This is a stretch of canal of contrasts, not surprising you might say because canals were built to distribute goods between industrial areas.

But what I mean here is that it passes mainly through isolated rural areas but also runs close to villages, small towns like Poynton ( population 14000) and Bollington (7000)  and the sprawling metropolis of Macclesfield with some 52,000 inhabitants. Much leisure use  is made of the canal as it sweeps through the urban areas and fishermen abound in the rural parts. There are few distant views the area being fairly flat except near Bollington. Boseley locks around Locks 10, 11 and 12 have some pleasant and interesting scenes with more trees than further north.

The Boseley flight of 11 discrete locks were built with saving water in mind. A simple but ingenious method (always the best solution!) was devised to halve the water used:

Each lock had a side pond and, as a lock was emptied, half the water went into the side pond the rest into the canal below.
When the lock was next filled, half the water came from the pond and the rest from the canal above.

 To find out the details click here to see a plaque I encountered on my way.
Clever stuff!!

There’s more information about Boseley Locks on Wikipedia.

I did not visit the canal as it passes through Macclesfield suburbs due to running out of time. But I did stay in Macclesfield on Thursday and Friday night. The centre, with its share of historic official buildings,  is deserted in the evening! I passed one pub in the main shopping street and the landlord was shutting up for the day at  8:30pm. Councils really must do something about these ghost town situations! Down below the main area, which is on a hill, is Park Green and around here is where the night/pub life is and just 600m from the canal and the Macclesfield Canal Centre.

Altogether it’s a feature filled area with some beautiful spots along the canal to cruise by or linger a while. I was luck and had wonderful weather, so I have superb memories of my visit.

Here is a slideshow of my photos.
Below a Google map showing the key points of my visit. But you perhaps prefer to see a larger version in Google Maps itself with an index to my points of note.

View Poynton to Boseley along the Macclesfield Canal in a larger map