The February meeting of the Ramsbottom Heritage Society included a talk entitled “Canals in the North West” presented by Mike Clarke. Mike has recently studied European canals, so started by giving an overview of a waterway in Serbia, which was built by the romans. The Fossa Carolina near Munich was built in 1793 to transport boats between 2 rivers, it was flat with no locks. Inland waterways were originally built with gates as a flood prevention, and also used as moats for fortification. Leonardo da Vinci built a lock in 1490 in Milan, which is still there today. The technology of canals hasn’t changed for 300 years, as the locks still is use today existed at the end of the 17th century. Canals started to be built in the North West in 1700, and Mike described several canals, including the Aire and Calder navigation, the Barton aqueduct and the River Douglas Navigation in Liverpool. Canals encouraged economic growth and were built by local people to improve the local area. Mike then covered the Bridgewater canal, the Leeds and Liverpool canal, the Lancaster canal and the Rochdale canal. The peak period was the 1850s, when there were 400 miles of canals.

The next meeting of the Society will be on Wednesday 21st March at 7.30 p.m. in Ramsbottom Civic Hall, when the Annual Photographic Competition entries will be on display, and prizes presented by the judge Barry Aldous. Barry will then give an video presentation to celebrate the lives of Dorothy Moss and Jenny Beech, who both had entered the photo competition for many years