Burnley and Over the Summit

The weather forecast suggested sunshine in the morning with light showers in the afternoon. In practice it was either dull or just a little damp in the morning and, by the latter part of the afternoon, exceedingly wet!

We were due a swing bridge just after setting off but this clearly has not swung is a long time. It appears to have been mainly for access to a now abandoned building alongside the canal. A substantial construction but it did not look like a house. So what was it for?

We would have an almost endless succession of encounters with the M65 today, even more than yesterday as it closely follows the same route as the canal.

Rose Grove Services

We stopped at Rose Grove services. Whilst Mike and Andrew completed the usual round of filling and emptying, Christine popped to the local shops. A priority on the shopping list was sad cake, something we experienced for the first time last year with Alice and Jess.

Gannow Tunnel

Gannow Tunnel is wide and straight and there are no restrictions on the time of entry. However, you can see that by now light rain had arrived.

Mike was allowed to get off at several aqueducts to take a look at what is underneath - this one was just a motorway!

By now were were approaching Burnley and the first part is known as the Weaver's Triangle, a reminder of the concentration on weaving that once dominated this area. It is undergoing extensive regeneration.

Weavers Triangle Museum

 A former toll house has now been converted to a museum about the Weavers Triangle - but it is only open from 2 - 4 in the afternoons.

Around a corner and we started over the long Burnley Embankment. Part way across is an aqueduct across a main road and alongside a reminder of lost times when an Odeon cinema was close by. A local person walking by commented that it looked much better before people removed some of the tiles in it. Around the edge were quotes from people who could remember it at various times in its history.

We could also look down on the terraced house that were once an important part of the industrial development of industry in Burnley.

Another aqueduct crossed a river (Calder?) and it seems that a railway or tramway also passed underneath the canal, suggesting that the present structure dates from a time later than when the canal first built.

In the next stretch we passed many former mill buildings - sadly this one did not look as good as the detail suggests!

When we were moored up for lunch, a team of grass cutters worked their way past us. Whilst we read of reports of the experiences of others where they were covered by grass, we are delighted to report that this team took great care, not only making sure that they avoided us when moored but also paused whilst we passed them later on the move. Good team - thanks chaps!

Mid afternoon we arrived at the seven lock flight of Barrowford Locks. We arrived just behind a wide beam with a group of former youth workers celebrating the thirtieth year of the this boat - some of them were involved in the original project.

This flight lifted us up to the summit pound - we could see that Barrowford Reservoir is currently very empty - but this may not be a full reflection of the state of water supplies to the Leeds and Liverpool as a good flow was coming down the bywash at the top lock.

We had further glimpses of the surrounding hills as we continued along the summit pound to Foulridge Tunnel. Here we were fortunate that the lights which control access to the tunnel were in our favour, unlike last year when we had quite a wait.

Rain arrived as we started up the Barrowford Locks but by the time we emerged from the tunnel it was much heavier and Andrew and Mike worked through the three Greenberfield Locks - the first of the downhill through to Leeds - getting wetter and wetter! They were quite relieved to find a space on the visitor mooring immediately below the locks. In the first lock we noticed that many of the facing stone blocks had individual mason's marks.

20.3 miles - 10 locks