Kendal and Lancaster Canal

Notes

Conveyance to the Council of the portion of the Kendal-Lancaster Canal from Gas House Bridge to the southerly boundary of the Borough. (Kendal Borough Council Minutes 28 March 1956)

"Canal A general meeting was held at the Town Hall, Lancaster, on the 7th of February, 1792, to take into consideration the propriety of entering into a subscription for making the proposed canal. “ Resolved unanimously that a subscription be entered into for obtaining an Act of Parliament to carry the said canal into execution and for defraying all expenses necessary for completing the same.” Immediately after the meeting it was announced that the subscriptions amounted to £247,800.

An Act was immediately obtained for making the canal navigable from Kendal, by way of Lancaster and Preston, to go through the great coal districts, near Chorley and Wigan, and to join the canals in the south of Lancashire; its principal design being to carry south, limestone and slate, and to return with coals. It was opened for navigation on the 18th of June, 1819 (the anniversary of the victory of Waterloo), and was looked upon as an event causing a new era to the trade of Kendal.

At an early hour in the morning flags were hoisted on the Town Hall, Castle, Church Steeple, Canal Warehouses, and various other places, and a general bustle pervaded the entire town, business was suspended, shops closed, and every one seemed anxious to witness the pleasing and novel spectacle.

Several pieces of cannon were procured for the occasion and stationed on the Castle Hill and in Chapel Close on the opposite side of the valley, and these continued to fire at intervals during the morning. At nine o’clock the Corporation and gentlemen of the town, preceded by a band and a party of special constables, walked in procession down to the canal basin, and embarked on board the Corporation barge, accompanied by a large party of ladies.

Another boat, fit up for the occasion, and denominated the “ extra barge,” was also filled with gaily-attired occupants, and at last a start was made at 10-15, the boats being drawn down the canal amidst the ringing of bells and firing of cannon. Hincaster tunnel (378 yards long) was reached at twelve o’clock, and Crooklands at one o’clock, where the party awaited the arrival of the Lancaster contingent, five trading boats of Messrs. Hargreaves, Welch & Co., and three packet boats. There were several bands of music, and each boat hoisted an appropriate flag. The full aquatic procession of sixteen boats then returned northwards, arriving back at the basin at five o’clock, amidst the huzzas of, it was conjectured, 10,000 people, who literally covered the Castle Hill side. Naturally the evening was spent with excellent dinner parties at the Town Hall to which 120 sat down at the “ King’s Arms,” and elsewhere, and a ball, at which some hundred ladies and gentlemen attended, terminated the festivities of the day.

Its length from Kendal to its southern termination at Westhoughton, including a connecting railroad of five miles from Preston to Clayton Green, is nearly 76 miles, of which course nearly nine miles is navigated by the Leeds and Liverpool Company, between Whitle-le-Woods and Wigan. The fall from Kendal to the mid-level is 65 feet, and the rise from thence, on the southern side is 222 feet. It crosses the Lune at Lancaster by a stupendous aqueduct, passes a tunnel 378 yards long at Hincaster, and is fed by a large reservoir of 150 acres, near Killington, five miles east of Kendal, and its cost amounted to above £6oo,ooo."

John F Curwen, Kirkbie Kendal (1900)