The Eccles area has played a major part in the industrial revolution. The Duke of Bridgewater, Francis Egerton, had a major problem. How to get coal to his customers? the roads to Manchester were bad and slow. The Duke was only 22 years old, but had travelled all over Europe, and had seen the great canals. So he employed John Gilbert as his agent, and James Brindley as the engineer, to build a canal. The Bridgewater canal from Worsley mines to Deansgate in the centre of Manchester was the first true canal in the U.K. and started the canal mania that followed. When the canal opened the price of coal in Manchester was cut by a half! The canal age had arrived! the industrial revolution was going nowhere unless the products could be transported cheaply and quickly. The canal did just that. The canals were truly the motorways of their day! The Bridgewater canal was a wonder of the age, (it had no locks) but the biggest wonder of all was how James Brindley solved the problem of crossing the river Irwell. His solution was to build an aquaduct over the Irwell! it was a masterstroke, when the canal opened, people came from far and wide to see boats going along a canal in the air! The other wonder of the canal was the method of loading coal into the barges, Brindleys solution was again a novel one, he used tubs! that were loaded onto the barges and off loaded in Manchester, thereby saving considerable time, and time is money! Yes, readers, containerisation was invented in Worsley! Brindley employed a very novel method of getting the coal to the barges, he cut the canal into the hillside of the mine, thereby enabling the coal tubs to be loaded directly into the barges! some 200 yds underground. After many years the total length of tunnelling was some 46 miles! The aquaduct was replaced in 1893 when the Manchester ship canal was dug, and replaced by the swinging bridge you see above. The present bridge was designed by Edward Williams, who also helped design the anderton boat lift, with Edwin Clarke. (the Brindley aquaduct was actually between the two bridges you see today). As soon as the canal crossed the Irwell, the Duke decided to extend the canal westwards to Preston Brook, so he could take coal to Liverpool. Later another decision was made to extend the canal again, this time to Leigh and Wigan from the basin at Worsley.
