Walk Mill Bridge

Today's photo shows Walk Mill Bridge across the Ashton Canal.

This bridge looks very modern - in fact it was completed only a few weeks ago, replacing an older bridge that has been there for more than 200 years. When the original bridge was built its purpose was to carry horses and carts across the canal. It was unable to cope with the modern articulated lorries that need access to the factories between the canal and the river.

This is bridge number 28 on the Ashton Canal, and is at the the bottom end of Margaret Street, close to Portland Basin.

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"Walk Mill Bridge" is a contribution to ABC Wednesday. For more "W" posts from around the world please follow this link.

ABC Wednesday: New Bridge

Today's post for ABC Wednesday is N for "New Bridge" and the photo shows the new bridge that is being constructed over the Ashton Canal at Margaret Street, near Portland Basin.

The bridge replaces an older bridge that was too narrow for larger trucks to cross to gain access to industrial premises on the south side. Unfortunately this bridge was 115 years old, making it one of the oldest structures in Ashton. The brick-arched bridge was constructed to give access to fields and a handful of cottages, which were all that there was between the canal and the river at that time. But, hey - what is the value of history when it stands in the way of progress?

See Google Street View of this location.

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"New Bridge" is a contribution to ABC Wednesday. For more "N" posts from around the world please follow this link.

ABC Wednesday: Bridge, Birds and Boats

Today's post for ABC Wednesday is B for "Bridge, Birds and Boats" and shows Portland Basin in Ashton in the snow.

The canal is the Ashton Canal which connects Ashton with Manchester. The bridge crosses the entrance to the Peak Forest Canal which runs to Hyde, Marple and Derbyshire.

The wind has kept this stretch of canal from freezing but the canal to the left and the canal around the corner straight ahead have both frozen over.

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"Bridge, Birds and Boats" is a contribution to ABC Wednesday. For more "B" posts from around the world please follow this link.

Frozen Canal

Today's post shows you that my world has been overtaken by winter. Much of Britain has had heavy snowfalls over the last few days, while Ashton had escaped with no more than a few snow flurries. This morning was different, however, and the town woke to a layer of snow. It was not very much snow, but it was the most that the town has had so far this winter.

The photo shows the frozen surface of the Peak Forest Canal in Dukinfield, a few yards from Portland Basin and the Ashton boundary. Not many narrowboats are on the move at this time of year but there will be none at all today! This is a problem for anyone wanting to take their boat to Portland Basin Marina to pump out the toilet tank, top up with diesel or use the dry dock for maintenance. It also means that a group who were going to hire a boat for the day will have to make other plans.

The weather is expected to stay very cold for the rest of the week, but with no more snow expected over that period.

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"Frozen Canal" is my contribution to this week's "My World" feature. Please check out the other blogs participating in this week's My World.

Portland Basin

This week's view of My World shows Portland Basin on the Ashton Canal.

Ashton is very lucky to have this peaceful, picturesque spot tucked away, making a big contrast with the busy roadways not too far away.

It is hard to imagine that only 40 years ago the area was derelict, with the canal overgrown and in danger of being closed. Yet it was 40 years ago, in 1972, that thousands of volunteers descended upon this area to begin a massive clean-up operation that eventually led to the canal's reincarnation.

The junction here between the Ashton and Peak Forest Canals is now a landmark on the popular Cheshire Ring canal route.

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"Portland Basin" is my contribution to this week's "My World" feature. Please check out the other blogs participating in this week's My World.

Lift Bridge

This week's Sky Watch shows the lift bridge at the new Frenches Marina in Greenfield, around 6 miles from Ashton.

The bridge, which carries the canal towpath, lifts up to allow boats to move between the marina and the Huddersfield Canal. The Structure of the bridge, along with the retro lamp post, make interesting shapes against the sky, set above the outline of Alphin Pike and Noon Sun Hill in the background.

Behind the marina are Greenfield's new Tesco store on the left and the Kingfisher pub on the right. This photo continues the canal theme from Monday!

See Aerial View of this location.

Sky Watch is a regular weekly feature on this photo blog. It links with websites all over the world with the general theme each week of looking upwards. Please take the opportunity to visit some of these other sites. I hope some new visitors have found their way here today, watching the skies!

Cooling off on the Canal

This week's glimpse of My World shows you the Ashton Canal at Portland Basin in Ashton.

It was a hot weekend and there is something cooling about just being down by the water on a hot day. Even better than being by the water is being in the water and, amongst all the big steel narrowboats, this gentleman was enjoying a pootle about in a small boat. It looks fun but I did worry about how sunburnt he'd be by the end of the day!

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"Stamford Street" is my contribution to this week's "My World" feature. Please check out the other blogs participating in this week's My World.

Monochrome Moment: Canal Bridge

April starts with another "Monochrome Moment", fitting in with the April theme day of "Cobblestones".

The bridge carries the towpath over the canal junction at Portland Basin in Ashton and can be seen from a different angle (and in colour)in this post which appeared a couple of weeks ago.

You could almost imagine that this was an archive photo taken a hundred years ago, but the modern apartments give the game away!

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"Canal Bridge" is my contribution to this month's City Daily Photo Theme Day of "Cobblestones". Please check out the other blogs taking part. Click here to view thumbnails for all participants. (Also check this temporary link set up while CDP website was down.)

"Canal Bridge" is also my contribution to "Monochrome Weekend". Please follow the link to visit other sites taking part.

Roaches

This week's Sky Watch is a sunset view at Roaches in Mossley.

The view is looking across the Huddersfield Narrow Canal close to Roaches Lock. The steeple of St John's Church, in the Roughtown area of Mossley, can be seen on the hillside on the right. The photo was taken from a footpath that runs through the woods on the opposite side of the canal from the towpath, which gives some interesting views of the canal through the trees.

Sky Watch is a regular weekly feature on this photo blog. It links with websites all over the world with the general theme each week of looking upwards. Please take the opportunity to visit some of these other sites. I hope some new visitors have found their way here today, watching the skies!

Junction

Today's post for ABC Wednesday is J for Junction.

The picture shows Dukinfield Junction, the junction of two canals at Portland Basin in Ashton. The canal that runs into the distance is the Ashton Canal, heading down towards Manchester, six miles away. The channel under the bridge on the left leads to the Peak Forest Canal, which goes through Hyde to Marple, Whaley Bridge and Bugsworth. It was built to transport limestone into Manchester from the quarries around the village of Peak Forest, between Chapel-en-le-Frith and Tideswell.

The two canals now form part of the Cheshire Ring cruising route and during the warmer months many narrowboats are to be seen negotiating this junction.

The chimney is Junction Mill Chimney, all that is left now of Junction Mill, a cotton mill which stood on the site now occupied by the modern apartments. Portland Basin Museum is out of shot to the right of the photo.

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"Junction" is a contribution to ABC Wednesday. For more "J" posts from around the world please follow this link.

Please leave a comment below and please rate this photo using the 5 star system below. The highest-ranking photos will be considered for the Photo of the Year at the end of 2012!

Big Skies Over Water

The Ashton Canal is always an interesting subject, with moods changing to match the changing weather. Today's photo shows the big and bright skies of a cold January afternoon over the urban waterscape of Portland Basin in Ashton.

Had I braved the cold weather and gone out today to photograph this scene, the water would have been iced over! As it is, a slight wind is ruffling the reflections of the sky and the buildings on the water.

For more reflections from around the world, visit Weekend Reflections.

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Please leave a comment below and please rate this photo using the 5 star system below. The highest-ranking photos will be considered for the Photo of the Year at the end of 2012!

Sky Watch is a regular weekly feature on this photo blog. It links with websites all over the world with the general theme each week of looking upwards. Please take the opportunity to visit some of these other sites. I hope some new visitors have found their way here today, watching the skies!

ABC Wednesday: Bridge

Today's post for ABC Wednesday is B for Bridge.

Like last week's photo, this is another image showing the Ashton Canal. This location, on the boundary between Ashton and Audenshaw, shows a disused railway bridge crossing the canal.

In the background is Guidebridge Mill, the largest cotton mill to have been built in Ashton. The photo was taken last year before the trees shed their leaves!

See Birds Eye View of this location.

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"Bridge" is a contribution to ABC Wednesday. For more "B" posts from around the world please follow this link.

Please leave a comment below and please rate this photo using the 5 star system below. The highest-ranking photos will be considered for the Photo of the Year at the end of 2012!

Mill Chimney

You can't help but look up towards the sky as you pass the subject of today's Sky Watch image, the Junction Mill Chimney in Ashton.

Junction Mill itself has now gone and has been replaced with blocks of apartments overlooking the canal. However, the unusual octagonal chimney has been retained as a reminder of Ashton's industrial past.

The chimney is 210 feet high and was built in 1867. Instead of being round in profile, it has eight flat sides and is topped with a crenellated crown.

This photo was taken from the same spot as this photo of the Ashton Canal which appeared here a couple of days ago, but looking in the opposite direction.

See Bird's Eye View of this location.

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Sky Watch is a regular weekly feature on this photo blog. It links with websites all over the world with the general theme each week of looking upwards. Please take the opportunity to visit some of these other sites. I hope some new visitors have found their way here today, watching the skies!

ABC Wednesday: Ashton Canal

We're back with ABC Wednesday after a break. Another round is starting and the subject of today's post is A for Ashton Canal.

When it was opened in the 1790s, the canal was officially known as the Manchester, Ashton under Lyne and Oldham Canal, but these days it is simply known as the Ashton Canal. The main part of the canal ran the 6 miles eastwards from Manchester to Ashton. There were several branches of different lengths leading off the canal, including one to Stockport and one to Hollinwood in Oldham, but the branches are now closed. These canals were built to carry coal from the area around Ashton down into Manchester.

The elegant stone arch on the right carries the towpath over a junction which leads to the Peak Forest Canal. The Ashton Canal continues ahead for a further half mile to to Whitelands, where it joins the Huddersfield Narrow Canal. The wide area of water on the left is known as Portland Basin. The old cotton mills that once stood on each side of the basin have now gone and have been replaced with apartment blocks.

See Birds Eye View of this location.

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"Ashton Canal" is a contribution to ABC Wednesday. For more "A" posts from around the world please follow this link.
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Crime Lake

Today's Sky Watch image is looking across Crime Lake, between Ashton and Oldham.

The weather has been rather hot lately, so the sky is rather hazy even though it was sunny. The hazy sky is reflected hazily on the surface of the lake.

In the distance can be seen the former cotton mills in Hathershaw. Apart from these distant glimpses of industry, you could imagine yourself to be miles from a town here.

Crime Lake was formed when the Hollinwood Canal was built on an embankment over a small valley, which was then allowed to fill up after a culvert collapsed. In Victorian and Edwardian times the lake was a popular destination for Sunday afternoons out.

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See Bird's Eye View of this location.

Sky Watch is a regular weekly feature on this photo blog. It links with websites all over the world with the general theme each week of looking upwards. Please take the opportunity to visit some of these other sites. I hope some new visitors have found their way here today, watching the skies!

Skew Bridge

"S" is for "Skew Bridge" and today's photo shows a skew bridge across the start of the Huddersfield Narrow Canal at Whitelands in Ashton.

When I showed you a wider view of this canal bridge back in February, I promised that I would say something about the design of the arch when we got to "S"!

A skew bridge is one which crosses at an angle other than a simple right angle. When this bridge was built in around 1797, engineers were still trying to perfect the art of building skew bridges, so this is a fairly early attempt. If you look at the larger view (by clicking on the photo) you can see that the courses of brick at the side of the bridge are horizontal, with a distinct boundary where they meet the bricks forming the roof arch, which are "winding courses" laid in a helicoidal fashion, perpendicular to the outside face of the bridge. Some of the photos here will explain this.

The first perfectly constructed skew bridge in the country, where all the bricks are laid in winding courses, with none laid horizontally, was built only a few miles away at March Barn Bridge on the Rochdale Canal in 1797. This design has a lot more strength than earlier attempts.

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See Bird's Eye View of this location.

"Skew Bridge" is a contribution to ABC Wednesday. For more "S" posts from around the world please follow this link.
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Weekend Reflections: Canalside Houses

Canals are often a good place to find reflections. As they have no noticeable flow the, unless the wind is blowing ripples across the water, the surface of the canal can be smooth and reflective.

These new canalside properties are in Mossley, four miles east of Ashton. The canal is the Huddersfield Narrow Canal which runs for 20 miles between Ashton and Huddersfield.

The photo would have been almost perfectly symmetrical had th elamp posts not been placed to one side of the footpath!

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See Bird's Eye View of this location.

For more Weekend Reflections from around the world, visit Newtown Area Photo.

Overcast

Today's Sky Watch image shows an overcast sky over the Huddersfield Narrow Canal in Mossley. There is plenty of colour, however, in spite of the greyness of the sky.

The chimney of Woodend Mill, the last remaining mill chimney in Mossley, points skywards, as does the spire of St John's Church, Roughtown, on the hillside.

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See Bird's Eye View of this location.

Sky Watch is a regular weekly feature on this photo blog. It links with websites all over the world with the general theme each week of looking upwards. Please take the opportunity to visit some of these other sites. I hope some new visitors have found their way here today, watching the skies!

Portland Basin

Portland Basin is my favourite part of town! It is at the junction of two of the canals that radiate from Ashton.

The basin itself is the wide part of the Ashton Canal in front of the Portland Basin Museum, which started life as the Ashton Canal Warehouse.

An arm of the canal leads off under the magnificent stone footbridge, across an aqueduct over the River Tame, leading to the Peak Forest Canal.

The photo shows how this is a favourite location for fishing, boating, walking or just hanging around by the water. Not bad for a corner of an industrial northern town!

See Bird's Eye View of this location.

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"Portland Basin" is my contribution to this week's "My World" feature. Please check out the other blogs participating in this week's My World.


"Portland Basin" is also my contribution to the City Daily Photo March Theme Day of "My Favourite Part of Town".
Click here to view thumbnails for all participants in the March Theme Day.

Canal Bridge

"C" is for "Canal" and today's photo shows the point where two of Ashton's Canals meet.

The Ashton Canal terminates here at Ashton Old Wharf and the Huddersfield Narrow Canal begins, heading under Whitelands Bridge to the first of 74 locks between here and Huddersfield. The wooden lock gates are just about visible through the arch.

The white oval plate to the left of the arch shows that this is Bridge Number 111 - the numbering starts at the Huddersfield end, whereas the locks were numbered from both ends, with this one being 1W (for "west").

The smaller arch to the right was built to allow boat horses to pass under Whitelands, wearing their harnesses, while their boats drifted through the main arch. At the time when the canal was opened, in the 1790s, all canal boats (and other vehicles) were horse-powered!

The design of the canal arch is interesting in itself but you will have to wait until we get to "S" to find out why!

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See Birds Eye View of this location.

"Canal Bridge" is a contribution to ABC Wednesday. For more "C" posts from around the world please follow this link.
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