Cooper Bridge Lock On The Calder And Hebble Navigation – Bradley, UK - Waterway Locks, Planes and Lifts on Waymarking.com

Cooper Bridge Lock
Each end of the lock has a double pair of gates. On this canal all the lock gates have paddles built into them to let water in or out of the lock and in some cases there are also paddles on the canal side.

Each set of gates has wooden platforms to stand on when operating the gate paddles. In the case of the top gates the platforms stretch the full length of the gate to give access to both sides of the canal.

All the locks on this canal have a beam of 14 feet and are wide enough to take 2 narrow boats side by side. In addition although the locks are only 57 and ½ feet long they can accommodate narrow boats of up to 60 feet if they enter the lock diagonally and with extreme care. Although they are wide most of the locks on this canal are quite shallow and at only 2 metres the rise is not very high.

This lock is at the end of one of the stretches where the navigation is a man made section that bypasses a section of the river that has unnavigable weirs. Because it re-enters the main line of the river there are warning notices about checking whether the river is in flood, together with a colour coded depth gauge.

At the time the photographs were taken there had been heavy rainfall and the level of the water was almost in the red.

The Calder and Hebble Navigation
The Calder and Hebble Navigation completed in 1770 consisted of artificial improvements to the River Calder and River Hebble to allow canal boats use what used to be un-navigable rivers.

It ran for 21 miles from the Aire and Calder Navigation at Wakefield to Sowerby Bridge, was one of the first navigable waterways into the Pennines. It was an extension westwards of the Aire and Calder Navigation.

Work began in 1758 to make the River Calder navigable above Wakefield. The navigation to Sowerby Bridge was completed in 1770, including a short branch to Dewsbury.

In 1828 a branch to Halifax was opened, rising 110 feet to a terminus at Bailey Hall, behind Halifax Railway Station. There were 14 locks on the branch which closely followed the route of the River Hebble. Most of the branch was abandoned in 1942 apart from the short section from Salterhebble to Exley.

About half of the navigation is along the course of the River Calder, with short man-made cuts with locks to by-pass weirs. There are two lengthy man-made sections, from Calder Grove to Ravensthorpe and from Brighouse to Sowerby Bridge.

Most commercial traffic on the Calder and Hebble had ceased by 1955, although coal was still carried to Thornhill power station until 1981. However, the whole of the Calder and Hebble remained open for leisure use. The re-opening of the Rochdale Canal between Sowerby Bridge and Littleborough summit in 1996 and Manchester in 2002 has increased the traffic along the Calder and Hebble and it now forms part of the South Pennine Ring.

Waterway Name: Calder and Hebble Navigation Connected Points: Connects the Rochdale Canal at Sowerby Bridge with the Aire and Calder Navigation at Wakefield. There was also a branch of the canal at Salterhebble that used to go to Halifax but this was closed in 1942. There is also a junction with the Huddersfield Broad canal at Cooper Bridge that goes to Huddersfield. Type: Lock Date Opened: 01/01/1770 Elevation Difference (meters): 2.00 Site Status: Operational Web Site: [Web Link] Date Closed (if applicable): Not listed

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