Sankey Canal
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The Sankey Canal, also known as the Sankey Brook Navigation and St Helens Canal, was a canal in Lancashire, in the north-west of England, originally opened in 1757, from the mouth of the Sankey Brook at the River Mersey, along the valley of the Sankey Brook, ending North West of St Helens. An extension was constructed, some 18 years later, linking the canal to St.Helens.
Although promoted as an effort to make navigable the Sankey Brook, this is sometimes claimed to be the first wholly artificial canal built in England during the Industrial Revolution. Previous navigations had mixed artificial canals with natural stretches of river and had also joined rivers together by canal, but this undertaking was unusual in avoiding the Sankey Brook altogether (except for a small bit at the river Mersey end), though the natural watercourse was used as a supply of water to the navigation. The other 'artificial' canals in England (before this one) were only 'artificial' in between the parts where they are 'navigated rivers'. In one sense the Sankey Canal was really no different in that it connected to a river (Mersey) after entering a 'navigated river' (Sankey Brook) a quarter mile before it joined the Mersey. However, it was unusual in that it used and connected to a natural watercourse (river/brook) at one end only, and the proportion of this canal to be in a wholy artificial cut was very high, far higher than other navigations at the time. It may be regarded as a significant evolutionary step in English canals, rather than revolutionary.
The line of the canal was surveyed by Henry Berry (Liverpool’s Second Dock Engineer) and William Taylor, the former being appointed Engineer for the navigation. With Thomas Steers, Liverpool’s First Dock Engineer, Berry had a part in building the earlier Newry Canal in Northern Ireland.
The Act of Parliament authorizing the construction of the navigation was passed on 20 March 1755, entitled An Act for making navigable the River or Brook called Sankey Brook, and Three several Branches thereof from the River Mersey below Sankey Bridges, up to Boardman's Stone Bridge on the South Branch, to Gerrard's Bridge on the Middle Branch, and to Penny Bridge on the North Branch, all in the county palatine of Lancaster. The canal was open and carrying coal by 1757: carriage of all goods was charged at 10d (ten old pence – approximately £0.042) per ton.
As the title of the Act states, in addition to the mainline between the Mersey and St Helens, there were three branches to nearby collieries: the South Branch to Boardman's Stone Bridge, near St Helens; the Middle Branch to Gerrard's Bridge; and the North Branch to Penny Bridge.
A second Act of Parliament was obtained on 8 April 1762, amending the earlier act, entitled, An Act to amend and render more effectual, an Act made in the Twenty-eighth Year of the Reign of his late Majesty King George the Second, for making navigable Sankey Brook, in the county of Lancaster, and for the extending and improving the said Navigation. This authorised the extension of the navigation to Fiddler's Ferry on the River Mersey, and to take an additional toll of two-pence per ton, making the rate one shilling (£0.05) per ton. The line of this extension was surveyed by John Eyes.
An early trial of steam power took place on 16 June 1797, when, according to the Billing's Liverpool Advertiser, dated the 26th, John Smith's "vessel heavily laden with copper slag, passed along the Sankey Canal ... by the application of steam only ... it appears, that the vessel after a course of ten miles, returned the same eveningto St Helen's whence it had set out". This boat was powered by a Newcomen engine working a paddle crankshaft through a beam and connecting rod.
As a result of railway competition, in 1829 Charles Vignoles was instructed to survey a further extension of the canal from Fiddler's Ferry across Cuerdley and Widnes Salt Marshes to Widnes Wharf, West Bank, near Runcorn Gap, making an altnerative connection with the Mersey with another basin. This was authorised by a third Act of Parliament, granted on 29 May 1830, entitled An Act to consolidate and amend the Acts relating to the Sankey Brook Navigation, in the county of Lancaster; and to make a New Canal from the said Navigation at Fidler's Ferry, to communicate with the River Mersey at Widness Wharf, near West Bank, in the township of Widness, in the said county,' repeals the former acts of the 28th George II. and 2nd George III. and incorporates the proprietors under the title of "The Company of Proprietors of the Sankey Brook Navigation." Francis Giles was appointed Engineer for this extension, which opened in 1833.
The canal was built principally to transport coal from the Lancashire Coalfield mines to the growing chemical industries of Liverpool, though iron ore and corn were also important commodities. These industries rapidly expanded, and spread back along the line of the Canal to St Helens, Earlestown, and Widnes, which were small villages until this period. The Sankey can thus be credited with the industrial growth of the region.
The Sankey was built for Mersey Flats, the common sailing craft of the local rivers - the River Mersey, River Irwell, and River Weaver - and the Lancashire and North Wales coasts. To allow for the masts of the flats, all the roads in the Canal’s path had to cross it on swing bridges. When the railways were built, they too had to cross in similar fashion. The exception was at Earlestown, where Stephenson erected his massive Viaduct for the country’s first passenger railway from Liverpool to Manchester, leaving 70 foot headroom for the flats’ sails.
A staircase (double) lock was built on the Sankey Canal and a second set, later, at Parr, but were not England's first, others having been built on the Exeter Canal.
Built primarily to take coal from Haydock and Earlestown down to the Mersey and Liverpool, the final traffic on the Sankey was very different, and in the opposite direction - raw sugar for the Sankey Sugar Works at Earlestown, from Liverpool. The ending of the sugar traffic in 1959 led to the closure of the Canal in 1963. North of the Sugar Works, closure had taken place in 1931, and fixed bridges quickly replaced the old wooden swing bridges. The Canal, however, remained largely in water right up into the centre of St Helens, although its terminus had been truncated in 1898, when Canal Street was built over it.
The Sankey’s immediate commercial success, followed soon after by that of the Bridgewater Canal, led to a mania of canal building, and for further extension schemes for the Sankey. One would have linked it to the Leeds and Liverpool Canal near Leigh, to the North-East, and another to the Bridgewater Canal and the Trent and Mersey Canal via an aqueduct over the Mersey at Runcorn to the South-West. Apart from the early extensions to Fiddlers Ferry from Sankey Bridges, for better locking into the River, and in 1775 to St Helens itself, the only major change came with the extension to Widnes detailed above.
The Sankey Canal became more commonly known as the St Helens Canal after 1845, but only in St Helens (the rest of the canal, away from St Helens, has always been the Sankey Canal) when the St Helens Railway Company took over the then more prosperous Canal Company to form the St Helens Canal and Railway Company.
