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 restored some 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 Locks
There is a notice board at the top of the full set of 2 staircase locks that has the following information.
Manchester Bolton & Bury Canal
Prestolee Locks and the Meccano-style Bridge
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Prestolee Locks at Nob End were once one of the most impressive features of the canal. There were six locks arranged in two staircases of three locks each, with a short pound in between. The locks raised the canal 64 feet (19.5m) in a distance of about 200 yards (180m). From the top lock boats turned sharp left for Bolton (under Nob Bridge) or went straight on towards Radcliffe and Bury. At the foot of the locks is the equally impressive Prestolee Aqueduct, carrying the canal over the River Irwell on its way to Salford.
The left-hand photograph shows the top gates of the lower staircase, the central pound, and the top three locks; the lock-keepers house is to the left of the pound, with the now demolished Nob End Workshops behind. At the top of the flight is the timber-decked 'horse bridge' with several children on it, this bridge spanning the top lock is clearly visible on the canal company map of 1881 (centre below). The right-hand photograph looks down the top half of the flight; the lock keeper's house is on the right.
The 'horse bridge' (No. 50) was demolished many years ago, but was replaced in 2012 by the new Meccano-style bridge. It has been scaled up ten times and was designed by the artist Liam Curtin. The new bridge is on land owned by the Canal & River Trust. It was funded and engineered by Bolton Council; the Manchester Bolton & Bury Canal Society was the Principal Contractor, providing extra funds and volunteer labour. Local people were involved in the construction of the bridge. The adjacent picnic area is also built of Meccano and incorporates a monumental milestone, close to the original milestone 8.