Welcome To Whaley Bridge Basin - Whaley Bridge, UK
Posted by: 
dtrebilc
N 53° 19.920 W 001° 59.020
30U E 567680 N 5909686
This information board has a mixture of coloured drawings and text. It has a background picture showing the basin as it was in its heyday and various text panels describing the scene.
Waymark Code: WMKZR8
Location: East Midlands, United Kingdom
Date Posted: 06/23/2014
Views: 1
The Peak Forest Canal
The 18th Century had seen the development of the canal network in the UK to carry heavy goods, and led to towns such as Manchester becoming the first large industrial towns.
There was a demand for limestone and grit stone from the nearby quarries to be transported to Manchester and beyond and so the Peak Forest Canal was built with a connection to the Ashton Canal at Ashton-Under-Lyne.
The canal had a series of 16 locks to lift the canal a height of 209 feet from Ashton-Under-Lyne to Buxworth, but the final rise to the quarries was to high for a canal. So a horse drawn tramway was built to form a connection between the canal at Bugsworth Basin and the quarries themselves.
The upper part of the canal opened in 1796 and although the Bugsworth Basin was the busiest part of the canal near here, there was also a short arm of the canal that led to this smaller basin at the town of Whaley Bridge.
Near to this sign is a transhipment warehouse where goods were loaded and unloaded from the canal boats. Sometime later around 1831 a second tramway was built to connect the Peak Forest Canal with the Cromford Canal. This warehouse became an English Heritage Grade II*
listed building
in 1972.
This sign gives information about the wharf and warehouse and the tramway.
The text on the sign is a follows.
WELCOME TO
Whaley Bridge Basin
It was the linking of the Cromford and High Peak
Railway with the Peak Forest Canal that established
Whaley Bridge as an important industrial centre.
When the canal opened in 1796, Whaley Bridge
was already well established as a coal mining
area. Although never as busy as nearby
Bugsworth Basin, the wharf was quietly
successful from the start. Limestone and burnt
lime were shipped away to Manchester and
beyond via the Peak Foest and Ashton Canals.
Compare 1890s Whaley Bridge Basin
with the wharf today...
Transshipment Warehouse
A three storey warehouse was built here in about
1801 by Thomas Brown, the resident engineer for
The Peak Forest Canal.
Inside the building warehousemen winched
goods between boats and the first and second
floors through trap doors. Other workers lifted
goods in and out of boats by means of two
cranes attached to cast iron columns at the
side of the canal.
All Change
Sometime in 1915 or 1916
the top floor of the original
warehouse was removed.
The roof was re-shaped to match the
1830s extension and the stone archway
was replaced by a cast iron beam -
making the building you can see today.
Limestone was loaded by hand into
boats while a crane was used to hoist
other cargoes in and out of boats.
Horses were used to move
wagons from the nearby
railway and around the wharf.
Bigger and better
In many places railways meant the end of the canal
age. Surprisingly, this site suddenly became much
busier when Cromford and High Peak Railway
opened in 1831, bringing limestone and burnt lime
down to the Peak Forest Canal at Whaley Bridge.
David Bellhouse Junior had already built the world’s first railway
warehouse for the Liverpool and Manchester Railway Company
in 1830. By 1832, the Manchester contractor was employed to
extend the warehouse here at Whaley Bridge.
Wagons loaded with burnt lime were
covered with tarpaulins to keep the lime dry.
More to explore on the Peak Forest Canal
Follow the towpath and take the horse tunnel to explore
The Peak Forest Canal further or cross the footbridge to
the other side of the canal for a visit to Bugsworth Basin.
Once a hive of industrial activity with an odour of sulphur dioxide in the
air from the coal used to fire the lime kilns, the basin and canal beyond
has now been restored by volunteers of the inland Waterways Protection
Society with the support of British Waterways and many other partners.