The Leeds Liverpool Canal at Wigan

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Mile Post LEEDS 93¼ MILES LPool 34 MILES	Seven Stars Bridge #50	Seven Stars Bridge #50	34 ½ Miles to Liverpool
Wigan Pier
Wigan Pier is one of the most famous places along the Leeds & Liverpool Canal. The name is said to have come from George Formby Snr the music hall star. It was later popularised by George Orwell's book The Road to Wigan Pier. Orwell spent time in Wigan in the 1930's the canal however only gets a brief unflattering mention. The pier itself was either an over head tramway for carrying coal which looked similar to Southport Pier, or the staithe for loading coal on to the barges on the canal. In the 1980s the area was regenerated and branded as Wigan Pier. There was a museum and a shop here and in 1983 there was an IWA boat rally here to celebrate its rebirth. Before the canal was completed (merging with the Southern Section of the Lancaster Canal) this was the terminus of the canal between Liverpool and Wigan. One of the original warehouses can still be seen today.

Wigan Pier	Wigan Pier	Crane Cogs	Wigan warehouse

Under the covered loading bay	Wigan Pier	The Way We Were (closed)	Wigan Warehouses

Wigan Pier	The Orwell	The Orwell Pub Guide	Warehouse

Warehouse	Bargee	Braile map	Terminus Warehouses

Pottery Changeline Bridge #51	Pottery Changeline Bridge #51	Pottery Changeline Bridge #51	Bridge Roller on Bridge #51

Trencherfield Mill	Trencherfield Mill	Ambush and Viktoria
The Wigan Lock Flight
Between Wigan Pier and the former Lancaster Canal there are 23 locks. Altogether they lift the canal up 214 feet 7 inches over about two and a half miles. This is the steepest part of the canal. Most signs of the heavy industry and coal mining that were found here have now gone.

Bottom Lock #87	Dry Dock

Henhurst Bridge #52	Henhurst Lock #86	Lock #86	Lock #86
			<Leigh Branch Link>
Mile Post LEEDS 92¼ MILES LPool 35 MILES	Leigh Branch Signpost	Leigh Branch

	Wigan Junction	Weathered Brick	Cable Bridge

Lock #85	Railway Bridge	Britannia Bridge #53A and Lock #84	Lock #83

Lock #83	Lock #82	Canal Terrace	Lock #82

Lock #79	Mile Post Leeds 91¼ Miles LPool 36 Miles	Lock #77	Peel Hall Bridge #55 Lock #77

Lock Winch	Lock #76	Lock #76	Rusty Chain

Lock #74	Rusty Chain	Lock #73	Lock #73

Lock 72		Lock 70
"I remember a winter afternoon in the dreadful environs of Wigan. All round was the lunar landscape of slag-heaps, and to the north, through the passes, as it were, between the mountains of slag, you could see the factory chimneys sending out their plumes of smoke. The canal path was a mixture of cinders and frozen mud, criss-crossed by the imprints of innumerable clogs, and all round, as far as the slag-heaps in the distance, stretched the ‘flashes’ — pools of stagnant water that had seeped into the hollows caused by the subsidence of ancient pits. It was horribly cold. The ‘flashes’ were covered with ice the colour of raw umber, the bargemen were muffled to the eyes in sacks, the lock gates wore beards of ice. It seemed a world from which vegetation had been banished; nothing existed except smoke, shale, ice, mud, ashes, and foul water." George Orwell The Road to Wigan Pier

Down the Flight	Leaky Gates	Kirkless Hall Bridge #56 with Lock 69 behind	Lock #69

Lock #69	Lock #68	Lock #68	Lock #68

Lock #67	Lock #67	Cale Lane Bridge #57 from Lock #67 with the Commercial Inn	Commercial Inn

Dusk at the Locks	Dusk at the Locks	Lock #66	Mile Post Leeds 90¼ Miles LPool 37 Miles

Kirklees Hall Inn	Withington Lane Bridge #58	Top Lock #65	Either part of the old Albion Iron Works or part of an old mine shaft.

The Leeds & Liverpool Canal

Wigan