I live 5 minutes walk from the Manchester Ship Canal (aka 'The Big Ditch') but have never walked across it. (not in a biblical way ....there is a bridge and a lock)
The construction of this massive undertaking started in 1887 and took 7 years to complete. 7 years is not a long time in our books today but if you consider it was more or less just pure brawn, shovel and wheelbarrow that achieved this, it is such an achievement of human construction .. ..
At the time of it's creation it was the biggest navigational canal in the world.
I do recall from an exhibition in Ordsall Hall a Punch type cartoon about this venture, which had the investors featured as 'bafoons', 'lunatics' for investing in a mad adventure to navigate shipping from the prosperous port of Liverpool inland to Manchester using little known rivers as their guide (36 miles).
This was the largest cheque ever written at the time in 1887. The initial investment to the project.
Interestingly I have had a look at who invested back then. All the investors had a connection with an ancestor of mine (he is recorded as being a banker who invested in many canals in the North West of England in the 1800s, he was one of the first bankers in the North West - Parr's Bank) although I can find no mention of him in the construction of this canal (to date!).
Fascinatingly in 1890 they found a dug out log boat near where I live. It was made circa 1083AD (one of 13 found along the Irwell & Mersey rivers). It is made from an oak log which had been split and hollowed out. because of its description it is thought it was used to ferry turf and peat, maybe an odd person but certainly not heavy substances such as stone.
Over 100 years since it was unearthed and 925 years since it was used .. I have been lucky enough to see it
So on for my walk
3 comments:
..... and huge numbers of Irish were brought over for the digging I believe. The old builder I used to work for remembered employing Irish labourers for digging out cess pits - he said they were fantastic - used to be pissed on cider all day!!
Yes there were a lot of Irish navvies that came over to dig. Can you begin to think just how difficult it must have been as it is an enormous canal.
I imagine an awful lot of them stayed on .... maybe that is why we have so many pubs in a small area lol :-)
p.s. if I was digging cess pits all day I think I would get pissed too :-)
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