation after Saul Junction) and the completion of work in the vicinity of Whitminster Lock, for which the Trust has substantial funding in hand.

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I have borrowed this idea from an article by Ian Hunter, Chairman of the Worcester Birmingham Canal Society, for their magazine The Fifty Eight and which is reproduced here with his permission.

Don Baines - Editor 174

We are all familiar with the big canal restoration projects such as the Droitwich and the Lichfield & Hatherton. However there are in fact an enormous list of projects and more appear to be emerging all the time. Following my visit to the IWA National at Runcorn I picked up a number of leaflets and thought I would use them as the basis of a series of articles for the 58. So here is the first.

Ian Hunter

The locks we wish to see restored are the OLD LINE, a series of five wide double staircase locks which were first used to take commercial traffic between the Bridgewater Canal and the River Mersey and thus forge a connection with Liverpool Docks. The locks were first used around 1776 and the last commercial traffic was around 1939/1940.

The locks remained in a derelict state for many years. With the coming of the New Town in the early 1960's the new approach roads to the Runcorn-Widnes Bridge covered over the top two locks. The remainder were eventually filled in with sand and the surroundings landscaped. Four out of the five lock structures are still mostly intact.

2 Difficulties to be overcome

The main obstructions are the approach roads to the Runcorn-Widnes Bridge. With the construction of a new Mersey crossing the present trunk roads would need to be diverted to the new bridge and it is hoped that the old approaches could be removed at this time.

Water supply problems would need to be overcome. In 1913 the locks were carrying almost 2 million tons a year which would have meant hundreds of boats using the locks every day. The water to supply this usage came from a feed from the River Medlock in Manchester which has long since been removed. It may be that this feed would need reinstatement to supply a restored set of locks. Back pumping is another option but there are water quality problems if Ship Canal water was to be pumped up to the Bridgewater Canal.

The infrastructure would need to be repaired and in places reconstructed. New lock gates and paddle gear required.

The operation and ongoing maintenance of the locks would need to be set up. The Manchester Ship Canal Co and Halton Borough Council whilst both lending support to the restoration would not wish to take on the responsibility for the restoration or the restored locks, so an independent charitable trust would need to be set up to run the restoration and subsequent lock operations.

Last but most important is the finance required to see the restoration completed. There may be many benefits in forming a charitable trust as such a trust may be able to access funds from various sources that would not only be available or organizations such as Halton B C and Peel Holdings who own he Manchester Ship Canal Co.

The re-opening of the locks will bring many hundreds of boats to Runcorn as the town will become a major stopping off point on a new Cheshire Ring of canals which would include the use of Anderton Boat Lift. Most boats using the Bridgewater Canal see Runcorn as a dead end town and pass by at Preston Brook, where the Runcorn length begins. They often have limited time to spare out of their holiday and prefer to do a canal ring.

The restoration could be used as a focal point for the regeneration of Runcorn Old Town (now Runcorn on Mersey). The old town has suffered a serious decline since the coming of the New Town and there are funds available to stop that decline and turn the town around. Some of these improvements are here already such as the Brindley Art Centre and the new bus station and market, but by turning the town into a major waterways destination it would give the town a chance to turn towards its waterways and feature them as an asset instead of them being a hidden backwater as is the case now. Some of the old buildings near the canal which are in danger of becoming derelict might be found new uses. These things could bring social benefits to the local population.

The influx of visiting boats and the many hundreds of people who would be drawn to the area to watch the boats travelling the locks would bring new business opportunities to the town. These visitors mean shops, cafes, pubs and restaurants would all receive a boost.

A Vision for the future.

The re-opening of Anderton Lift has transformed the waterways at Northwich. The lift is a major attraction on the tourist trail, and the Gas Street Canal Basin in the centre of Birmingham is now a major tourist destination. The formerly rundown town centre of Stalybridge and other places en route have been transformed by the re-opening of the Huddersfield Narrow Canal and the boats once again sail through Rochdale.

WHY NOT RUNCORN?

Graeme Bridge, Chairman
Runcorn Locks Restoration Society
5 Beresford Street, Warrington, WA1 3SA
June 2005

It would be nice to see reference also made to the successful reopening of the restored Bugsworth Basin which, too, has become a favoured destination for boaters and other visitors alike. Happen the writer hasn’t visited Bugsworth yet.

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        By Don Baines

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By Peter J Whitehead

Shardlow is situated four miles to the west of Trent Junction where the Trent and Mersey Canal (Sawley Cut) Erewash Canal, Trent Navigation (Cranfleet Cut) and the Soar Navigation all meet adjoining the town of Long Eaton. With its small inland port, Shardlow is probably one of the best-preserved canal villages in England and it can be entered by two waterways, either the river Trent or the Trent and Mersey Canal.

The development of the village was in every respect due to the construction of the Trent and Mersey Canal, which is quintessentially the main street of the village. It contains original 18^th and early 19^th century cottages, canal pubs, warehouses and wharfs, which exemplify this fine example of England’s industrial heritage.

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By Peter J Whitehead

There seems to be considerable confusion as to where the Peak Forest Canal both starts and ends.

Referring to the photograph of Portland Basin (a name coined in the 1970s) at Ashton-under-Lyne, the diamond line marks the start of the Peak Forest Canal and this line is at the southern end of the Tame Aqueduct. The start of the Peak Forest Canal is, therefore, in Dukinfield, Cheshire. The diamond line marks the position of Ashton Junction and all distances along the Peak Forest Canal and Tramway are measured from this junction. The second photograph depicts the zero milestone and this has marked the start of the Peak Forest Canal and Tramway since their inception in 1796. This milestone is located at the southern end of the aqueduct, in Dukinfield, and it stands by the parapet of the aqueduct on the towpath side.

The first Act of Parliament, permitting construction of the Ashton Canal, received the Royal Assent on the 11 June 1792. This Act contained provision for an aqueduct across the river Tame to connect to the proposed Peak Forest Canal. Thus, the Ashton Canal Company paid for, constructed and wholly owned the Tame Aqueduct and it was an integral part of the Ashton Canal. This aqueduct, therefore, made a canal connection between Ashton-under-Lyne in Lancashire and Dukinfield in Cheshire, on the opposite bank of the river Tame.

The main line of the Peak Forest Canal starts at Ashton Junction and it terminates adjacent to the Navigation Inn at Bugsworth Basin. The length of the main line of the canal is 14 miles and 58 chains (23.697km) and the combined length of the canal and tramway was 20 miles and 23 chains (32.649km), all measured from Ashton Junction. The terminus of the Peak Forest Tramway was taken to be the junction with Samuel Bibbington’s private tramway in Doveholes Dale, adjoining the village of Dove Holes.

This means that the section of canal between Whaley Bridge Junction (at Bridgemont) and Bugsworth Basin is the main line of the canal. It is not an arm and it is not a branch; it is the main line.

The Whaley Bridge Branch of the Peak Forest Canal commences at Whaley Bridge Junction and it terminates at a small basin at Whaley Bridge. This branch is 34 chains (0.684km) long. It is a branch canal and it is neither the main line nor an arm of the canal.

When the Peak Forest Canal opened it was wholly in the County Palatine of Cheshire (including the Whaley Bridge Branch) with the exception of the section of the main line, which lay between the Goyt Aqueduct and Bugsworth Basin, a distance of 49 chains (0.986km). This short length lay in Derbyshire.

The 0 milestone Photographs: Author’s collection

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The Peak Forest Tramway – Is this its correct name?

By Peter J Whitehead

Persons writing about the Peak Forest Tramway, which was a feeder rail system attached to the Peak Forest Canal, are increasingly using a variety of terms to describe it. Depending upon the source, terms to be found include, tramway, tramroad, dramroad, stoneroad, plateway, railroad and railway. It would be easy to say that all these names were synonyms but unfortunately matters are not as simple as that.

Thomas Brown surveyed the line for this rail system in 1793 and the consulting and resident engineers for its construction were Benjamin Outram and Thomas Brown respectively. Benjamin Outram was both the leading advocate of this rail system and the foremost manufacturer of rails and rolling stock. It is still incorrectly said by some that the word ‘tram’ was derived from Outram’s surname but this is just a coincidence.

In Outram’s famous paper, ‘Minutes to be Observed in the Construction of Railways’, it is obvious that he used the term ‘railway’ to describe this rail system and with respect to this evidence the name should be changed from ‘tramway’ to ‘railway’. Unfortunately, the situation is not as simple as it might at first appear.

The Peak Forest Canal Company commissioned the construction of this rail system and it was referred to as a ‘railway’ or stoneroad’ in the Act of Parliament of 1794. For the 10 December 1794, the Company Minute Book mentions ‘cast metal railways’ and later the rails as are referred to as ‘gang rails’ and ‘plates’. In 1833 the term ‘plates’ was still being used. This infers that all these terms were synonyms but, strictly speaking, this is mistaken as well.

The term ‘plateway’ probably originated in coalmines. Here, the rails were initially made of wood, capped with iron plates to stop the wood from being worn away by the passage of waggons. This term was erroneously transferred to all-iron rails and to this day a platelayer is someone who lays railway lines. Benjamin Outram never specified wooden rails, capped with plates, for any of his rail systems and it is incorrect to call any of them a plateway.

The use of rails in coalmines spread to canals where they were constructed to serve as feeders to canals. When the terrain became too difficult for a canal to be extended any further the shortfall was made up by constructing a rail system to connect with a distant quarry or coalmine. Such systems were relatively cheap to construct and, as they were usually gravity operated, they were cheap to operate.

Following the successful opening of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway on the 15 September 1830, modern railways began to spread rapidly throughout the land and it was inevitable that the canal network would fall under the control of the new railway companies. By definition, these controlling companies were operating railways and they could not describe the rail systems attached to canals as railways because they had very little resemblance to contemporary railways. It would seem, therefore, that it was during the transition period of canal ownership that the term ‘tramway’ came into vogue to describe rail systems that were feeders to canals.

The Peak Forest Canal Company was leased to the Sheffield, Ashton-under-Lyne and Manchester Railway Company on the 25 March 1846 and this merged with others to form the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway Company on the 1 January 1847. Subsequently, the Railway Company published their Bye-Laws for the Peak Forest Canal and in the 1878 edition they ascribe the term ‘tramway’ to the canal’s rail system. Similarly, in the Company’s Distance Tables for the canal, dated September 1888, and in their Two-chain Survey of 1889, the term ‘tramway’ is used.

Having established that the railway company was using the term ‘tramway’ the next rational move was to ascertain how company employees alluded to it. An examination of Census Returns shows that they too described themselves as working on the ‘tramway’ and the table below shows typical examples of occupational titles.

From this investigation it looks very much as though both the railway company and its employees referred to this rail system as a ‘tramway’. This demonstrates that the term has been in use for at least the last 150 years and probably for much longer than that.

Year	Name	Occupation
1861	Joseph Ellis	Waggoner on the Tramway
1881	Abner Ardern	Agricultural Labourer and Waggoner on the Tramway
1881	Joseph Ford	Shunter on the Tramway
1881	Abel Ford	Shunter on the Tramway
1881	William Shallcross	Platelayer on the Tramway
1881	William Blincow	Labourer on the Tramway
1881	James Hall	(Lived at Tramway Side)
1881	George Wilmot	Labourer on the Tramway
1881	Francis Hallam	Waggoner on the Tramway
1881	George Goddard	Waggoner on the Tramway
1891	John Ayre	Platelayer on the Tramway
1901	John Ayre	Waggoner on the Tramway
1901	Samuel Ayre	Platelayer on the Tramway

For these reasons, the name of the rail system attached to the Peak Forest Canal is the Peak Forest Tramway, just as it always has been.

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James Goddard - Bugsworth Boatman and Businessman

This newspaper article, kindly sent by Albert Goddard, features James Goddard whose name appeared in the list of boatmen carrying stone to Brunner Mond’s works at Malkins Bank.  The exact date of publication is not known but working from the date 1916 quoted in the article and the length of time the family had lived on the converted barge the date must be around 1936 or 37.

An Englishman’s home is his castle; but

the castle sometimes takes a strange form. Peggoty’s boat, in “David Copperfield,” could not have been a home more novel, more compact or cosy, than the one I found afloat on the Marple Canal at Waterside (writes a “Herald and Reporter” representative.

    For nearly 20 years the barge “Mary,” converted by the addition of a superstructure and sub-divided into five roomy cabins and a workshop, with more conveniences than can be found in some homes, has been the residence of Mr. James Goddard, who was at one time in a fairly big way of business as a canal and general carrier.

    From the canal towing path the craft shows 56 feet of hull, glistening black with a good coat of pitch from the deck to below the water line.

Like An Old Frigate.

    The upper-works are painted red, and a dozen or so glazed windows overlook the water like the gunports of an old-time frigate.

    Tiny side curtains and a bright array of flowering geraniums grace the windows, and above, thin smoke rises from the kitchen chimney.

    Peace and harmony reign, and no wonder that mill-workers who pass by, and anglers fishing by the waterside, express their admiration, wishing for the opportunity to share in the joys of a floating home.

Welcomed By The Skipper.

    Crossing the swing-bridge, I was met on the gangway and welcomed within by the “skipper.”

    Mrs Goddard presides over a gleaming kitchen range with capacity for cooking all the needs of a healthy family. The painted walls are spotless, domestic utensils in good order, pictures ornament the walls, and a few books are tucked away on a little shelf. For illumination, lamps are suspended from the ceiling.

    One compartment opens into the next, so that with the doors open it is possible to view the interior of the boat from end to end, and a nice cool breeze keeps the whole well ventilated. Much of the furnishings may be folded to the cabin walls when not in use, thus giving the maximum amount of room, and in every direction one sees evidence of a handy man’s ingenuity.

Ruined By The War

    While his three little daughters, Ruth, Nora, and Irene helped mother, Mr Goddard told of his life’s experiences.

    He is a native of Bugsworth (now Buxworth) but had spent most of his life on the canals, and claimed to be one of the oldest surviving bargemen in this part of the country.

    Up to about 1916 he was the owner of six barges, six horses and a number of carts. He carried coals for the mills, Shepley, Hollins and Goyt, limestone for the Buxton Lime Firms and material for Marple Council. His trade took him from one end of the country to the other. The barge in which he now resides has borne him as far south as the Thames and covered thousands of miles on England’s waterways. He employed six men, and his weekly expenses amounted to no less than £20.

Saved Many Lives

    When the war came along his men were taken from him, his business was at a standstill, and he lost all but the barge “Mary.”

    Mr Goddard has an outstanding record as a life-saver, and in 1910 the Crown Lodge of the R.A.O.B. recognised his gallantry by presenting to him a gold medal on which an inscription records the saving of five lives from drowning.

    On the suggestion of Mr. Goddard, lifebuoys were provided along the locks of the canal, and after arranging for their erection, Mr. Goddard handed them over to the Urban District Council

    Recalling some of his rescue feats, Mr. Goddard told me of an occasion when his mate dived overboard to save a man who was attempting suicide at Failsworth. The struggle became so desperate that Mr. Goddard had to enter the water and rescue both.

Saved Father From Drowning.

    Another stirring incident was when he saved his father from drowning in the sluice at Top Lock. Jumping from the lock to the cabin he broke an ankle and his nose, but in spite of that, he crawled along the deck to rescue his father from the other end of the boat.

    Then again, by a jump from the bridge by the Ring o’ Bells, he was able to save a woman who had fallen into the canal.

    Mr Goddard was a track cyclist in his younger days and won medals on the tracks at Bredbury, Belle Vue, and Stockport.

Family’s Fitness

    So seldom do barge children have the opportunity for education that Mr. Goddard is very proud of the scholastic achievements of his family. The eldest, Ruth, while attending All Saints’ School has always been top of her class or in the first three and has won many books and money prizes. She now attends the Willows. The other two are also making good progress at All Saints’.

    The children are physically fit and have never known a day’s sickness. Barge life appears to agree very well with them, physically and mentally.

Unfortunately the newspaper photograph is not very good but I have included it all the same. Editor

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An Epidemic of Errors

By Don Baines

Well, not quite an epidemic but here are a few corrections required to the August edition of 174. Firstly I received the following email from IWA National Chairman, John Fletcher, regarding Andy Screen’s report of the River Irwell and Ship Canal walk:

Don,

In respect of Andy's article (page 15) can I point out that MSC Dock 5, although it appeared on many maps, never even had construction commenced on it, and in consequence was never filled in! Given a little time I could provide extensive documentary evidence for my assertion! The standard source, however, is Bosdin Leech History of the Manchester Ship Canal, which was published just a decade after the canal opened. The only difference to the bank of the Ship Canal at the point near to where Dock 5 was proposed is that for a little time after the water was diverted into the Ship Canal, the former river Irwell route under Trafford Road remained and had its own (fixed) bridge along Trafford Road. This gradually became less and less of a "bulge" on the side of the canal until eventually the re-piling produced more or less the profile which is evident today.

John

Andy, himself followed this up, forwarding John’s email, with this comment:

Oops - sack the contributor!

To the above must be added my own crop of errors in my article about the Brunner Mond Connection:

On page 16 I got the top and bottom of the Wheelock flight of locks, on the Trent and Mersey canal mixed up, such that they were rising towards Middlewich! Didn’t anyone spot that goof?

On page 21, in the paragraph about J Goddard, I gave his age in 1903 as 22 when it should have been 30. I claim old age and receding mathematical capability in mitigation. I have since received confirmation that it was indeed James who is the subject of the preceding newspaper article.

Finally, I gave the date of the top photograph of the Malkins Bank works as 1923 which I now understand to be 1888 from information received from the archivist at Brunner Mond.

With this new information regarding Brunner Mond I now have enough information for another article which, hopefully, will be ready in time for the April 2006 issue of 174.

Don Baines

November 24, 2005

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