Saturday and the Anderton Boat Lift

Today we made our way north along the Trent and Mersey to Anderton where the focus of our visit was the Boat Lift. Here it is -

The Boat Lift connects the Trent and Mersey Canal (seen in the break in the trees) and the Weaver River (foreground), which connects to the Manchester Ship Canal. It was originally built in 1875 to lower/raise the narrow boats which brought salt from the Middlewich area to ships which then exported it etc. In the days before the lift the salt was poured down shutes from the top into narrowboats at the bottom. Then someone got a bright idea - why not lower the whole load, boat and all?

The Lift you see here was built in 2002 to replace the old lift which had been decommissioned in 1983.

The principle is this - there are two evenly balanced caissons, both filled with water. One is at the top of the lift and the other at the bottom. In the picture the right hand caisson is at the bottom. A boat is driven in at the top and some of the water is let out of the caisson at the bottom, the laws of balance take over and the boat is lowered.

We spent an hour wandering around the site, the shop and the visitors' centre and then made our way back to the boat - which was moored just behind the trees on the right. We were pointing north, that is to the left of the picture, so had to make a 180 degree turn which was done in masterly fashion with Stan at the helm, John on the fore-rope and Rob making the video of the whole operation.

We then headed back to Middlewich and the locks all over again - all in reverse.

Once past the junction with the Middlewich Branch and through the Kings Lock, we tied up right next to the Kings Lock chippie and introduced Stan to the English staple diet of fish and chips served in paper. The little shop was very busy, so the food was being freshly cooked as we waited - it was delicious. Having eaten supper we carried on south in the dusk. What a glorious evening it was with very little cloud, no wind and a beautiful sunset.

We have moored for the night on the south side of Rumps Lock. After last night in the Wild Woods, this is quite noisy with the sound of traffic in the background. We have all had our showers (plenty of hot water) and are heading for bed.