Town Centre Latest

[kent_white]

9 hours ago, Casino said:

Daughter bear was at his funeral earlier

No joke, he went out to chippy tea

It's what he would have wanted 😁

[BobyBrno]

I mentioned on another thread about the regeneration of the Bolton/Bury canal. Went down today to see the progress of the breach repair. Coming along nicely along with clearing the main stretch of canal of trees and laying a hard base. On my photo, you can see the stone wall on the far side and the red brick one nearer to the camera. The other photo is from 1936 when the breach occurred. 

[Casino]

so 90 years ago, the canal broke?

and now Labour are getting it fixed

 

Great work, Mr Kier

 

Joking aside, I did ride past that as a kid

The canal bust, a boat ran aground?

did they create a new way through or was that the end of getting from one end to the other?

[little whitt]

10 minutes ago, Casino said:

so 90 years ago, the canal broke?

and now Labour are getting it fixed

 

Great work, Mr Kier

 

Joking aside, I did ride past that as a kid

The canal bust, a boat ran aground?

did they create a new way through or was that the end of getting from one end to the other?

It Was The End 

never got Fixed 

[BobyBrno]

11 minutes ago, Casino said:

so 90 years ago, the canal broke?

and now Labour are getting it fixed

 

Great work, Mr Kier

 

Joking aside, I did ride past that as a kid

The canal bust, a boat ran aground?

did they create a new way through or was that the end of getting from one end to the other?

It was the end of the canal as a waterway. Canals were being used less and less by 1936 so its wasn’t worth the expense of repairing it. 

[L/H White]

fish and run my local canal all the time, love being on there

[Casino]

3 minutes ago, BobyBrno said:

It was the end of the canal as a waterway. Canals were being used less and less by 1936 so its wasn’t worth the expense of repairing it. 

is it the same canal that runs through radcliffe?

[Tonge moor green jacket]

26 minutes ago, Casino said:

is it the same canal that runs through radcliffe?

That stretch is yes. 

The flight of locks immediately after it linked to the Ringley stretch that goes off towards Manchester. 

I never thought I'd see the breach repaired, but it will be great once done.

May well go down for a fish- lad keeps saying he fancies it.

I presume the photo was taken from meccano bridge, at the end of Boscow Road. 

[deeane Koontz]

Those water companies have done a right number on the Croal nr Lostock with dumping filth in. Used to see plenty of fish in there trout, roach, chub etc ain't seen owt for years. Cunts.

[Tonge moor green jacket]

Just now, deeane Koontz said:

Those water companies have done a right number on the Croal nr Lostock with dumping filth in. Used to see plenty of fish in there trout, roach, chub etc ain't seen owt for years. Cunts.

Saw a chub in there a few years back, whilst heading to a game.

We beat Oldham 2-0, but the fish was dead and belly up! 😁

The river looked fine then.

What's happened, and is it confirmed or just rumours?

[BobyBrno]

28 minutes ago, Tonge moor green jacket said:

That stretch is yes. 

The flight of locks immediately after it linked to the Ringley stretch that goes off towards Manchester. 

I never thought I'd see the breach repaired, but it will be great once done.

May well go down for a fish- lad keeps saying he fancies it.

I presume the photo was taken from meccano bridge, at the end of Boscow Road. 

No it was taken from the edge of the breach. These photos are taken off the meccano bridge looking down into the locks and back up to the breach in the distance. They say (the developers) that they will renovate the locks too. 

[little whitt]

35 minutes ago, deeane Koontz said:

Those water companies have done a right number on the Croal nr Lostock with dumping filth in. Used to see plenty of fish in there trout, roach, chub etc ain't seen owt for years. Cunts.

Now its just 

TURDS 

[Tonge moor green jacket]

Those locks were cleared of vegetation some years ago, together with the dry section of canal near the breach.

In fact volunteers cleared that section twice iirc.

Presumably from the canal and rivers trust or similar.

As you can see the vegetation is gradually returning- can't keep nature at bay!

It will be a monumental effort and expense if the whole lot is revamped back to a usable state!

Watson homes are paying for the breach repair as part of the adjacent housing developments. 

(Sorted well before the election, just for Cassie's peace of mind! 😁)

[BobyBrno]

12 minutes ago, Tonge moor green jacket said:

Those locks were cleared of vegetation some years ago, together with the dry section of canal near the breach.

In fact volunteers cleared that section twice iirc.

Presumably from the canal and rivers trust or similar.

As you can see the vegetation is gradually returning- can't keep nature at bay!

It will be a monumental effort and expense if the whole lot is revamped back to a usable state!

Watson homes are paying for the breach repair as part of the adjacent housing developments. 

(Sorted well before the election, just for Cassie's peace of mind! 😁)

That’s right. Cleared by volunteers from the Manchester, Bolton & Bury Canal Society. As you say, it will take a huge effort or to be more precise, heavy mechanical equipment that the society doesn’t have. That’s where Watsons come in and their plan to renovate it as part of the housing development. This photo is the vision as shown on both parties web sites. 

[frank_spencer]

2 hours ago, Tonge moor green jacket said:

That stretch is yes. 

The flight of locks immediately after it linked to the Ringley stretch that goes off towards Manchester. 

I never thought I'd see the breach repaired, but it will be great once done.

May well go down for a fish- lad keeps saying he fancies it.

I presume the photo was taken from meccano bridge, at the end of Boscow Road. 

When the Meccano bridge was being designed we had a massive box of old Meccano in the office. So the engineer and artist could work out what pieces were needed to make the bridge work properly, or the rest of us to spend our dinners dicking about with it.

[Tonge moor green jacket]

A good looking image there.

Would take far more work elsewhere though to make the canal viable for barges.

It's blocked by a bridge in radcliffe, is heavily silted in places approaching little Lever, and is also stopped at Hall Lane.

As mentioned elsewhere previously, if the could be opened between Bury and Bolton, and also the Manc, then there is the potential for transport of non-urgent goods, day-trippers, and even commuters.

It takes a long time by bus anyway, and tram/train mean you have to get to the station too.

Just an alternative I suppose, but in all reality, I can't see it.

[BobyBrno]

Yeh. Not sure if the barges on the visuals are there for effect or not. Clearing the canal of silt etc. is achievable imo but the Manc. Stretch couldn’t go beyond Stoneclough as a road and the Horshoe pub car park cover the site of the original canal. 
Still, it will be great for other leisure pursuits. 

Edited July 8, 2025 by BobyBrno

[Sweep]

46 minutes ago, Tonge moor green jacket said:

A good looking image there.

Would take far more work elsewhere though to make the canal viable for barges.

It's blocked by a bridge in radcliffe, is heavily silted in places approaching little Lever, and is also stopped at Hall Lane.

As mentioned elsewhere previously, if the could be opened between Bury and Bolton, and also the Manc, then there is the potential for transport of non-urgent goods, day-trippers, and even commuters.

It takes a long time by bus anyway, and tram/train mean you have to get to the station too.

Just an alternative I suppose, but in all reality, I can't see it.

It sounds great, but like you, I can't see it, the cost would be astronomical. Which is a shame

[Tonge moor green jacket]

Could go for electric barges I suppose- our mayor would be all over that!

Also the problem of taking the canal into Bolton. From Hall Lane, there would need to be a replacement bridge over the road, and then another over radcliffe road at Darcy Lever.

How they would get it over the A666 back to canal wharf, fuck only knows.

It's not happening is it!

[crawshawbooth]

17 hours ago, BobyBrno said:

Yeh. Not sure if the barges on the visuals are there for effect or not. Clearing the canal of silt etc. is achievable imo but the Manc. Stretch couldn’t go beyond Stoneclough as a road and the Horshoe pub car park cover the site of the original canal. 
Still, it will be great for other leisure pursuits. 

fantastic images of reconstruction of the locks but it wont ever come about.

Just an advertising tool to sell more lego houses on an old brown field site, but good on them if it all gets cleaned up well with a nod to the industrial heritage of the area

[BobyBrno]

43 minutes ago, crawshawbooth said:

fantastic images of reconstruction of the locks but it wont ever come about.

Just an advertising tool to sell more lego houses on an old brown field site, but good on them if it all gets cleaned up well with a nod to the industrial heritage of the area

I’ve had my doubts about the locks but the renovation of the canal up to that point is well under way. Another couple of photos below are of the stretch from the breach to the bridge (bridges) leading down to the Creams mill site and beyond the bridges toward the spot where the water filled canal begins. I think repairing the breach is much more costly than clearing and repairing the locks but we’ll have to wait and see. 🤞

[Whitestar]

The first time i ever went fishing (and I've only ever been 3-4 times in my life) i must have been about 7-8 and a mate's dad dropped us off and picked us up a few hours later, anyway when i got back my mother asked where we went fishing and apparently we had been to Bolton Canal.

She shrugged and that was that, years later as i started to think about the geographics of my area i thought WTF was this Bolton canal???? , i remember it was quite wide and previous fishing "pegs" had been marked on the ground.

This would have been about 1972.

[BobyBrno]

58 minutes ago, Whitestar said:

The first time i ever went fishing (and I've only ever been 3-4 times in my life) i must have been about 7-8 and a mate's dad dropped us off and picked us up a few hours later, anyway when i got back my mother asked where we went fishing and apparently we had been to Bolton Canal.

She shrugged and that was that, years later as i started to think about the geographics of my area i thought WTF was this Bolton canal???? , i remember it was quite wide and previous fishing "pegs" had been marked on the ground.

This would have been about 1972.

That would be the stretch between Hall Lane and Prestolee Locks. The map attached shows the red bit in the middle that they are opening up. A nice little video on the development website. As I said earlier, 🤞 for the locks.

https://creamsmill.co.uk

 

[Whitestar]

Thanks for that.

The only other times i went was with the same mate but we went on our bikes to a lake behind a mill and i think it was at the far end of Settle street, this was probably during the long hot summer of 76.

There was a chippy nearby at the end of a street and you could hear the radio blasting out from the mill so it must still have had workers on there.

My guess was Swan Mill but it was too built up round there to have had a lake, bet its not still there, any ideas??

[Traf]

6 hours ago, BobyBrno said:

That would be the stretch between Hall Lane and Prestolee Locks. The map attached shows the red bit in the middle that they are opening up. A nice little video on the development website. As I said earlier, 🤞 for the locks.

https://creamsmill.co.uk

 

Where's Nob End on that map?