ABC Wednesday: "Big O"!

Today's post for ABC Wednesday is O for "Big O!" and the photo shows the enormous round shape of the old waterwheel at Portland Basin in Ashton.

The waterwheel dates from 1839 and was used for powering the hoists inside the canal warehouse.

For connoisseurs of water wheels this particular one is the high breast-shot suspension type. It is made of wrought iron and has a diameter of 24 feet. There are 416 teeth around the rim which connect by gears with the hoists which lifted goods between floors in the warehouse.

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"Big O" is a contribution to ABC Wednesday. For more "O" 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.

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.

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: 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.
Please leave a comment below and please rate this photo using the 5 star system below.

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.

Footbridge

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"F" is for "Footbridge" and this one crosses the Ashton Canal at Portland Basin.

The present steel bridge is comparatively recent and replaces an earlier one that was probably wooden. The canal itself has been there since 1796 and was built for horse-drawn narrow boats to carry coal down to Manchester.

As you can see, this photo was taken at a warmer time of year. The only "F" photos I have taken recently involved frozen things and we have probably seen enough such photos for now!

See Birds Eye View of this location.

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

Monochrome Moment: Canal Boats

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This week's Monochrome Moment shows canal boats at Portland Basin on the Ashton Canal. The boats are moored outside the very good Portland Basin Museum, which is free and well worth a visit if you are in the area, as long as you remember that is it closed on Mondays.

You can see the stern of Hazel and the bows of two other historic wooden canal narrowboats that belong to the Wooden Canal Boat Society. Behind that is the modern trip boat Still Waters.

See Birds Eye View of this location.

This image is a contribution to Monochrome Weekend. Please follow the link to visit other sites taking part.

Portland Basin

A look at Ashton's hidden gem - Portland Basin on the Ashton Canal. This was once a transport hub for the area, being the junction of the Ashton and Peak Forest Canals. The canal fell into disrepair in the mid-twentieth century but has been revived to become an environmental and leisure resource. As was seen here two weeks ago apartments have been built alongside the canal close to the basin.

Tucked away behind industrial buildings, Portland Basin Museum occupies most of the Ashton Canal Warehouse, which was rebuilt in 1999 after being burned down some years earlier. The rest of the building contains apartments, offices and meeting rooms.

A number of boats are moored up at the wharf outside, including six boats awaiting restoration by the Wooden Canal Boat Society.

See Google Aerial View of this location.
See LiveSearch Birds Eye View of this location.

Portland Basin

A view across the wharf at Portland Basin in Ashton, showing some of the canal boats that are moored in the arm in front of the museum.

The building is a replica of the original Ashton Canal Warehouse, which was destroyed by fire. In the original warehouse, canal boats were able to go through the arches to be loaded up under cover or to have their cargoes hoisted to or from the upper floors of the building.

The apartments just visible in the background stand on the site of Junction Mill.

The Birds

Three pigeons keep their eyes on a boat moored up on the Ashton Canal at Portland Basin. In the background is the elegant stone arch that carries the tow path across the junction with the Peak Forest Canal. The bridge was constructed in 1835 but, since the canal junction has been there since 1796, I am left wondering how the horses that towed the narrowboats got across the gap for the first 39 years!

(Sorry there were no posts on Friday or Saturday - I have had a very busy week!)

Ashton Benefits

Strangely enough, Ashton benefits from the high prices of life in London!

For a while now, the London Borough of Islington has had its housing benefits administration office at Portland Basin in Ashton. (In the photo, the car park was empty as it was Easter Sunday, when it had snowed!)

Now the housing officials are to be joined by Islington's parking administrators. This may seem to be a bizarre course of action but it would seem to make financial sense for Islington. They apparently have difficulty recruiting office staff in London. It seems existing staff will be invited to make the move north. (It doesn't always snow this far north, folks!) Any vacancies remaining will be easier to fill in Ashton because the cost of living and housing costs are lower.

GMB trade union officials claim Islington Council really wants to move the jobs in order to sell off their present prime office space.

Read more about it in this Islington Tribune report.

But Londoners won't have to come to Ashton to claim their housing benefits or pay their parking fines - only the administrative work will be done here!