The Anderton Boat Lift, sometimes called the "Cathedral of Canals". This was the elegant solution to connecting the Trent and Mersey Canal to the River Weaver which run roughly parallel at this point with a horizontal gap of about 400 ft (121m). In the photo (top right) can be seen the route on to the lift from the Trent and Mersey Canal. The canal barge floats into a huge water tank, or caisson, with watertight sealable doors
which is counterbalance by another on the other side. It makes its way slowly down to the other waterway. Here you can just see at the bottom the sightseeing boat which takes the trip down the lift
and emerges out onto the River Weaver, it is named after Edwin Clark who was the designer of this boat lift opened in 1875. He went on to construct more lifts in Belgium and other parts of the continent. Anderton was originally built as a hydraulic lift but in 1904 it was converted to electric, after operating for a hundred years it was eventually closed due to corrosion and the fact that its original purpose of transporting large quantities of salt from the Cheshire mines and also clay for the midland potteries was no longer required. This was as can be seen not the end for restored, returned to hydraulic operation it reopened again in 2002. (The full history and technology can be found on Wikipedia
here). Today the Anderton Boat lift has a visitor and exhibition centre, of course the structure is the real attraction, still used by leisure craft. A link to the salt that used to be transported through the boat lift still exists nearby in the
chemical plant producing sodium carbonate and sodium bicarbonate located on the opposite bank just where boats turn from the lift into the River Weaver. On the side of the river I'm taking the photo, nature trails. A contrasting part of Cheshire.
Here we are at the start of another round of
ABC Wednesday, we are into double figures, or even binary, have a happy Round 10 everyone.
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