The Canal
"In 1790 there was a proposal for a waterway to link Manchester with Bolton and Bury. The canal was to start at the River Irwell at Manchester. One of the land owners, Matthew Fletcher, was the original technical adviser and he was a mining engineer turned coal owner. At a meeting on 19 January 1791 the last amendments to the draft Parliamentary Bill were made. The Bill received its royal assent on 13 May 1791.
The canal was opened in 1796 from Bolton and Bury to the Oldfield Road terminus and extended to the River Irwell in 1808. This extension necessitated the building of 5 locks. Originally the canal was built with narrow locks but during construction the locks were altered into broad locks when there was a proposal to link the navigation to the Leeds and Liverpool Canal which was still being built. The scheme, known as the Red Moss extension, was to go through Red Moss, a few miles from Bolton, and drop down thirty locks to Wigan. The idea was that the size of craft to be used on the Leeds and Liverpool Canal would have been able to use the Manchester Bolton & Bury Canal. This was not to be, as the route for the Leeds and Liverpool Canal was changed but the MB&BC was operated as a broad canal.
Coal carrying was one of the main reasons for building the canal. A lot of the mines were situated very close to the waterway so that loading was direct from pit head to boat. Lime, limestone, manure, stone, sand and slate were also carried on the canal. Prior to the construction of the railway between Bolton and Manchester passengers and parcels were carried on the packet boats. Later timber was carried in boats and by floating it on the water. Night soil was loaded onto boats from carts at Frederick Road bridge in Salford and was shovelled through doors in the bridge parapets into the boat below. Unlike the tradition on most other canals the boatmen did not live on the boats; they lived "on the bank".
In 1830 there was a proposal to convert the canal into a railway. In 1831 at the first general meeting of the Manchester, Bolton and Bury Canal Navigation and Railway Company, the line of the proposed railway was varied in order to retain the canal. In 1838, forty years after their introduction, the packet boats were sold as they were proving to be uneconomical and their speed damaged the canal banks. Also in 1838 the company completed the railway and commenced passenger trains between Manchester and Bolton.
In 1846 the Company was taken over by the Manchester and Leeds Railway Company, and the name of the company was changed in 1847 to the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway Company. In 1936 there were two serious breaches of the canal bank and traffic fell drastically.
In 1941 Parliamentary powers to abandon the breached sections were obtained. Navigation was restricted to a 4½ mile stretch from the Bury terminus to Ladyshore and from Salford to Clifton. More of the canal was abandoned in 1944.
In the immediate post war period, like most canals in this country, the remains of the Manchester Bolton & Bury Canal were nationalised.
In 1955 in the "Report of the Board of Survey" (British Transport Commission) the Manchester Bolton & Bury Canal was "a waterway having insufficient commercial prospects to justify their retention for navigation".
A British Transport Commission Act of 1961 abandoned the rest of the canal. Right of Navigation ceased in 1962 but some traffic continued in Bury for a short time.
Parts of the canal have been filled in over the years and sections have been sold to a variety of owners."
In 1987 the Manchester Bolton & Bury Canal Society was formed to try and restore the canal for leisure use. They have cleared parts of the canal and restore som of the towpaths for walking and cycling. A small section at the Manchester end of the canal has also been restored and new locks constructed.
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The Steam Crane
The Bury arm of the canal at this point is on a high embankment and below was the Mount Sion soda works. The crane was used to lower containers of coal from boats on the canal down to the works. It was built in about 1884 by Thomas Smith & Sons of Rodley near Leeds.
It is one of the few remaining artefacts from the canal and a drawing of it used by the restoration society as their logo.
The crane is a Historic England Grade II listed building with the following text.
"The Mount Sion steam crane, built in the latter half of the C19, is recommended for listing at Grade II for the following principal reasons:
Rarity: It is thought to be one of the earliest surviving steam cranes in the country. It is one of only a small number of surviving in situ steam cranes and is thought to be the only example in England that still remains in its original canal side location.
Intactness: Although unused for a number of years its component parts remain remarkably complete and enable a clear understanding of how the crane operated.
Historic Interest: It adds significantly to the interest of the Manchester, Bolton & Bury Canal, and is a vivid reminder of the use of steam technology in the canal industry.
Details
326/0/10085 MOUNT SION ROAD 16-MAR-11 (Off) MOUNT SION STEAM CRANE, ADJACENT TO TH E MANCHESTER BOLTON AND BURY CANAL
II A steam-powered crane thought to have been built between 1875 and 1884 by Thomas Smith and Sons, located on a small triangle of land on the side of the Manchester, Bolton and Bury Canal and associated with the Mount Sion Mill.
MATERIALS: The crane is built predominantly of cast iron.
PLAN: The crane is mounted on a base that is rectangular in plan.
DESCRIPTION: The crane stands on a rectangular stone plinth upon which is an iron casing holding the crane's rotating gear that allowed it to swing horizontally through 360 degrees during operations. It was powered by a riveted tall cylindrical boiler standing on a platform at the rear of the crane that drove eccentric cams which powered piston rods. Also located on the platform directly above the rotating gear are the winding gear and cogs that enabled the tapered jib and the hoist to raise and lower.
HISTORY: The Mount Sion steam crane was constructed by Thomas Smith & Sons of Rodley near Leeds, probably between 1875 and 1884 and bears the number 3184. It was formerly used to tranship coal between the canal and the Mount Sion Bleach Works, located on lower ground immediately to the south, which from the 1930s became the Mount Sion Papermill, after the bleach works burned down. Boats on the canal were designed to take containers that could be lifted directly to and from the bank and as such were probably of a specific design to this canal. There may have been a forerunner to this system operating on the Bridgewater Canal, Greater Manchester, where the barges brought coal directly from the Worsley mines via a container system. It is not known when the Mount Sion steam crane went out of use. It has recently been partially repainted (2010).
SOURCES: English Heritage, Transport Buildings Selection Guide, March 2007.
English Heritage, Maritime and Naval Buildings Selection Guide, March 2007."
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