Festival Park Marina Lift Bridge - Etruria, Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire.
N 53° 01.439 W 002° 11.813
30U E 553867 N 5875240
This bridge is located on Festival Park, Etruria and is lifted to provide access to and from the marina for canal boats.
Waymark Code: WMVBK4
Location: West Midlands, United Kingdom
Date Posted: 03/28/2017
Views: 6
Festival Park was the site of the second National Garden Festival of England. It was officially opened on May 7th 1986, by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.
Background to the site. (
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The Festival site, together with Shelton and Etruria were key areas in the industrial development of the City of Stoke-on-Trent. Less than a decade before the ground vibrated to the sound of heavy machinery and the landscape was dominated by blast furnaces, forges and chimneys of the Shelton Steel Works. Half a kilometre south of this point is Etruria Hall (now part of the Moat House Hotel), former home of Josiah Wedgwood whose famous Etruria Pottery Works were once sited by the canal.
The City was given an unique opportunity to redevelop the derelict site by hosting the National Garden Festival of England. Over two million people visited the event in the summer of 1986. Thousands of exhibitions and activities were featured including seventy themed gardens and visitors were able to view the spectacle by railway and cable car.
The Garden Festival attracted new private investment into the City as well as creating a lasting legacy of green space for local people. Today the site is a combined leisure, retail and business park set in the Festival grounds for visitors and local people to enjoy."
The main site was completed in 1995, and is now known as Festival Park. It has been, for the most part, sympathetically treated by St. Modwen Properties who took on its management and development.
The marina with a canal side inn and showhouses was developed as part of the Garden Festival Site. The lift bridge provides pedestrian access for people walking along the canal towpath and is lifted when canal boats want to enter or leave the marina to and from the Trent and Mersey canal. The bridge is operated by a standard windlass carried by all boaters on the canal. (
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The marina 1986 still in the process of being constructed. (
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This youtube clip shows the bridge in action. (
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