Marvelous Marple! This is one of my favourite canal stretches.
You’re near the middle of a town which has all the hustle and bustle you’d expect during the working day. Yet descend from a road bridge to canal level and you’re in a different world.
Evidence of almost all of the industry the canal used to serve has disappeared and been replaced with pleasant residential property well spaced and matured with nature so as to become a leafy suburb.
It is a splendid example of what urban canals should be and are largely becoming now that ordinary people, developers with money, and council planners have cottoned on to their attraction and enticement to urban areas.
This stretch of canal covering barely 2 miles seems to have almost everything – 16 glorious locks, a tunnel, an aqueduct with a rail viaduct in parallel, a magical cutting and a junction with the Shroppie canal. The locks may well only be remembered by boaters as glorious after completing the course and resting from the toil then reminiscing over a glass of wine in the evening. Walkers and cyclists get immediate enjoyment from watching the lock pantomime and sometimes daring to lend a hand with heavy paddles and gates. This cooperation unites canal enthusiasts whatever their means of navigation, in fact while I was there a local chap on a bike was to-ing and fro-ing helping boaters with the gates, paddles and moving away from mooring (see one of photos in slideshow).
When, I walked the stretch the weather was glorious and showed off the area wonderfully, it was a true and privileged joy for me. So, below I have presented the route of the canal in two edited Google Maps and a slideshow. Locks, etc, related to the slideshow are waymarked with icons to click on. The maps and slideshow go from north to south and open in separate windows so that you can see from the maps where the photo were taken. So, click here to see the slideshow.
View Marple Locks in a larger map
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View Marple Locks in a larger map
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